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Time is our most important commodity.
It’s the only thing we can’t make more of.
I really started taking this to heart when I lost my best friend a couple years ago (f**k cancer, love you forever Erika!!) and while this newsletter obviously talks about time blocking techniques from a professional perspective, I urge you to apply it across your life: friends, family, partners, hobbies, etc.
Life is short and what’s the point if we’re not proactively spending time doing the things we love.
Big shout out to Cal Newport for inspiring this week’s newsletter. Let’s dive in.
Time Blocking: what is it really?
Time blocking is a daily plan that assigns specific work to specific time blocks. It’s not a rigid calendar fetish, it’s a living budget you revise as the day unfolds.
1. Why it works, the psychology
Output per hour jumps. Newport estimates a 40‑hour time‑blocked week can match the output of a 60+ hour reactive one. You stop letting the urgent shove out the important.
You escape pseudo‑productivity. Modern knowledge work drifts into visible busyness—emails, chats, meetings—as a proxy for value. That creates an “overhead tax” that swallows the day. Planning blocks reduces that tax and keeps you below the tipping point that triggers Zoom‑all‑day burnout.
Focus compounds quality. When you control time, you protect deep work and reduce stress, which boosts creative output rather than stifling it. World‑class creatives schedule their creativity; they don’t wait for the muse.
Behavioral guardrails. A written plan makes you less likely to drift into the web. Time blockers report they get roughly 2× more done and gain a realistic sense of how long things actually take.
2. Repeatable mechanics, the levers
Plan tonight. Spend 10–20 minutes, consult your task lists and near‑term goals, then sketch blocks for tomorrow.
One Big Thing per day. Pick a single project that gets your prime block. Limiting daily goals is core slow‑productivity hygiene.
Block reactivity. Email, chat, and “unknowns” live in their own blocks. Give these blocks a secondary purpose (e.g., “process client requests, otherwise advance Project X”).
Use paper. Revise freely. Draw the day, then redraw when a meeting runs long. No prize for accuracy, the prize is intention.
Autopilot the small stuff. Pre‑assign routine categories to the same times and places each week so they stop chewing mental bandwidth. Ritual + location makes them stick.
Track one metric. E.g., “Deep Work hours” or “Sales calls.” Record it daily to nudge the right behavior.
Shutdown complete. End the day with a quick review and a visible mark that you’re done. It cuts evening rumination.
3. Workflow, Step-By-Step:
Identify tomorrow’s Big 1. Choose the single project that most advances your week’s outcomes. Slow Productivity’s rule: do fewer things, better.
Sketch the grid. On paper, mark work hours down the left. Block your Big 1 first in your highest‑energy window.
Add reactivity blocks. Put email/chats after deep work or at natural breaks. Label each reactive block’s secondary goal.
Place meetings last. Drop scheduled calls into the remaining space, then build buffers around them.
Autopilot routine tasks. Assign “invoices,” “status checks,” “prep” to fixed weekly slots with a simple ritual and location.
Run the day, then repair. When reality shifts, redraw the plan in the next column and keep moving.
Capture and close. Jot stray tasks on the capture page, log your metric, then mark “shutdown complete.”
4. Patterns to avoid (sharp pitfalls)
Planning on screens. Planning beside your inbox invites derailment; use paper.
No slack. If you don’t leave room to revise, you’ll abandon the plan after the first surprise. Newport literally leaves margin to redraw.
Too many priorities. If every block is “top priority,” none is. Limit missions, projects, and daily goals.
Unbounded reactivity. Email without a defined block expands to fill the day. Contain it.
5. Make this your next move, a fill‑in skeleton
Paste this into your notetaker of choice (Notes, Notion, Google Docs, etc.) and use it as a jumping off point (feel free to print if you prefer writing your ideas by hand!):
Fill‑in skeleton for tomorrow
8:30–8:40 Plan on paper (review lists, choose Big 1)
8:40–10:40 Big 1: ___________________________
10:40–11:10 Email/Slack (secondary: ____________)
11:15–12:00 Meeting: ___________________________
12:00–12:30 Break / Walk
12:30–1:00 Autopilot task: ______________________
1:00–2:00 Big 1 (part 2): ___________________
2:00–3:00 Meeting / Client work: ________________
3:00–3:30 Email/Slack, close loops
3:30–3:40 Daily metric (________ hours / ______ calls)
3:40–3:45 Shutdown complete ____
Set two autopilot slots this week
Tue 3:00–3:30, invoices in the same chair at the café.
Fri 1:00–1:45, weekly review at your desk in your room.
Locking routine categories to fixed times/places reduces the task “overhead tax.”
TL;DR (Keep It Simple!)
Plan time before tasks plan you.
One Big Thing per day beats five half‑started ones.
Paper plans reduce drift and double output.
Reactive work belongs in blocks, not everywhere.
Revise the plan without guilt, then shut down on purpose.
Just to be clear…
I’m not perfect at this!! And I also wish someone would have told me about this earlier in life. Or maybe they did and I wasn’t paying attention 🤷♀
Anywayyyy…if you want a support system, or perspective on how this works in my life (and how it could work in yours), or just want to connect, reply to this email, I respond to everything that comes through.
As always, thanks for reading!
Consciously spending my time,
— Alex 💭 (@heyalexfriedman)
P.S. We’ve got a couple slots left for November for personal brand audits and strategy. If you are a founder / CEO with a growing business and are looking for clarity & purpose in building your brand online and offline, let’s chat!
