The best scheduling tactic to get more done

Time boxing is what you get when your calendar and to do list would fall in love and have a baby.

But, on a more serious note. Time boxing combines these two things. It’s an amazing tool for scheduling and productivity.

To-do lists and calendars are powerful. But, they still have flaws. Time-boxing overcomes these flaws. The biggest one being Parkinson's Law.

Parkinson's law is the concept that work expands to fill the time given to complete it. When you have a tight deadline for a project, you do everything you can to complete it. But when you have no deadlines for your own projects, we tend to procrastinate forever.

Next to overcoming Parkinson’s law, it gives you the ability to work on tasks that are important and not urgent. These are the tasks that make the biggest impact and growth. With the original to-list we gravitate towards the tasks that are urgent and easy to handle.

And finally time-boxing gives a sense of accomplishment. When looking back it states what you’ve achieved. This boosts the happiness and fulfilment you have in the work you do.

Some final tips on time boxing:

• Be specific with the task you write down. Vagueness leads to procrastination.

• Stick to the schedule, if you didn’t complete it write it down for next day. This creates a deadline and actually keeps you accountable.

Keep improving 👊

Ivan