Episode 47: Build a Low-Stress Business with Time Blocking
Time blocking is the topic on this episode of The Friday Habit, and Ben’s insights could be beneficial to you whether you currently use time blocking in your business or not. Time blocking is helpful in a business because it keeps you from overcommitting, it makes you better at estimating how long things will take, and you can have foresight in working with your clients to ensure that you are providing them with adequate time for their project.
At Knapsack, Ben and his team rely on time blocking because of their structure of creating websites for clients in one day. They have a very well-established framework for each project, so they know the 4 different client sessions involved in each website build, how long they will each take, and when/if they can fit them in within the client’s timeframe. They aim to walk away from each project without any homework because they have accounted for every possible contingency within their time blocking system. During any given week, Ben has meetings scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays (including 3 hours on Wednesday mornings that are set aside for support requests), he commits Tuesdays and Thursdays to client work, and Fridays are reserved for working on the business rather than in the business (The Friday Habit).
While not every business has the ability to structure and schedule things out to the same extent as Knapsack, most service-based companies could employ time blocking to some degree. When you get a new order, instead of just putting it on a to-do list, go ahead and place a time block for it on your calendar and then stick to it when that time comes around. The more you do this, the better you will be at estimating how much time certain tasks take you, and you may find that this will help you adjust your pricing models to be more realistic and/or be more detailed about what is included in your different services. Even when it comes to your life outside of work, you could block off thinking time, gym time, time for various errands, or anything else that you may have trouble prioritizing.
Your action item this week is to put every step of your next project into your schedule and then stick to those tasks when the times come. Ben also recommends that you time block at least 2 hours of your Friday to work on your business, and you can find more information about what this looks like by downloading The Friday Habit Guide.
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