Time Blocking OR Time Boxing?
Allen Salazar
Cleared Product Alchemist (PMC) | Agile Practitioner (CSM, SAFe 6.0) | Adaptive Leadership in High-Stakes Environments
“Busyness is not a proxy for productivity. What you pay attention to matters more than how hard you work.” –Cal Newport
Time Blocking and Time Boxing are actually two different things.
Wait…wait…wait ??
You’re telling me they’re not the same thing?
??…..??…..??
The obvious answer: you should use both methods!
Simply put:
?? Time Blocking — Carving your day into intentional chunks where specific tasks own specific hours.
The art of carving your day into intentional chunks of focused attention. You’re not just working — you’re assigning specific hours (blocks of time) to specific tasks (work to be done). It’s the difference between saying:
“I’ll answer emails today.”
and
“From 9?—?10 AM, I’m fully focused on emails?—?nothing else.”
The calendar becomes your canvas; the hours, your medium.
?? Time Boxing — Setting a timer on your work and walking away when it rings — done or not. The rebellious cousin of time management. She’s always pushing back and can be hard to control at time.
It’s drawing a line | in the sand between “perfect” and “done.” When the clock strikes your predetermined hour, you lift your hands from the keyboard (or what ever you’re working on) whether the work feels complete or not. It’s the best antidote to perfectionism’s slow poison.
“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying ‘I don’t want to…” — Lao Tzu
Let’s Stop Saying ‘I Don’t Have Time’ — Master Your Moments
In a world where everyone has the same 168 hours each week, the difference isn’t in having more time — it’s in how we choose to use it. Time scarcity is often a perception, not a reality. Instead of feeling like we’re always racing against the clock, we should focus on making better use of the time we already have.
“What works: decide what’s important, block uninterrupted time for it, and protect that time like it’s sacred…”
We’ve all been there — hours vanish in a binge-watching session or endless scrolling on social media. The key isn’t to eliminate these entirely but to balance them with intentional time use. By implementing proven time management frameworks and leveraging the right tools, we can reclaim our schedules and achieve more with less stress.
The Unfinished Email
On Tuesday evenings, I run and listen to various focus music playlists on Spotify. For me, running focuses the mind like watching rain slide down a window.
While my body moves through the city, I think about the Trello board on my laptop. Each task sits in its own digital rectangle, neat as the apartments I pass. People live inside those rectangles too, arranging their lives in columns: To Do, Doing and Done.
My neighbor, Vesper, believes in the Pareto Principle, religiously. She wears precisely ironed shirts and sets a timer when she brushes her teeth. Her snake watches from its glass enclosure, coiled in timeless thought.
Strange things happen when you divide time into boxes. When my timer for emails buzzed, I stopped mid-sentence. The unfinished thought hung in my mind all night, like a jazz note that never resolves.
Elon Musk timeboxes his day; so, they say. I imagine him moving through life in perfect five-minute increments, never pausing to wonder about the woman in the green dress at the convenience store.
My Pop’s owned a pocket watch that kept perfect time. I sometimes hold it while using ToDoist, wondering if efficiency is how we hide from the deep dark that waits under our day plans.
Miles Davis doesn’t care about Getting Things Done. The notes fall where they may, between frameworks and systems.
The Agile Life: Plans Are Just Pretty Lies We Tell Ourselves
Missed your alarm again; The subway delayed for the 3rd time this week; your morning in ruins. The client changed their mind overnight. Your favorite workout (yeah, it’s leg day) derailed by unexpected rain.
“Life rarely respects our plans...”
This is where Agile thinking shines beyond its coding origins. Agile isn’t about standups or Jira tickets (or, pick your poison) — it’s about acknowledging that change is constant and accepting that as reality.
Consider Melinda, a novelist. Instead of disappearing for months to write the “perfect” draft, she works in two-week cycles with clear goals: develop a character, outline chapters, refine a scene. Bi-weekly, she reviews her work, adjusts her approach, and plans the next cycle.
When her publisher requests a different angle, Maya isn’t devastated. Her process is flexible enough to pivot without wasting months of work.
“Flexible enough to pivot…”
This is Agile: breaking ambitions into manageable chunks, reflecting regularly, and embracing course corrections as the natural way of life.
“Optimize for adaptability, not predictability. Small iterations lead to big changes,” notes Henrik Kniberg.
The power lies in rhythm, not rigidity. Regular cycles of action and reflection create momentum while allowing for adaptation.
Apply this to something personal: fitness, home renovation, learning a language. Work in short cycles. Reflect honestly. Adjust based on results.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress through continuous learning. In an unpredictable world, adaptability always beats rigid planning.
Time Tetris: Winning the Productivity Game
Those massive ‘new you’ plans? They typically expire faster than milk in summer. They’re the New Year’s resolutions that die by February, the expensive a$$ planners that end up collecting dust by March.
“Small moves compound. That’s the secret…”
Want to actually transform how you manage time? Start with something so tiny it feels almost pointless. Maybe it’s a 60-second reflection at your desk before you head home. Or writing tomorrow’s three non-negotiables on a Post-it before bed.
“Writing by hand engages the brain more extensively than typing, leading to improved cognitive function and better memory retention…”
Vincent van Gogh knew this: “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” He didn’t paint The Starry Night in one session. It was thousands of intentional brushstrokes.
Consider habit stacking instead of habit forcing. See that morning coffee ritual you already do without thinking? That’s prime real estate. While the kettle boils or while you sip, plan your day’s top three. You’re not creating a new habit — you’re just adding a floor to an existing building. (get the drift?)
Most of us don’t really know where our time goes each day. We think we do, but we’re often wrong in ways that make us look good. Try this: for one normal week, write down how you spend each hour. Be real with yourself. What you find will shock you — and show you the holes where your time is draining away.
The changes that last aren’t the dramatic ones. They’re the quiet adjustments that become so embedded in your routine that they no longer require willpower to maintain. That’s not just time management — that’s identity transformation.
The changes that stick aren’t the big, showy ones. They’re the small shifts that become so normal in your daily life that you do them without thinking. That’s not just better time use — that’s becoming a different person.
How the Big Names Get Stuff Done
What if you scheduled like Jack Dorsey did when running both Twitter and Square? Using theme days to batch similar work, ensuring deep focus and regular reassessment of priorities.
Or what if you approached projects like Jeff Bezos does at Amazon? Breaking large initiatives into small, testable experiments and making data-driven adjustments after each iteration.
“We follow the ‘two-pizza rule’ at Amazon — if a team can’t be fed with two pizzas, it’s too large to move quickly and adapt to change…” — Jeff Bezos
Real people use these mindsets too. Take Sam, a freelance designer with too many clients. Once a week, she sits down and picks the work that will either make the most money or make clients the happiest. Everything else waits. Her stress dropped. Her income didn’t.
These aren’t fancy systems. They’re simple shifts in how you think about your day.
Final Thoughts: Owning Your Time
Mastering time isn’t about doing more — it’s about doing what matters. By shifting from a scarcity mindset to an intentional one, we can take control of our moments and create meaningful progress every day.
Time is a resource, and like any resource, its value depends on how we manage it. Whether through Agile thinking, strategic tool use, or mindful prioritization, the path to better time management is within reach. The challenge isn’t finding more time — it’s making the most of the time we already have.
?? Note To Readers: