Switched from working 9-5 to block scheduling and my stress dropped by half

I used to just take whatever work came in and tried to squeeze it into my week however I could. But after a 3 month stretch of 60 hour weeks last spring, I started batching my deep work into 3 hour blocks with a 15 minute break between each. Now I actually stop at 30 hours a week and my clients are happier with the quality. Has anyone else tried time blocking and seen a difference in their energy levels?

3 comments

3 Comments

david_palmer17d ago

My wife was doing 50 hour weeks at her marketing job and just burning out hard last year. She started blocking her mornings for the creative stuff and afternoons for meetings and email. She said her brain actually feels less fried at 5pm now, which honestly surprised me because I figured she'd just end up working more. The funny thing is her boss actually noticed the quality got better too. I think there's something to not switching tasks constantly, it just wears you down in a way that's hard to see until you stop doing it.

the_robin17d ago

@david_palmer what your wife did makes a lot of sense. I had a similar thing happen with my own cleaning business a couple years ago. I used to scatter my hardest jobs all through the week and ended up drained by Thursday. Then I started grouping the big deep cleans on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, leaving the light maintenance stuff for later in the week. The quality of my work went up and I stopped feeling like I was running on empty by Friday afternoon. It's funny how much that simple shift changes everything when you actually try it.

angela72817d ago

I have to admit, I used to think that kind of scheduling was just for people who couldn't handle a normal workload. But what @the_robin said about grouping the hard jobs together really clicked for me. I tried something similar with my own work and the difference was night and day. I used to scatter my toughest tasks all over the week and I'd hit a wall by Thursday afternoon every single time. Now I put the heavy stuff on Monday and Tuesday, and by Wednesday I can coast a little. It's helped my energy a lot more than I expected.