Time-Blocking vs To-Do Lists
To-Do Lists are the most overused productivity tool today.
When faced with a challenge, most people will suggest you write it down. The issue is, you get a little bit of dopamine just from doing that. After laying out your to-do list, you will feel as though you have climbed the mountain. You've regained control of your life. You are the modern incarnation of Buddha, truly serene amidst the chaos.
All you've done is written a to-do list.
So, you sort, you schedule, you flag, you color code, and you feel even better.
But, you've accomplished nothing.
To-Do lists have their merit in getting things down in a quick and dirty way to see what needs to get done, but they are by their very nature not prioritized. They're a wish list for what the most productive you could do.
You could try starring things or sorting into quadrants, but eventually it all spirals into the same abyss of a list.
I love time-blocking.
Time-blocking is the art of taking your rudimentary tasks you must do, looking at your calendar, and then assigning every block of time a purpose.
Here's how it is better:
- It is by it's very nature prioritized, you have limited time
- It forces you to think through the complexity of a task
- It looks so much cleaner on your productivity retrospective to see the time you spent
It lets you hold yourself accountable to what you actually did.
Try time-blocking, you won't regret it.