How to Timebox Your Life: Be Happier and Healthier
What is Timeboxing?
Is this just going to be another "productivity hack"? Yes! Productivity is such a challenge in this day of distraction. What works for some people may not work for others. I don't know about you, but I love to see all of the different techniques available and then select the one (or multiple techniques) that works best for me. Let me share with you a hidden gem that I learned years ago at my job as a technical project manager.
Timeboxing is a principle used in agile software development. It means that you perform tasks with a specific start and end time. Since there is a time limit, it helps you focus which will increase your productivity and effectiveness.
When timeboxing an activity, it is essential to set it to the right amount of time: if the time allocated is too small, no significant work will get done even if you are focused and dedicated; if it is too large, there will be no pressure to finish it until you reach the deadline.
Learn How to Timebox at Home
While I learned the technique of timeboxing for work, I tend to use it most often at home. Another important rule of timeboxing is that when you have reached the end time, you STOP. This truly helps me make the most efficient use out of my time and tackle tasks that I either don't want to do or sometimes feel too exhausted to do. I work full-time and have a lot of commitments outside of work. Yet, there are several things in life that if I don't do them, I will lie awake at night and be upset with myself over. For this reason, I commit to spending 15 minutes each day on them.
Set your phone time, oven timer, or even purchase a cute little egg timer to keep track of your time.
I love checklists since they help keep me on target and remember what I've done. So when timeboxing, I will set the timer and perform each item on my checklist until the timer runs out. See example below.
Home Timebox Checklist
Task
| Monday
| Tuesday
| Wednesday
| Thursday
| Friday
| Saturday
| Sunday
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Clean/Organize
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
|
Quality Time with Kids
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
|
Play with dogs
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
|
Practice guitar
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
|
Study German
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
|
Exercise
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
| □
|
Try it Out..What do you have to lose?
Please understand me that just because I have a task of spending 15 minutes a day with my kids, that I'm not saying that the chore is difficult or that is the only time I spend with them. I'm just saying that minimum amount of time is important for me to do each day. With all of the items on my list, it is 1.5 hours of a commitment each day and then I spend the rest of the time doing whatever I please...which often includes time with my kids (& husband)! In this day and age, spending 15 minutes of uninterrupted, play whatever they want, no phone time is getting exceedingly rare. Let's start with small goals and and small amounts of time. As we get consistent with completing each task on the checklist at 10-15 minutes per task, we can increase the time to 20-30 minutes per task. Not all tasks have to have the same amount of time. I find that works best for me and my brain, but please assign whatever amount of time fits for you and your schedule.
Setting 10, 15, or even 30 minute chunks of time out of our days are so easy to do. Yet if our days can get so hectic that we sometimes even forget to do those things. Imagine if you set just a 15 minute task of walking outside each day. It seems so simple, but do we always do it? If we added that to our time boxed schedule and actually committed to doing it, we would spend 5,475 minutes of time walking outside each year. That's over 90 hours!
I encourage you to at least give this a shot. Start by asking yourself "What things am I passionate about?", "What things are important to my well-being, but often get cut out when I feel like I am low on time?", "What things keep me awake at night wishing I'd done more of them?"
Remember: STOP when your time is up.
If this works at all for you, please let me know. Good luck!
Timeboxing Resources and Suggested Reading
Here are two books I've read this past year which have really changed my life. They are quick and easy reads.
-
Book:
the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
- Book:
the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
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