Week 32: The time blocking experiment continues

Posted On 24 August 2025

Experiments in time blocking (part 2)

Week of 4 August 2025

I’m playing catchup with my blog at the moment. Everything’s in a half-drafted state and I just need to get on with it and post the stories. The internet fault currently going on at my house due to (something something) copper wires (something something, NBN has to come and have a look) is not helping.

As usual: This post is wholly researched and written by me. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice. If there are any em dashes in this post, it’s because I put them there.

Time blocking and tiny experiments

A very quick summary of last week, in which I set up the time blocking experiment.

I’m using Cal Newport’s Time Block Planner to plan my work and study every day for four weeks.

I have no expectations. This is simply about experimenting with using the planner and seeing what I can learn from it. It’s a ‘tiny experiment’ (or ‘pact’) of the type suggested by Anne Laure Le Cunff in her book Tiny Experiments.

So, what happened in this tiny experiment?

After two weeks (this week and last week), I have some data to work with.

Anne Laure Le Cunff suggests sitting down after you’ve completed your experiment and reviewing how it went. Now I know I set my time as four weeks, but I did do a review after two weeks, following Anne Laure’s suggestion to look at pluses, minuses and what’s next.

• ‘Plus’ is what went well and what you learned.
• ‘Minus’ is what was difficult.
• ‘Next’ is whether you need to change it to be able to complete the experiment. You might want to keep doing it (‘persist’), decide it isn’t working and stop (‘pause’) or tweak it in some way (‘pivot’).

Here’s what I came up with after two weeks:

Plus

1. I’ve used it every work day at least once to timeblock my day.
2. The days I’ve been focused and stuck to the focus blocks—or redrawn the day when things went a bit off track—I’ve got a lot done.
3. I haven’t used it EXACTLY like Cal Newport says to use it in the instructions—especially the ‘daily metrics’ section and the space to jot ideas down as you work. But that’s okay because I think the feeling of having to use it perfectly was one reason I hadn’t used it before. If my system works for me, why change it to the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be used? Cal isn’t going to come over to my house and give me a score /10 for how well I’ve stuck to his system, so I can use that page however I want.

Minus

1. I haven’t always redrawn my schedule on the days my original plan got messed up so on those days, it’s kind of fallen over. That’s probably happened more times than it hasn’t happened, but it’s a learning process and it’s a new way of doing things . . . so I’m celebrating doing something is better than doing nothing.
2. Because the planner is a large book and I work at two different locations, carrying it around between work and home is a bit of a friction point.
3. Sometimes I get stuck in the email/planning time block first thing in the morning, which stretches out way longer than I planned. If I don’t stop at the time I said I would and move onto the next thing, I find it harder to get back on track.
4. I haven’t been doing a shutdown routine and checking that box off that I’ve done it.
5. I haven’t used the planner as much on weekends.

Yes, I know! Planning my weekend!!!

But I want to do this, at least for part of each Saturday and Sunday, because I need to block in some study time to make sure I do my uni work and not get caught up doing random weekend stuff that doesn’t achieve anything. I need to find that balance on weekends between down time and study time.

What’s next?

I’m going to keep using the planner. It’s useful, even if I’m not using it exactly as it’s intended. But I’m going to tweak the experiment a little to see if I can make it more effective.

Strategy 1

Strategy 1 is to set a timer that I can actually see ticking down the time for my morning planning and email time block. Once that time finishes, I need to get out of email and move onto my first work task, which is usually something I have to focus on undistracted.

I need to forget about trying to process my inbox to zero in the morning and to be okay with having undealt-with emails in there. My morning email and planning time is supposed to be just to make sure nothing urgent has come up since I did my shutdown routine the evening before that would displace my focus work.

You know, that shutdown routine that I do and check off on the planner?

Ahem.

So my intention is to set the timer, make it it short (15 minutes) and set myself the challenge to complete my planning and email check before the timer goes off. And also not to work slowly just to make sure I use all the time. Then once that time is up I need to shut down my email and get to work, knowing that the emails will all be there for me to check in my email processing block, which I will have blocked in during this morning planning session.

Strategy 2

Strategy 2 is, at the end of the day as part of my shutdown routine, to block out meetings and time for anything I absolutely must do the next day. This way, part of the day will already be planned when I start work. I can do the rest of the day’s plan in my 15-minute morning planning time once I’ve checked for urgent emails (spoiler: there are rarely any of these) and decided on the most important things to work on.

The hard part will be to actually do the shutdown routine at the time I say I’m going to, turn off the computer and go for a walk. Or go home. Or do something to get my mind away from work.

But it’s an experiment, and I’m keeping an open mind.

Habit tracker

Existing habits

• Go outside first thing (7 days): 7/7
• 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 7/7
• Hip exercises (5 days): 5/5
• Walk (7 days): 6/7
• Walk 8,000 steps (7 days): 7/7
• 9.00 shutdown & dim lights (6 days): 6/6
• Evening routine (6 days): 6/6

New habits

• Fill water bottle in the morning (5 days): 5/5
• Carry a notebook with me when I walk (6 days): 4/6
• Mid-day journalling (7 days): 5/7
• Thinking time (4 days): 4/4
• Read aloud (7 days): 7/7

Summary of the week

Some positive things

I got some really nice positive feedback at work from one of the senior managers.

Another work one. I disagreed with someone and stood my ground, and they said they respected my judgement and my reasoning. We both agreed not to reach agreement and that was okay.

What did I learn this week?

According to the ABC, an estimated 30 to 50 per cent of the world’s population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii. This is a a single-celled parasite, that can cause the illness toxoplasmosis.

Neuroeconomist Michele Garagnani, from The University of Melbourne says that being infected with T. gondi has been linked to a range of mental health conditions and behavioural changes, including bipolar disorder, delayed reaction times, and schizophrenia.

Apparently, cats get toxoplasmosis by eating infected rodents. The parasite messes with the mice’s brains so they have less fear of predators, and are therefore more likely to be caught by cats and eaten, thus spreading the parasite further.

Neat way of spreading yourself around, tiny parasite.

What did I notice this week?

A sticker on the bus near the bell telling you not to press it unless you’re getting off at the next stop. I’ve never seen that before.

A painter patching the yellow paint work at the Commonwealth Bank in Sandy Bay.

Then they took a photo of it and left.

What was the best thing this week?

I went to see The Wizard of Oz at Hobart College on Saturday.

It was a little weird going back to Kramstable’s school to see some of his friends and cast-mates from last year’s production and him not being in the show. But it was wonderful and the costumes were fabulous. The actor who played Toto was adorable and I loved the crows.

What am I reading this week?

• Twelfth Night by Shakespeare
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
• The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr
• The Well Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer

What am I watching this week?

• Masterchef Australia
• The Wizard of Oz at Hobart College
• Doctor Who ‘Earthshock’

What am I listening to this week?

• Karl Jenkins: Adeimus I, II, III, IV and V