How To Use A Time Blocking Planner

Let’s look at a time blocking system for planning your days, I think you might find it a game changer! Are you constantly swapping back and forth between tasks and fighting the next fire? Feeling like you’re not actually making progress on any of those big goals or things that are important to you?

It might be because you haven’t found the right system to plan out your days yet. A printable time blocking system has completely changed my days and helped me stay on track and not get distracted by emails, interruptions or shiny new objects.

There are many different ways to plan your day and get stuff done. You can schedule the minutes of your day or you can create lists to work through, or you can try a time blocking system.

Time Blocking

This is when you group similar tasks together and do those during a certain time frame, normally a 2-3 hour block.

If the concept sounds somewhat familiar, it’s probably because this is similar to learning during periods at school. First up you had Maths, so you concentrated on Maths for an hour, and then moved to English. Worked on that subject for an hour and then had a break. You didn’t do 20 minutes of Maths, then go write an essay, then back to Maths.

There was no multi-tasking, a phone call here, an email there. You had focussed time on one core area and made progress on the tasks allocated to that subject and block of time. By the end of the week, you’ve achieved small milestones at everything. By the end of a month or year, you’re made significant progress and are ready for the next level.

This is essentially what a time blocking system is. Only now as adults we can choose how we spend our our days, and what ‘subjects’ we want to do. Our printable time blocking daily planner is broken up into 6 blocks. These are Morning, Mid-Morning, Lunchtime, Afternoon, Early evening and Evening. You can decide what length of time each of these blocks will be and what you’ll do during that time.

Our time blocking Daily Planner printables, include 3 different designs. The detailed page has extra space to write in your top three priorities, a to do list and space to track water and meals. The other designs are more minimal with either a checklist or blank space to add your time block tasks. These Time Blocking printable planners are in the store.

Example Time Block Planners

I’ve included some examples below, however, remember these are simply examples, everyone’s life is different. It’s more about understanding the system and then finding what works for you and applying this to your life.

Example for a busy mama

Morning (7-9 am) - Wake up, read, meditate, breakfast, shower, school lunches, load dishwasher, tidy kitchen
Mid-Morning (9-12 noon) - School run, errands, groceries, phone calls, appointments
Lunchtime (12-3 pm) - Lunch, prep for dinner, laundry
Afternoon (3-5 pm) - School run, after school lessons/activities/sports
Early Evening (5-8 pm) - Dinner, homework, family time, chores, tidy kitchen, general declutter
Evening (8-10 pm) - Kids bedtime, read, laundry, Netflix and chill

Working from home example

Morning (7-9 am) - Wake up, work out, breakfast, shower, tidy kitchen, laundry, school run
Mid-Morning (9-12 noon) - Most productive work tasks (eg: marketing, blog posts, product ideas)
Lunchtime (12-3 pm) - 2 x 1.5 hour blocks [Lunch, errands, groceries, appointments] [work eg: email, social media]
Afternoon (3-5 pm) - School run, after school lessons/activities/sports, prep for dinner
Early Evening (5-8 pm) - Dinner, homework, family time, chores, tidy kitchen, general declutter
Evening (8-10 pm) - Kids bedtime, hobbies, Netflix and chill

Working full time

Morning (7-9 am) - Wake up, work out, shower, breakfast, tidy kitchen
Mid-Morning (9-12 noon) - Most productive work tasks
Lunchtime (12-1 pm) - Lunch hour, small errands and tasks
Afternoon (1-5 pm) - Work tasks
Early Evening (5-8 pm) - Dinner, family time, chores, tidy up, laundry
Evening (8-10 pm) - Hobbies, Netflix and chill

Some Time Blocking Tips

While the tasks you do each day, may be different, if you keep within the time blocking system so you can batch similar tasks together, save time and stay focussed.

For example; if it works best for you to do appointments after lunch. Then the next time you need to go to the dentist or get a haircut, book a time within that block of time. Check off errands on the way to and from these appointments, while you’re out and about.

Set an alarm to remind you when a block of time is over, so you can move on to the next time block. Remember it’s just like school, when the bell goes, it’s time to move on to the next ‘subject’.

Give it a go for a while and see if a Time Blocking system will work for you!