I want to use today’s issue of the newsletter to talk about something that’s been on my mind a lot recently as we’ve been building out SuperOS, our new productivity platform, and that’s this idea of intentionality. More specifically, intentionality when it comes to how we spend our time.
Over the last few years of creating productivity content, or speaking to people about how they manage their time, one of the recurring patterns I’ve seen crop up is that people don’t realise where much of their time is actually going. I know that sounds kinda obvious but we all have this story in our heads about how we spend our time, we often think that adding in tips, tricks and hacks that ‘save’ us time, automatically means that we’re being more productive.
But we don’t often stop to consider where that ‘saved’ time is then being spent and without any sense of intentionality, we get dragged into operating in this sort of reactive mode where we respond to whatever’s in front of us – the Slack message, the email, the notification – rather than actively choosing what deserves our attention. As a result, the good intentions that we had with adopting the effective productivity habits, are lost to the reactivity of the modern world.
And as I’ve tried the different techniques over the years to try to address this issue, it’s always come back to something ludicrously simple – time blocking.
Now I know what some of you are probably thinking. “Ali, time blocking sounds way too rigid. I don’t want my day to feel like I’m back at school with everything planned down to the minute.” And I get it. I used to think the same thing. I don’t like rigid schedules either because I know that I need that degree of flexibility to account for ad hoc stuff that comes up unexpectedly (my team know that better than anyone 😅).
But the big reframe that changed everything for me was this: time blocking isn’t a productivity hack to squeeze more work out of your day. It’s a way to spend your time proactively rather than reactively and when you block time in your calendar, you’re not creating restrictions, you’re just creating intentions.
Here’s literally what I do: once a week (usually Sunday evening or Monday morning), I look at the week ahead. What are my priorities? What actually needs to happen? Then I just put those priorities in my calendar as actual blocks. I treat them like meetings with myself – because they basically are.
And I don’t just block work time. I block time for focus work, admin and emails, breaks and lunch, exercise, family time, buffer time between meetings – all of it. Because if it matters, it goes in the calendar. Then at the end of the week, I look back. Did I stick to my blocks? What got in the way? What worked? And I use that to improve the next week.
You might be reading this and thinking that approach feels too restrictive or overly optimised but the real benefit of time blocking isn’t that it makes you more productive (though it often does). It’s that it makes you aware of how you’re spending your time – not just on work-related stuff, but also personal stuff too. Because whilst we might call it time ‘blocking’, it’s really about time protection – protecting time to focus on what matters in that moment – whether it’s deep work to hit your goals, or the hours you want to spend with friends and family. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s intentionality. And once you experience what it feels like to spend your time on purpose rather than by default, it’s honestly hard to go back.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I’ve got this perfectly figured out by the way. Just last week I had to take a step back and reassess stuff because over the course of January, I’ve found that work has increasingly crept into the evening with various projects ramping up and needing my attention. But it was only through doing that weekly practice and planning the week that I started to notice what was happening and so I’ve reinstated a hard 1830 HKT cut-off which has already allowed me to spend more time with my family.
And this is relevant and it’s worth repeating: time blocking is not about squeezing productivity into every minute of the day and tracking everything down to the second. It’s about being intentional with your time – whether that’s work-related, health-related or family-related.
My challenge for you this week: block out just 3 time blocks for next week. One for focused work, one for admin, and one for something personal. See what happens and let me know how it goes.
Have a great week ahead.
Talk soon,
Ali xx