When you go about your day, you’d often give yourself a -to do- list for the things you want to do during your work day. It’s easy to think about your tasks and tell yourself to do each one until they’re all done. But realistically, this often isn’t the case. You might end up spending too much time on one task that you end up wasting the rest of the day not able to finish everything on your -to do- list. Here’s where a technique called time boxing can help you manage your time better.
This technique will help you see your workday in terms of hours and minutes. Instead of doing tasks and allowing yourself to spend an uncertain amount of time on the tasks, you will need to do the tasks within a set amount of time. Let’s say you need to do an article about global warming, set a minimum and maximum time for the tasks involved in writing the article. You can probably set a minimum of 30 minutes for research, then another 30 minutes for the draft, a maximum of an hour for the article itself, and 30 minutes for proofing and editing. Start doing each task and focus on each within the stretch of time that you have set. And when you reach the end of the time, you need to stop and drop the task. You’ll end up with a task that is time-pressured and you get to finish the task within the set time, with more time to spare for a break or for other tasks.
Time boxing also helps you see and predict the amount of time you will need to spend on each of your tasks. You can assess yourself and set the time for each task according to your capabilities. You need to do this before you actually start your work day. And once you are able to, you end up with a -to do- list that also includes the minutes or hours you have set up to spend on each task. You end up with your time being managed well.
And since you spend time analyzing your tasks and figuring out which one needs more time than the others, you are able to prioritize your tasks and dedicate more time on the important tasks, without disregarding the less important ones. Time boxing is a sure way to help you organize and manage your time better.