Time Blocking

Recently, a former student reached out to me about how crazy their fall semester is looking.  They are in a number of music classes, a couple of general education classes, taking lessons, and in four different ensembles.  It is a lot for any individual.  They are worried about having enough time for classes, rehearsals, and practicing.  That is when I introduced them to a concept that helped me through both my undergraduate and masters education: time blocking.

Time blocking is planning out your day by dividing everything into blocks of time.  The idea is that you identify the required tasks: classes, rehearsals, lessons, etc. and block them out first.  Then you start taking open time and filling it in with specific, prioritized tasks that need to be done: practicing, work on an assignment, work on a paper, eating, etc.   

The key then is sticking with what you have blocked out!  Because your time is blocked out and decisions are already made, there is no question as to what you need to be doing throughout the day.  It can be a strange way to live at first, but it can be so beneficial and productive when we feel like we do not have enough time for things or feel overwhelmed.  It breaks things down into measurable chunks.  

We can find time blocking templates online, make our own, or buy planners that are made specifically for time blocking.  In college, I preferred a 15 minute daily time block template, while now, I prefer a hourly daily time block template.  In college, most classes are offset at different intervals and sometimes have open time between classes, which is why I found the 15 minute interval to be best.  There are a lot of great templates out there, and we can customize them to the hours in the day that we need.  Personally, I recommend checking out the time block templates at https://clockify.me/blog/productivity/time-blocking-planner-templates/