Time blocking: plan every hour of your workday, and keep the plan flexible

Time blocking is a way to plan your day as a series of blocks, each with a specific job. Instead of a to-do list you pick from at random, you decide in advance that 9:00 to 11:00 is for the proposal, 11:00 to 11:30 is for email, and the afternoon is for calls. When the day changes, you change the plan. The result is a day you directed, rather than one that happened to you.

This guide explains how time blocking works, the objection everyone raises and the answer to it, the common mistakes, and how to plan time blocks with Barside, a free desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac.

Where time blocking comes from

The sources we checked credit time blocking to no single inventor. Its best-known advocate today is Cal Newport, whom the Time-Block Planner's site describes as an "author and professor". The site says that "for fifteen years" Newport has been "extolling the benefits of time blocking".

His blog post "Deep Habits: The Importance of Planning Every Minute of Your Work Day", from December 21, 2013, lays out the method. In 2020 he published The Time-Block Planner, a paper planner built around it, and a second edition followed on August 15, 2023.

Newport also offers an estimate: that a 40-hour week with time blocking produces about as much as a 60-plus-hour week without that structure. He presents it as his own estimate, not the result of a study.

How time blocking works

Plan the next day ahead

Newport spends "ten to twenty minutes every evening" planning the next workday. Planning the evening before means you start the morning knowing what to do, instead of deciding while your inbox pulls at you.

Give every block a job

Divide your working hours into blocks, and assign specific work to each one. Newport describes it as a plan "that gives every minute a job". A block can be long, like two hours of writing, or short, like fifteen minutes to answer messages.

Keep a capture list beside the plan

New tasks will appear during the day. Instead of breaking the current block to deal with them, write them on a list next to your schedule and fit them into a later block. Newport calls this a collection page.

Block reactive work too

Email, chat and other reactive work do not have to leak into everything. In Newport's words, "periods of open-ended reactivity can be blocked off like any other type of obligation." Give them their own blocks, and you can answer messages without letting them run the day.

Update the plan when it breaks

Plans break: a meeting runs long, a client calls, a task takes twice as long. Newport's rule is not to give up on the plan but to fix it: "you simply update it the next time you get a chance." Redraw the remaining blocks and carry on.

Is time blocking too rigid?

This is the most common objection, and Newport answers it directly. The goal is not to follow the first plan perfectly. It is to stay intentional about your time all day long. Revising the schedule five times is still time blocking, as long as each revision is a decision rather than a drift.

What changes is the question you ask when the day goes sideways. Without a plan, you ask "what now?" and pick whatever is loudest. With a plan, you ask "given what just happened, what is the best use of the time I have left?"

Common time blocking mistakes

• Giving up after the first broken plan. Updating the plan is part of the method, not a sign it failed.
• Packing blocks back to back. Tasks take longer than expected. Leave some room between blocks for overflow.
• Forgetting reactive work. If email has no block, it fills every block.
• No capture list. Without one, every new task either interrupts you or gets forgotten.
• Blocking only meetings. The calendar fills with other people's priorities. Block the deep work first.
• Planning in the morning rush. Plan the evening before, or at least before you open your messages.

How to time block with Barside

Barside is a notes app with a calendar view, reminders and a task board, so it can hold your plan, your capture list and your alerts in one place. Two honest limits first: Barside has no timer, and its calendar only reads Google Calendar or Outlook; it does not create events. Here is how to work with what it has.

Plan tomorrow in a note

1. Make a note called Time blocks with a plain table: under More formatting, choose Insert table, and use columns such as Time, Block and Notes.
2. Add a Capture heading below the table, with a checklist for the new tasks that show up during the day.
3. Open Note options, choose Save as template, and give it a name.
4. In Settings, under Templates & repeating notes, make it a repeating note: Weekly on the evenings you plan, at the time you usually stop work. Barside makes a fresh plan note then and shows a quiet New note ready notification.

You can also start from a daily planner template, or use the built-in Daily journal template, whose Top three priorities are a good first line for any day. See note templates and repeating notes.

Keep the plan in view

Pin the plan note to your desktop in its own window, or dock it to the edge of your screen, where it folds into a slim tab until you open it. Your plan sits beside your work instead of behind it. See the desktop app at the edge of your screen.

Get a nudge at the start of each block

• With reminders. Write each block as a checklist item, like 10:30 Client calls, press the bell at its end and pick the time. At 10:30, a notification appears; click it, and the note opens at that line. See reminders on notes and tasks.
• With your calendar. If you prefer blocks as events, create them in Google Calendar or Outlook and connect that calendar in Barside's Settings with its private iCal address. Barside's Calendar view shows today with a Now line, and Remind me before meetings shows a silent heads-up 1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes before each timed event. See the calendar next to your notes.

Start the day with what is due

The Daily briefing in Library & briefing lists today's reminders, unchecked tasks and the rest of today's calendar, worked out on your computer without AI. Check it before your first block, and move anything that will not fit to tomorrow's plan. See the daily briefing. If you connect an AI in Settings → AI, a scheduled agent from the Morning briefing preset can write a note each weekday morning from your tasks, reminders and calendar.

When the plan breaks

Select the blocks that no longer hold, choose Strikethrough under More formatting in the note toolbar, and write the new times in the rows below. Crossing out instead of deleting keeps a record of how the day really went, which helps you plan more realistically next time.

Inside a block

Barside has no countdown. If you want one, use a separate timer, or combine time blocking with the Pomodoro Technique and its own timer. Put new tasks on the Capture checklist, or press Alt+Shift+Space from any app and type task and the words, so you never leave the block to remember something.

Who time blocking suits

• Knowledge workers whose best work needs long, uninterrupted stretches.
• Freelancers and founders with no one else setting their schedule.
• Students planning study time around classes.
• People drowning in meetings and messages, who need to protect time for real work.

It suits people less if their day is mostly reactive by design, like a support or dispatch role, where a few blocks for focused work may be all that is realistic.

Related methods

• The Pomodoro Technique, focused intervals with breaks, often used inside a block.
• The Eisenhower matrix, to decide which important work earns a block.
• The GTD weekly review, to set the week's priorities before you block the days.
• Getting Things Done, for the lists your blocks draw from.