Time Blocking
Time blocking is the concept of breaking down the work day into slots for different tasks. While using time blocking, your calendar should appear fully booked for the duration of the working day.
I used time blocking with Amie for a while. I really enjoyed how it integrated fully with Todoist, meaning I could write tasks in Todoist, then drop them in as tasks in Amie.
More recently, I’ve been starting to think that You might not need a to-do list. With this in mind, I have adjusted my time blocking strategy. Instead of dropping in tasks, I have scheduled my entire week ahead of time, with blocks consisting of types of work (see Loosen the connection between my task list and my calendar). All this is done in my Obsidian work vault and a couple of plugins.
The idea is that I keep a running list of to-do items, each one properly categorised. The prioritisation is important, but not crucial. During the work day, as I go through different types of time blocks, I turn my attention to different tasks. If something comes in, I write it down using Interstitial Logs, adding any to-dos as needed, which will be captured in a generic “running list” of tasks.
All of this is still very much a work in progress. There’s a part of me that resists time blocking. The concept of a filled schedule induces a little bit of stress and anxiety. Breaks are built into the blocks by design, but something about it is still rubbing me the wrong way. For now, I’ll continue to experiment and tweak with the formula. This tinkering kind of goes against Choose the how once and stick with it, but I feel it’s necessary to find something that works as easily as possible (see Reduce friction and The best tool is the one that becomes invisible).