The Subtle Art of "Chunking"

I took Tony Robbins’ Time of Your Life time management course several years ago. It’s a long course that involves a lot of setting up and deep thinking about what you want out of life.

A few concepts from the course work exceptionally well today. One of which is being very clear about your desired result.

When a project is planned, people often focus on the steps (tasks) to completion. This means they frequently miss the direct routes to completion, making projects more complex than necessary, which means they take longer to complete.

Another concept is “chunking.” Chunking is where you group similar tasks so you can work on them simultaneously. For example, if you have five or six phone calls to make today, rather than making them sporadically throughout the day, you group them and do them in the same time block.

Similarly, if you need to go to the supermarket and know you are passing the bank on your way, you would add in any tasks you need to do at the bank and “chunk” those tasks together. This is similar to the idea of contexts in David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

I have adopted both of these concepts into my systems. When creating a project, I decide only on the next step rather than planning out all the steps I think I will need to complete it. Once that first step is complete, the next step becomes obvious, preventing me from adding unnecessary steps.

I spend more time writing out the project’s objective and asking myself what exactly needs to be accomplished. That way, the focus is on achieving the results rather than on the steps that may need to be taken.

With chunking, you can set up your daily task list so the types of tasks are grouped.

For example, I have two two-hour blocks for writing on my calendar today. My to-do list has five writing tasks grouped (chunked). When it’s time to sit down and write, I only need to look at my writing tasks and pick one to work on.

The key is to match time blocks on your calendar with the tags or labels you have in your task manager. This way, you are not distracted by tasks you do not intend to work on and only see what you can do in the time block.

Try it this week. You will be surprised how much more focused you are.

Tony Robbins

If you'd like more time management tips (like this one) in your inbox, please do join my newsletter

Get a copy of my latest book, Your Time Your Way: Time well managed, life well lived.