How to Actually Finish What You Need to Get Done

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We carefully curate this feed from across the HBR portfolio, aiming to help you unlock your next level of leadership. I hope you enjoy the episode. Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickisch. Do you ever reach the end of a workday and say to yourself, the day kind of got away from me? You started out with a list of things to accomplish, but you got distracted, they piled up, and it feels like you never made any headway. You're not alone. It's an all-too-familiar feeling nowadays, feeling unproductive and anxious. It's all too common to look back on the day, the week, the month, or the year and feel like you never ended up doing what you wanted to do. Today's guest is here to tell you about a productivity practice called timeboxing. It's the idea that you decide ahead of time what you'll spend your time on each day and for how long. The idea that you stick to the calendar you set for yourself, truly focusing on one task at a time. Our guest today says it's not just a method, it's a mindset. And he's here to help us learn how to take it on. Mark Zalsander is the CEO and co-founder of the learning technology company Filter.com. And he's the author of the book Timeboxing, The Power of Doing One Thing at a Time. Mark, thanks for being here. Kurt, nice to be here. Did you struggle with productivity before you discovered timeboxing? Yeah, very much so. I had a problem at the start of my career. So I was a disorganized mess. I was ambitious. I was bright. I was in a job that I could have done very well in. It was strategy consulting, but I didn't have a system for organizing my work and getting stuff done. That led to not doing a great job, getting in trouble, feeling stressed and overwhelmed. So you weren't being lazy. It's not like you weren't working enough hours. I was working many, many hours. That wasn't the issue. It was to do with working on what made most difference to the project that you were involved in. But then I saw an article on Harvard Business Review. It's by a guy called Daniel Markovitz called Why To-Do Lists Don't Work. And it immediately really struck a chord with me. I thought, okay, this makes logical sense. I want to try this immediately. And so I did. And I spent the next week doing it, actually the next five years doing it. And it really made a huge amount of difference, not just to how much I was getting done, but also how I felt. It improved my confidence. I just knew at any given moment what I should be working on. What was that idea? I mean, if to-do lists don't work, you didn't just get rid of them. What was the idea there? It's really to bring the benefits of the calendar and the to-do list together. So you put your to-do list in your calendar. You set appointments for when you're going to get things done. So you don't just have a list that you could do at any point in your life. You have a list of items and a time for when they're going to get done and a system to see when they should be getting done. So it's a calendar multiplied by the to-do list, which actually brings benefits that are greater than the sum of parts. So there's that old saying, you know, if you want something to get done, ask the busiest person you know to do it for you. What do you make of that when you hear that? Honestly, I would say that almost anyone who is very productive or successful has some kind of system that sounds a lot like timeboxing. They may not be calling it timeboxing, but for example, people who are, you know, important or senior in business, they will often have some kind of an assistant, an executive assistant, a personal assistant. What is that person doing? They are largely managing their calendar. Almost everyone that has that kind of assistance is timeboxing or actually employing someone to timebox for them and make sure that their use of time is just what it should be. I kind of like that idea. It's a little bit like the same way a budget puts dollars towards things that you think are important. Instead of just having like 12 things on your to-do list for the day that putting them into your calendar and giving them different amounts of time and also which ones you do first. I can see how that's, you know, a reflection of just priorities and making a budgeting your day for what you'd like to get done. Well, exactly. And I think the budgeting analogy works because with a budget, you have a finite amount of cash. With your day, you have a finite number of hours. How are you going to spend them? Be intentional about it. Have a system for being intentional. And timeboxing isn't the only way of doing it, but I do actually think it's the most logical, easy, accessible, and has multiple benefits. So it's just such a good way of achieving just that. So how does it work in practice? Like take us through a typical day. My typical day starts, I get up, I get dressed, I brush my teeth. And then the very first thing I do after that is to timebox for 15 minutes. So I have a recurring calendar appointment in my calendar for 15 minutes. And it's called timebox today. So in that time, I'm doing nothing but just thinking ahead to my day and my week and how I should be spending that time. And that's not just work. That's also exercise. That might be some reading, some meditation, time with the kids, time with my wife. And I'm putting that together from meetings that I have that I can see elsewhere in the calendar, from my inbox, thoughts that have occurred overnight. Also just knowing that there are certain activities that are good for me, like learning or spending time with friends or exercise. So I'm then deciding what is most important and slotting that into my day, usually around some of the existing meetings and commitments that I have. When I've done that, at the end of the 15 minutes, I can see my whole day ahead. I know then that it will be a good day if I stick to that plan. And so it's a guide all the way through the day. You know, as inevitably I'll be pulled in different directions, but I always have a voice telling me, well, there's actually this one thing that you should be doing at this time. And so if I get distracted and I feel like I'm distracted, come back to the calendar, come back to the one thing, immediately feel less stressed, less overwhelmed, and get back to that one thing. And even if that one thing is difficult, it's much easier to face one difficult thing than several things that are irritating you, bothering you at once. How do you know how much time to give everything? Well, sometimes it's just really easy because the time boxes or in your aspiration is to meditate for 30 minutes. So by definition, okay, it's going to be 30 minutes. But for a lot of knowledge work, the thing to do is to base it on your experience of having done something similar before. So, you know, you've gone through your inbox before when there are 100 emails. You've gone through your inbox when there are 50 emails. You have some sort of sense. You have some kind of internal or maybe explicit external calibration going on. And this is how you avoid the planning fallacy, which is that we don't anticipate the unexpected. I mean, almost by definition. But if you look back at how long things have taken you in the past, you kind of, you get that bedded in. That's factored into the estimate. You know, you won't get it perfect at the start, but if you do it a little bit, you'll get a little bit better. And one of the points of timeboxing as well is that if you say, okay, I'm going to write a 500-word blog and I've got 45 minutes or an hour to do it, when you get close to the end, or actually maybe when you get halfway through, you adjust your expectations. So if you're a little bit ahead, then you can slow down a bit and focus on quality. If you're a little bit behind, you might need to speed up. So you don't get to, you know, two minutes until the end or the very end, and all of a sudden you've run out of time and it's a, you know, it's a disaster. You pace yourself. I call it pacing and racing. So that's partly a gamification thing, but also just a planning within the timebox so that you get something that's useful and shippable done by the end of the allotted time. Part of the art of timeboxing is adjusting things as you go. So you get, you're not aiming for perfection with any of the tasks that you're doing, and none of us achieve perfection with any of the tasks that we do. So it's, Single tasking, really, but just doing it, you know, minute by minute, not making any progress on any of these things, feeling frustrated, not knowing what you were meant to be doing at the beginning. And that is a very unpleasant experience. And I get to that as well, you know, because you're working on something and it's fine. You're totally focused on that. And then some thought occurs or there's some notification that pops up somewhere and you start to be distracted. And as that happens, it starts to feel a little bit stressful for me. And this is actually the real trick. This is the other objection to timeboxing. But what if you get distracted? Well, we all get distracted. I definitely, it definitely happens to me, you know, multiple times a day. When it does, I notice this slightly stressed feeling that I'm having. I actually say out loud to myself, one thing at a time. And as soon as I remember even to utter that mantra, I feel more relaxed. I know what I'm supposed to be doing, what I need to do, which is to come back to my calendar. What's the one thing I'm supposed to be working on? Then get back to that. Feel happier, be more productive. Happy days. Yeah, that's definitely a familiar thing. And I know a lot of people feel like that sometimes that you can, you can ask them, like, you know, how was your day or how did things go? And they're like, I'm not even sure exactly what I did. Well, you just hit on one of the most underrated benefits of timeboxing is just to remember what you did on planet Earth that day. Or, you know, even more difficult, what did you do last Tuesday afternoon? Almost no one would have any idea what they did, but I have a very good idea because it's in my calendar. Sometimes when you're reviewing the week, it can be handy as a reflective exercise. It can be poignant. So there's all sorts of benefits to timeboxing. One of the ones that is least celebrated is the one that you just hit on, which is, yeah, it's a log. It's a record of what you, what you did. And if you've got a record of it, that can then unlock your memory. How does this work, though, in an organization? I'm just curious, like I have a personal calendar. I have a work calendar. If I timebox on my work calendar, that's going to look like I'm never available. I also don't want to, you know, managing two calendars. I'm just curious, like, how do you, how do you recommend just kind of making the timebox on your calendar that to do's line up with the rhythms of an organization? Yeah. Okay. So you've raised a couple of points there, I think. So one of them is, well, if you timebox your work calendar, it's going to look like you're busy all the time. Well, it will by the time you get to the end of your week. But if you think about as you go through this, let's say it's a Tuesday morning, you wake up early like, like I do and you, you timebox the day. So at about, I don't know, 7:30, 8 o'clock or whenever you're finished with that, you will at that point have a full looking Tuesday. But there's two things with that. First of all, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday will not be so full. So anyone wants to spend time with you on, you know, that later that week or the week after, it's completely fine. There's also then a question of just your ways of working with people. So you may have fully timeboxed Tuesday, but if people know that you're an avid timeboxer, they will know that with certain kinds of items that you've put in there, they may be movable or half movable or movable in the case of emergencies. So this is about trust and transparency and collaboration and, and just being clear about how you work with your, with your colleagues. This is also like the office hours idea too. Like you can reserve time on your calendar and communicate that to the people on your team. They know they can always get you then. Exactly. I mean, you brought up something there that sort of depends on how it works in your organization and what, what kind of permissions you have set on your calendar. But people may only be able to see that you've blocked off time. Yeah, that is private. There's also the ability then to make it more visible to show exactly what you are doing when, which is a level of comfort that, that a lot of people don't have or, or need to work up to. What kind of benefits do you see from timeboxing, but then also making how you budget and box your time more visible to your team or to other people in your organization? I think if you've been asked to do something and so let's say, I'm Kurt, I want you to write this report and you say, Yep, Mark, very good. Will do. That often happens in business that that is the response though. I mean, it's literally those words, will do. So you're saying then to me that you will at some point in the future of time, get this thing done. That doesn't really help me all that much. It's a little bit reassuring, but I'm not totally confident that you're going to get it done. And I'm also not confident you're going to get it done by the time I need you to, to do it. Right. And so in your mind, you're thinking, I need to follow up now. I got to check on this person and I might need to follow up. Yeah. So it's like, it's an extra stress for me. So just compare and contrast that to, okay, thanks, Mark. I will get that done. And it's timeboxed for 3pm on Thursday. How does that sound? I can then say, well, first of all, thank you for being so helpful. And secondly, I can say, okay, well, no, I'm actually going to need it the day before that, or it's completely fine regardless. I'm going to feel like you're a great colleague to work with and feel a lot more confident that you're going to get the thing done by the time I need you to get it done. So I think part of timeboxing is, is really it's about collaboration and communication and a more harmonious work relationship between colleagues, because when people get asked someone to do something and it doesn't get done or doesn't get done to, to time, it's often just completely unnecessary that it goes that way. It's funny you say that about communication, because if you, if you ask the question, like, when can I expect that? It sounds a little bit aggressive. Yeah. It, I mean, it's a, it's a totally fair question, but it's just kind of like, you know, you feel like you're checking up on somebody because you, but you, but you want to know because you need to plan. Yeah. I think with that actually as well, that ideally, if I say to you, Kurt, yeah, I'd like that report by, you know, Thursday, 3pm, please. Then you can timebox accordingly. Um, it's actually even more efficient because then you'll obviously put the timebox at some point, you know, before Thursday, 3pm. Right. And you don't forget a deadline, which is, you know, no, exactly. I mean, to happen to be like, hey, can I have more time on this? Deadlines have become this kind of dirty word in business, but you know, like that it's associated with micromanagement and, you know, difficult bosses. It really shouldn't be. I mean, sometimes it's just a deadline because something needs to go at a certain point. That's just a piece of information that we should, we should be able to treat a little bit more robotically. There's nothing personal about that. Um, we just need to get that information across to others so that they can treat it accordingly. And part of that treatment in my view should be, can be, and should be timeboxing. You've been timeboxing for years. How is it a mindset for you? Just tell us a little bit more about what it has done for you. In my case, it has led to becoming an author. So it's changed my career. For me though, and for, for many people that I speak to, you can think of it simply as a technique to manage your time better. And it's definitely that, but it's actually a lot more. It's about intention, agency, purpose. It feels a lot bigger. You're basically saying with timeboxing that, look, life is unpredictable and often hard. We could all do with some guidance. You can't or don't want to rely on other people all the time, but there is one source of certainty that each of us has in us. And that is, it's us. Not us in all moments when we're hurried and harried by everything that's going on in the world and the hustle and bustle of the day, but it's us in that earlier quiet moment when we had the space and time to think and the wherewithal to make some good important decisions about what we should do and when that day. That's us at our very best. It's kind of us, you're accessing yourself in a higher self in a quieter, better moment and being able to tap into that guide all the way through the day. So that's how it is with me. I think the greatest benefit that I get from timeboxing is every single day, there'll be a point where I feel stressed, bunch of thoughts occur to me about what I might be doing and I can come back to the timebox. But I'm, by coming back to the timebox, I'm coming back to me in that earlier moment, giving my future self the reassurance that there is just one thing that you