Timeboxing: What You Need To Know

Looking for a simple but powerful technique to manage your time? try timeboxing. This is an intuitive, easy-to-use tool that can help you get more things done. Here’s what you need to know to get started today.

What Is Timeboxing?

Despite what its name might suggest, timeboxing doesn’t involve throwing punches at a clock. Rather, it means creating “boxes” of time that you assign to complete certain tasks.

It’s a simple, intuitive idea. And, best of all—it works.

Timeboxing can be described as a goal-oriented time management technique. If this sounds too complex, getting started on timeboxing is really easy: just grab your calendar and create a block of time (say one or two hours) that you will use to complete a task. As simple as that.

When you create a timebox, you have two options:

• Hard timebox: You stop working when you reach the end of the timebox. Period.
• Soft timebox: Soft timeboxing means that you can extend the end of the timebox if necessary. This is particularly useful for tasks where completion time may be hard to determine.

What Are the Benefits of Timeboxing?

Timeboxing has become very popular, and with good reason. For one thing, this technique is really easy to understand and apply. Another important benefit is that it helps eliminate the paradox of choice. We all have pending tasks, and it’s always tempting to put off those that feel more difficult or boring. With timeboxing, you make a decision to get something done and stick to it.

It’s easy to see why timeboxing is also a great antidote against procrastination. In fact, if there’s a task you’ve been putting off, try this: first, read our post on procrastination and then create a timebox to complete that task TODAY.

There you go: now you have a one-two punch strategy to beat even the most stubborn bouts of procrastination.