Time blocking for executives: a calendar method that works

Time blocking for executives means giving each part of your day a named job on the calendar, then treating that job like a meeting you cannot skip. Instead of working from a to-do list and reacting to whatever arrives, you decide in advance when you will think, meet, answer messages and rest. It is simple. It also takes some practice to hold the line.

Sources: Cal Newport, "Deep Habits: The Importance of Planning Every Minute of Your Work Day," Study Hacks blog, December 21, 2013.

Why leaders need it

A leader's time is the one resource that cannot be bought or stored. Most senior calendars fill up on their own. Other people book the slots, and the open gaps get eaten by small requests. By the end of the week, the hard work that only you can do has not been touched.

Harvard Business School professors Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria studied this in a project that began in 2006. They tracked how the chief executives of large companies spent their time, around the clock, for 13 weeks. They published the results in Harvard Business Review in 2018. Their starting point was plain: where a leader puts time matters a great deal, and it is a choice that needs attention.

Time blocking is one way to make that choice on purpose. You decide the shape of the week before the week decides it for you.

Sources: Michael E. Porter and Nitin Nohria, "How CEOs Manage Time," Harvard Business Review, July-August 2018 (introduction and summary page).

Start with four kinds of blocks

You do not need a complex system. Four types of block cover most executive weeks.

• Deep work. Cal Newport describes this as focusing without distraction on a task that demands real thinking. Examples are strategy, a budget review, a hard hire or a board paper.
• Meetings. Group them. Two back-to-back afternoons of meetings leave more clear mornings than meetings spread over five days.
• Reactive time. Email, messaging and quick calls go here. Give them set windows, such as late morning and late afternoon.
• Admin and reset. Approvals, expenses, travel plans and a short break to clear your head.

Name each block with a specific task, not a vague label. "Write the Q2 plan, section three" works better than "Planning." A clear name tells you what to do when the block starts, so you do not waste the first ten minutes deciding.

Sources: Cal Newport, "Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World" (author's book page, definition of deep work); Cal Newport, Study Hacks blog, December 21, 2013. The grouping advice is the editors' practical view.

Build the day the evening before

Newport describes a simple routine. Each evening he spends about 10 to 20 minutes planning the next day. He checks his task lists, his calendar and his longer weekly and quarterly plans. Then he sets blocks so that each project moves at the pace its deadline needs.

You can copy the habit in three steps.

1. Open tomorrow's calendar. Mark the fixed items first: meetings you cannot move, travel and calls with other time zones.
2. Place your most important deep work in your best hours. For many people that is the morning, but you know your own energy.
3. Fill the rest with reactive time and admin. Leave small gaps between blocks so one overrun does not break the whole day.

If your team works across Asia-Pacific, add a block for calls that must happen in another time zone. Treat those as fixed and plan your quiet work around them.

Sources: Cal Newport, Study Hacks blog, December 21, 2013 (evening planning routine). The three steps and the time zone tip are the editors' practical suggestions.

Plan for the day to go wrong

No plan survives a full day untouched. A crisis lands, a flight runs late, or a call overruns. Time blocking does not pretend otherwise. Newport leaves extra room beside his blocks on paper so he can fix the schedule when the day unfolds in an unexpected way. He does not throw the plan away. He redraws it.

Do the same. When something breaks the plan, take two minutes and move the remaining blocks. Push the lower value items to another day. Keep the deep work block if you can, even if you shorten it.

Executives with very reactive jobs can still use the method. Newport notes that open-ended reactive periods can be blocked off like any other duty. You can also give those blocks a second purpose. If a quiet stretch appears, use it for a small piece of project work. Even on a day full of interruptions, you can try to keep short deep work blocks at the edges of the day.

Sources: Cal Newport, Study Hacks blog, December 21, 2013 (corrections, reactive blocks and secondary purposes).

Protect the blocks from other people

A block only works if others respect it. Put your blocks on the shared calendar so that colleagues see you as busy. Label them in a way that makes sense to the team, such as "Focus time" or "Board prep."

• Tell your assistant or chief of staff which blocks are fixed and which can move.
• Agree a short list of true emergencies that may break a block.
• Offer set times for open questions, such as a weekly office hour for your direct reports.
• Say no to a meeting request by offering another slot instead.

Newport also argues that a structured schedule does not choke creativity. It makes sure creative work gets time, and the sense of control can lower stress. He estimates that a 40 hour week planned this way can produce as much output as a 60 hour week with no structure. That figure is his own estimate, not a measured result, so treat it as a claim to test in your own calendar.

Sources: Cal Newport, Study Hacks blog, December 21, 2013 (creativity, stress and the 40 versus 60 hour estimate). The protection steps are the editors' practical suggestions.

A simple week to try

Here is a sample week you can adapt. Change the hours to fit your own role and time zone.

• Monday morning: weekly planning and one deep work block.
• Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons: grouped meetings with direct reports and partners.
• Every morning: a 90 minute deep work block before you open email.
• Late morning and late afternoon: reactive windows for messages and calls.
• Friday afternoon: admin, expenses and a review of what moved that week.

Run it for two weeks. At the end, look at how many deep work blocks you kept. If you kept fewer than half, find out why. Often the cause is one recurring meeting or one habit, and you can fix that single item. Then adjust the blocks and run another two weeks. The method improves as you tune it to your own work.

Sources: Editors' practical suggestions, based on the method described in Cal Newport's 2013 Study Hacks post.