My favourite way to get organised for the New Year

You’re probably familiar with the idea of Time Blocking – blocking out time to do key tasks in your calendar rather than trying to squeeze them in (or more likely running out of time completely and not doing them!).

Time blocking is, in simple terms, blocking out chunks of time to do certain categories of task rather than individual tasks (e.g. responding to emails or writing proposals.)

You may do this already.

Maybe you allow an hour in the day to respond to or write emails.

And your regular meetings are probably booked in your calendar for weeks at a time.

But what about your own uninterrupted focus time to concentrate on the ‘deep work’ that you need to be doing – the really important stuff?

The truth is, if you don’t block that time out, it won’t happen – you’ll be bouncing between meetings, calls, 1-1s, interruptions – all of which can eat into your productivity – in fact a Harvard Business Review article some time back said that our brains take up to 23 minutes to regain focus when we’ve been interrupted.

So how about blocking that time out now for 2024?

Most of us can do deep work for around 90 minutes and then we need a break – but you might be able to do an hour or two hours.  (I find it takes a bit of experimentation if this is new).

Be very public about what you’re doing and why –  and encourage your team to do the same. 

Use that time for the stuff that requires real brain power or creativity (or both).  And nobody says you need to be sitting at a desk to do it.

I guarantee you’ll be more productive.

I guarantee you’ll see things more clearly.

I guarantee you’ll feel more in control and on top of things.

Finally, choose a time each week when you know you have high energy levels.  For most of us – but not all of us – that’s first thing in the morning.

So maybe every Tuesday morning is going to be your focus time.

Block it out now for the rest of 2024.

You’ll thank me come February!

To your success, as always.

P.S. If you’re upping your leadership game, come and join my Facebook Group.  I post tips and ideas every day to help you build your leadership skills and confidence.