How To Save Your Day With A Building Blocks Schedule
Posted on January 14, 2021 by Corinna Hagen, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
Turns out all your hard-earned Tetris scores are paying off! Use the building blocks approach when your schedule doesn't go as planned.
(This article was published first on Medium @corinnahagen where you find a version including supporting images.)
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Tuesday morning. Monday was phenomenal. You got so much done. Tuesday is going to build on it. You head to the doctor. You managed to get that precious first appointment. You’ve set aside 30 minutes for that visit, but find yourself on the way home over 90 minutes later. Ugh. You had planned other things during that time.
Your schedule just got hijacked. What now?
Are you a planner? I am. Planning the next day is important. It gives me structure and allows me to focus by allowing myself to “switch off” all the items running in my head that are not scheduled for the current time block.
I have practiced and refined my approach so it helps me to work in my area of strength and keep my weaknesses in check. But even years of practice won’t keep you or me safe from the unforeseen. We have to allow room for delays. Unforeseen things happen.
Sometimes we underestimate how long it takes us to accomplish a task. How do adjust when that happens? Let me share a simple idea with you.
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Remember Tetris? Use A Building Blocks Schedule To Smash It.
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What do you do normally do with the remainder of your day while still trying to catch up? Work all night? Resign? Never!
Use the building blocks schedule, or as I call it, the Tetris approach: re-allocate the remaining time block with a task that fits.
For example, say you’ve originally allocated 90 minutes for a specific item. Due to your extended doctor’s appointment, you only have 45 minutes left. If this isn’t enough for your assignment for this time slot, consider what else on your list for the day can you re-assign. Look at your plans for this week. What else can you pull into this time slot?
To do this even faster, train yourself to assess everything you’re planning to do immediately with a time estimate. People often just list to-do’s — often just mentally. If you use a journal, calendar, or task app to plan ahead, add these items:
Result. State what outcome a task will produce. Make it measurable (e.g. write a 3,000-word article).
Time budget. Allocate time per task (how much precious, never-to-return-to-you time do you want to spend on it?).
The next time your schedule is thrown off, use building blocks. You can pick a task that fits your remaining time slot and get going. It gives you more flexibility than a rigid plan without any room for error. It’s far less frustrating to reallocate a task than to fret over what didn’t get done.
Now smash it.
Image credits: Zaradigm.com (building blocks schedule), Lisa Vertudaches
