How Do I Return to Time-Blocking After Falling Off the Wagon?
Chapters
0:0 Cal's intro0:13 Cal reads the question about Time-Blocking
0:36 Cal's initial thoughts
0:45 Signal to Pull Back
1:16 Metric Tracking
2:5 Cal's Summary
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:04.720 | Our first question comes from Clarissa.
00:00:08.280 | Clarissa asks, "I do a daily schedule, but how do I avoid feeling like it's redundant?
00:00:16.280 | Sometimes I don't need to change things around and I skip scheduling my time block
00:00:21.040 | and then it snowballs into one day and then two days, the next thing you know, it's a week."
00:00:27.200 | Well, Clarissa, let's focus in on this issue of falling off the habit of daily time block
00:00:34.240 | planning and how that can snowball to many days without it.
00:00:37.120 | Typically, it's a sign that you're overworked.
00:00:41.040 | There's too much going on, your mind is exhausted.
00:00:45.040 | So I think it's actually an important signal.
00:00:46.560 | It's not a failing, it's an important signal that maybe we need to pull back on commitments
00:00:51.440 | so that the amount we're doing each day is less and try to get more time off.
00:00:55.680 | Your mind needs time off and it's getting it informally by just refusing,
00:01:01.920 | mentally speaking, to do any planning.
00:01:04.080 | The thing I'm going to recommend that you do persist with, even during these periods,
00:01:10.720 | is some sort of bare bones tracking.
00:01:13.600 | So for me, it's the metric tracking space in my time block planner.
00:01:18.960 | There's certain key metrics I write in there every day.
00:01:21.680 | I never skip that.
00:01:23.440 | That's Sacro saying.
00:01:24.960 | Now, this takes 20 seconds and you just do it at the end of the day,
00:01:27.840 | but it keeps you at least in a mindset of, I am being intentional, I'm keeping track of my life.
00:01:36.160 | I have not just given up on intentionality in my living altogether,
00:01:38.960 | even though it only takes 20 seconds.
00:01:40.240 | And even if what you're writing down is really bad.
00:01:42.000 | So if there's things you track, like, did I read today?
00:01:45.680 | Did I eat well today?
00:01:46.640 | Did I exercise today?
00:01:47.520 | You're not doing all of it.
00:01:48.720 | You're writing that down, saying that you didn't do it.
00:01:50.960 | Bad or not bad.
00:01:52.320 | That is like a bare bones fallback plan that I'm always doing that,
00:01:55.680 | even if I'm not getting around to my time block planning.
00:01:57.600 | And then it makes it much easier.
00:01:59.680 | So okay, well, now let me actually go back to doing my time block plans.
00:02:02.880 | So do the fallback mode.
00:02:05.040 | So I have the very basic behavior, the metric train tracking, you never stop doing.
00:02:08.800 | So you never leave the mindset of I control my life.
00:02:11.280 | And I care about what's happening in my life, even if it takes 20 seconds.
00:02:14.240 | And then two, if you're consistently skipping time blocking,
00:02:17.360 | take that as a signal that you have too much going on.
00:02:20.080 | That's okay.
00:02:20.880 | It's an important signal.
00:02:22.400 | You need a day off.
00:02:23.600 | You need earlier shutdowns.
00:02:24.720 | You need to take three things off your plate.
00:02:26.160 | It's useful information, not a sign that you're doing something wrong.