
Ask HN: Have you ever used time-blocking? Why? How'd it work? - justinmolineaux
Time-blocking is when you reserve specific chunks of time (usually on a calendar) for specific tasks. Granularity may vary, but think of it as reserving time to complete each of your to-dos. I&#x27;m developing a product that will help people do this. 
So I&#x27;m curious:<p>If you&#x27;ve used the technique, what were the circumstances (Work, school, parenting, etc)? Did it improve your productivity or balance? If you&#x27;ve since stopped, why did you decide to stop using the technique?<p>Thanks!
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mtmail
Yes, but more adhoc like "starting now I will dedicate 60 minutes to X". Any
solution that requires me to schedule ahead or needs me to add my todos in yet
another system is too much work. Especially when todos are written with
pen&paper.

Your solution ([https://www.cloqworq.com/](https://www.cloqworq.com/)) which
accesses Google Calender and moves todos into slots looks cool.

I somewhat look forward to a hardware solution that includes blocking access
to internet or other distractions like
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/saent-be-less-
distracted](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/saent-be-less-distracted). I've
tried kitchen clocks (countdown) but they just added stress and pressure and
didn't do anything to keep me focused.

~~~
justinmolineaux
Saent seems cool - I definitely lose a lot of time to web distractions.

I think I'm learning that people tend to plan further out (a few days to a
week) in the face of external deadlines (i.e. exam season at school, sometimes
end-of-quarter in business, etc). Adhoc time blocking occurs more when the
motivation to be productive is self-imposed. Does that jive with your
experience?

~~~
mtmail
I think so. I don't use any calendaring application, not even for birthdays or
dentist appointments and never use reminders so my work/todo flow might be
unusual.

If your software could disable distractions, and that's mainly access to
certain websites (like HN) or email, it's a huge plus.

With the kickstarter campaign I just like the hardware gadget and the initial
prices are low enough to try. I can imagine the social sharing added to the
software I saw in the screenshots will be awful.

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benbayard
Some days I used to really struggle to focus on a single task. I discovered
Pomodoro through a friend and have been using it ever since.

I do not use a task list, but rather for 25 minutes I work on my story
focusing on just that. Then I take a 5 minute break. After 2 hours I take a
longer break, (first one is lunch, second one is 30 minutes, third one is 15
and then after another hour I go home)

It works very well for me. I am happy with my output. Some days, I have to
abandon Pomodoro to instead have a meeting during that time slot, or other
times I am just less productive Than I would like. It is a good baseline to
help keep me focused.

~~~
mtmail
Do you use any hardware or software with the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique)
? Or just your watch?

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andersthue
I have not only used timeblocks with great success in my consulting business
where I forced every employee to split every day into two blocks, one before
lunch and one after lunch. The employees also has to map out EVERY project and
task into timeblocks.

This and a few other rules worked so extremely well that our revenue increased
33% and all our customers are very happy.

Timeblocking was such a huge success for us that we started building a SaaS
app on top of our method called ... ... ... (wait for it)

[http://timeblock.com](http://timeblock.com)

:)

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jwdunne
Yes, I notice a sharp rise in productivity and progress on all important
projects. I don't schedule individual todos but set out todos on a project in
that time.

I use iCal at work but I'd love something similar for home, where I use
Ubuntu. I dislike Google Calendar, it didn't work so well. A desktop app seems
to work best for me.

I'd be interested in hearing more about your project!

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gadders
If I have a weekly task I know I have to do like a status report, I always
block out time in my diary for it.

