What is Time Blocking?
(logo whooshing) Are you struggling to find the time for your most important tasks?
Well, then time blocking may be the solution for you.
So in today's video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know along with some of my best tips and tricks for using time blocking right here within Google Calendar.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress, and time blocking can be one of the most effective ways to ensure that you have enough time for your most important tasks to-do's and projects.
So let's dive in.
Here I've got a pretty typical looking calendar.
I've got a week in front of me here, where I've got several different meetings, events, and appointments.
And by default, most of our calendars are built upon these things, things that involve at least one other person.
I've got things like a sales presentation where I'm gonna be presenting to another team.
I've got a monthly coaching call, where perhaps I've got a regular conversation, whether that's via Zoom or telephone, or maybe sometime in the future in person.
I've got a lunch date here on Friday.
All of these things have in common that I'm doing something with someone else.
And even if it's something like a dentist appointment, it involves not just me, but the dental office, right?
But too often, we ignore our own tasks, our own to-do list and where we can fit in the time to do those things.
And that's where time blocking comes into place. If I need to reserve some time to prepare
Using Time Blocking within Google Calendar
for this sales presentation, maybe what I should do, a smart move would be to create an event over here.
And I'm just gonna call it prepare for presentation, all right.
So now I've got an hour of time, maybe I need a little bit more than an hour.
I'm gonna block out 90 minutes to prepare for that sales presentation in time.
The great thing about time blocking is not only is it going to appear on your calendar, it's gonna send you a reminder, whether it's on your phone, if you have desktop notifications enabled.
But the bonus is that it will block out time from other people who may be trying to book an event with you.
So if you have a calendar that is linked to other people within your organization, it's going to show as busy.
If you have your Google Calendar linked to a scheduling tool such as Calendly, it's gonna block this out as well.
So that's one of the effective uses of using time blocking.
And you can use it for a variety of activities, for example, maybe you're having trouble finding the time to eat a healthy lunch during the day.
Well, a smart move would be to block out that time in advance.
You can select lunch on just one of these days, and then of course we can use the repeat functionality right here within Google Calendar.
If we open up this event, I can go over here and say, yeah, we want to repeat this daily at that particular time.
And now we can, on our calendar, we've got lunch scheduled throughout the week.
So it's blocked off, not only from other people, but we can reserve that time to hopefully eat a healthy lunch or go out for a short walk
Common problems with time blocking in Google Calendar
or whatever you want to do with that time. However, here's some caveats that I want you to think of when we think of time blocking within Google Calendar.
Many of us think of the flexibility of having multiple calendars.
As we see here in the lower left-hand side of my screen here, we'll create multiple calendars for things like things in our personal lives, things that are related to hobbies or social gatherings or maybe for just different aspects of our work life.
So for example, here I've got one called work in parentheses time block.
Now this can be effective.
Let's say if I want to block out some time here to catch up on email.
I'm gonna select email or call it email, should say, and then I'm gonna come down here and actually choose that time block calendar.
So not only is it gonna give me a different color, but I can also hide and minimize my time blocking activity by using multiple calendars here within Google Calendar.
However, watch out because this will not block out your time from external forces.
If someone is wanting to book time with me on Thursday at 9:00 am, it's gonna show this as available 'cause it's only referencing my primary Google Calendar.
If I have this linked to something like Calendly, as an example, again, it is not going to block out this time because it's a separate calendar.
It's only gonna be looking at that default calendar here. So how can we have the flexibility of seeing certain things
How to highlight your personal tasks on Google Calendar
on our calendar, make them stand out as something that we've blocked off without using this functionality?
Well, let me give you two options here.
Number one, on any of your calendar events, remember you don't have to change the calendar in order to change the color.
So if I wanna use that same type of green shade here, I could use that for all of my time blocking activity.
Lemme open up this first lunch one here, and maybe I want lunch to stand out in a different way.
Maybe I want it to be more of a red color, sort of like a stop for now, let's stop and go have our lunch.
I'm gonna hit save, and I can choose to add that to my following events as well.
So now lunch really stands out to me as I'm looking at my calendar here within Google Calendar.
However, there's an additional tip and a trick that I like to use to make certain things stand out.
Not only will it keep those things blocked off on my calendar, but they sort of jump out a little bit more as I'm creating them, and that's the use of emojis.
Now, not too long ago, I introduced some of you to one of my favorite sites, which is called Emojipedia.
Now here on Emojipedia, you can search for different things.
So let's say, I'm wanting to do some work, some focused work on my laptop, such as a writing laptop.
I can just type in a few keywords or search words and find the emojis that I'm looking for.
However, you should also be made aware of some of the quick keys or shortcut keys on your computer.
And if you are using Windows, for example, all you need to do is select the Windows key plus the period key, and you'll bring up your emoji menu.
So now I can actually start typing in some of the same things here.
I just started typing in lap.
Hey, there's a picture of a laptop, I can select that and then go on by labeling this, and maybe I'll just call this focused, focused work, right?
So I'm gonna label that focused work.
Now I've got this nice little icon beside it here, which just makes it pop, just makes it jump out a little bit.
Remember I'm not using a separate calendar, but maybe I'm gonna use these emojis as a signal as to the things that are, things that I've put on my calendar.
Things that are time blocked for me and don't involve someone else.
Using Text Expanders with Google Calendar
But let's go one step further.
I wanna show you another tip that I just stumbled upon, and I think it's gonna make your life a lot easier as well.
How about if you created maybe four or five different categories that are specific to your time blocking needs?
Things such as lunch, exercise, email, focused work, written work, maybe presentation preparation or something along those lines, whatever makes the most sense for you.
Maybe a social media time where you can review your social media platforms or set up your social media campaigns for the future.
Well, to incorporate the use of these emojis along with these labels, you can use a text expander.
And something that I've been using a lot is a tool called Text Blaze.
So let me show you how I can use that here with my time blocking strategy.
Let's say that I wanna go for some exercise here at maybe 4:00 pm in the afternoon, I wanna hit the gym, or I just want to go out for a run or something along those lines.
What I can do is I can create a quick key, something that's customizable to me.
I can actually use it in other places on the web as well.
But in this particular example,
Using Text Blaze snippets to save time in Google Calendar
I'm gonna use it right here within Google Calendar. So Text Blaze is a Chrome extension, which you can, which is free for you to use and you can create your own custom quick keys.
So if you're here, for example, here on the left-hand side, I've already created one for email and lunch, but you can go much beyond this as well.
This third one here is actually an email reply that I use quite often when I'm replying to a common question or the first time that someone inquires about my consulting services.
So all you need to do is give it a title, choose the quick key that you want to use to trigger this, and then you can edit all of this text down below.
So here, for example, is this email reply, let me just go back to the test screen here.
So if I enter in my quick key, in this case which is forward/ tr, I've got the entire email response right in front of me, it just appears.
So wherever I want to put this, I can do so.
Let's try this with the one of the existing ones that I have here, an email label, and I've chosen the quick key E, L.
So if I wanna create some time here for email here, maybe later in the day, I'm gonna open this up and I'm just gonna type in E, L, boom, I've got the emoji, I've got the all caps email for a reason because maybe I want it to stand out that much more.
That's when I'm gonna do my email at the end of that day, maybe I need to do some more catch up on Friday.
I'm gonna come over here, I'm gonna type in E, L, there it is again, hit enter on my keyboard.
Now I'm quickly and easily adding things right here on my calendar.
How to create Text Blaze snippets to use anywhere online
Let's go back to that exercise example and show you how you can create your own here within Text Blaze, or there are other text expanders that you may be using already.
So I'm gonna hit the plus key here to create something new, and I'm gonna call this one exercise in this case.
Now, when it comes to the shortcut key, you don't have to use a forward slash or a special key.
In fact, often what I like to do is use a combination of keys that are already in the word that I don't use very often.
But in this case, I think E, X is maybe a good choice in this case.
I'll use that as my shortcut, and then down below here, I'm gonna pick my emoji.
I'm gonna use that windows period to pull up this quick menu here.
And I'm gonna choose one of these runners here, I'm gonna put that in here and then I'm gonna give it a space, and I'm gonna say X or oh, let's use all caps like I showed before, exercise, okay.
So this is going to jump up big in all caps along with the emoji.
I don't even have to hit save here within Text Blaze, it's gonna work automatically for me.
If I wanna test it out right here within Text Blaze, they give you a handy way to do so, let's try that E,X boom.
There it is.
So let's go back to our calendar and let's say
Adding recurring time blocks to Google Calendar
I wanna add exercise all throughout the week at 4:00 pm.
I'm gonna come up here, I'm going to enter in my quick key, there it is.
If I want to repeat it, I can come in here and I can choose to, let's, yeah, let's repeat this daily and hit save.
Now I've got my exercise listed throughout the week, it's nice in all caps.
So it stands out from my other appointments and I've got that emoji there as well.
The other big benefit of using this type of time blocking strategy is that again I'm gonna get these notifications as well.
So if I have notifications turned on, on my phone, if I have desktop notifications turned on here within Google Calendar, I'll get that gentle reminder, hey, you're planning to go for a run or you're planning to hit the gym at this time.
It can help me keep on track with my goals.
Use a shortcut key to quickly add events in Google Calendar
The last tip I wanna share with you here today when it comes to time blocking within Google Calendar is another way to quickly add your events.
And it does involve a shortcut key but not an auto expander.
In this case, I want you to remember the letter C on your keyboard.
Whenever you have Google Calendar open and you hit C on your keyboard, it's going to immediately open up to create a new event.
So now I can add that title, I can set a repeat period if necessary and then hit save and immediately jump back to my calendar.
Now, one of the drawbacks is that it is going to open up in a full screen.
So you can't actually see the other things in front of you, but if you're on a different part of your calendar, maybe a few weeks in advance, or you've been reviewing something in the past, using C on your keyboard can be a great way of doing so.
Now if you'd like to learn even more tips and tricks and how to get the most out of Google Calendar, be sure to click on the video here on the screen in front of you.
Thank you so much for watching, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it's very simple.
