@John Forrister and
@Longstreet
I wanted to jump in and add my 2 cents worth to this topic even though it is going a bit stale. In addition to the reference to timed appointments, I have heard David Allen mention a number of times in different recordings that any action that requires an hour or more should probably cross over to your calendar in order to reserve time for that activity. So, while he does not explicitly talk about time blocking, he does acknowledge the value of transferring a next action to your calendar in addition to committed time with others.
I look at a calendar as a budget. It represents the full allocation of hours in a day that you have. The same 24 hours that everyone else has. The question is how are you going to spend those 24 hours. In personal finance, the principal of a zero budget is taught. Where, you know what your income is and you allocate that income monthly until there are 0 dollars unaccounted for. You decide what your money will do, instead of waiting for circumstance, emotion, others demands, or whim to take it from you. Your money is one resource that you have, your time is another. Your time is more limited than your potential money. So, whay can this zero budget principal not be applied to time, like it is for money. I have really been resistant to budgeting my time as well, because I don't want to feel the pain of guilt and shame when I fail to keep those scheduled commitments. So, I have had to get creative to work around this resistance.
First, most calendar apps allow you to use more than one calendar at the same time. And, you can hide the various calendars when you don't need to see them. Second, I have disabled most of my app alerts on my mobile phone except for the phone, the text messages, and CALENDAR. I use the following system.
I have a 'Schedule' which is my calendar only for all day actions, and specific time commitments both specific and relative. These are must do actions. In additional to meetings, doctor appointments, and 'normal' appointments which are time specific, I also add time relative events. If I need to pick up a prescription, I can only do that after work (5 PM) and before the pharmacy closes (8PM). So I place Pick-Up prescription as an appointment somewhere in that timeframe with a alert to both budget the time and create a reminder. Maybe it floats an hour later and that is ok, as long as it happens before the pharmacy closes, and I have budgeted enough time. I also add actions that I expect to require one hour or more to complete. These are also considered relative.
I also have a calendar called "Reminders" which is anything I want to know about on a specific day or even specific time. I turn this on when I am planning my day. I turn it off when I am 'doing' my day. This way, when I am 'planning' I have access to the greatest amount of information for that time period, and when I am 'doing' I have the lease amount of trip hazard for distraction.
So far, none of this strays very far from the GTD model, just separated into two calendars in the app. So this is where I deviate a bit. I also keep a third calendar called "
@context" which is the closest thing to time blocking I have been able to come up with to work with GTD. When I plan my day, I first check all my preexisting commitments already 'scheduled.' I budget time for any action that is longer than 1 hour that needs to occur and check for reminders to make sure I am not missing anything. Then, between 8 AM and 8 PM (doing hours) I look for any full hour block that is not already scheduled. I add a one hour '
@context' activity with an alert for whatever context I can work in at that time. Like 'Reminders,' I am not obligating myself to do a specific action at that time. My commitment is, anytime I have an hour of unbudgeted time, I am going to LOOK at that specific
@context Action list and make a choice. The action of just picking up my phone and looking at a specific list is often enough to have a huge impact on my immediate choices, and reinforce a pointe 'no' to some additional intrusion. And, if I look at the list and decide I should do something totally different that is fine. It is still an informed judgment call and I can live with making that choice. I refer to this as "
@context Blocking" instead of time blocking because I am creating blocks around my context action reminders to choose how to spend the next hour based on my predefined work. The cost - this process can take less than 5 minutes a day to create blocks, and less than a minute to react and 'check' the one list when the alert goes off. Trip Hazards - Not checking the
@context List when the alert sounds. I really think of Pavlov's dog here. Bell rings, turn over phone. Also, picking up the phone and going down a rabbit hoe in an e-mail, or text message or other alert. I really try to Look at the List, and put it down. This is a struggle personally. The benefits - no guilt associated with any choice, as long as I look at the list when the alert goes off, it integrates my context list into my time budget without cluttering my schedule, and it keeps me conscious of making choices about what to do with time blocks. I may only have two for a whole day, or I may have 6 or 8 depending on what is already scheduled. But, I get as close as I can to a zero hour time budget for the day, and don't beat myself up about choices.
I would love to hear if any other GTD geeks have tried something similar, or struggled with the same issues.
Happy Doing!
