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[Brad Blackman]

On the blog, I wrote about my struggle finding time for everything, and I think it has to do with the lack of structure in my life right now. I'm considering adopting a sort of "block" schedule, much like a school schedule, where I work on a specific type of thing on MWF mornings, something else in the afternoons, and so forth.

Have you tried that? If so, how has it worked for you? Or have you found a better time management/planning alternative to help you add structure to your day?

[whitehatblackbox]

David Seah and I have been working on new paper forms to bring balance. I personally find time-based approaches (e.g. work 2 hours on the blog from 10AM to 12PM) are rather difficult to maintain. The benefit of working at home is you can largely choose when to do things, but the drawback is that it isn't always evident what you should do.

My re-focus form has been great at gently reminding me that I've been slacking and showing me where I've made good progress. You can check it out here: http://whitehatblackbox.com/2009/07/new-form-keeping-focus/

I also keep a master list of todos in my 3-ring binder. If I feel like doing something, I can just check that and find something that suites my energy at the moment.

The one thing that really destroys my day is when I say "I'll do that tomorrow" because what I really mean is "I'm not going to do it today and I may not do it tomorrow either". If I decide to do something today, I really need to do it that day.

[Brad Blackman]

Well, I just got done making a grid for my week. First, I made a list of different areas of responsibility, and of course, a few of them overlapped. Then, I estimated how many hours it would take each week to do those things. Next, I drew out the week, and put in the absolute things that don't change, like church services and working out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. From there, I somewhat arbitrarily put in when I could/would work on what. I suppose I could carve out more time for Painting, Freelance Design Work, and Gig-Hunting, but I think it's more important to spend time with my wife and little girl. That's why I left the evenings from Friday through Sunday pretty much open.

I dunno if this will work or not, if, as Daryl puts it, it's too difficult to maintain.

I just downloaded Daryl's Keeping Focus "Scantron." That's a neat approach. If this doesn't pan out, I may give the Scantron a try.

[Stephen Smith]

Hey Brad, nice job on the weekly grid. That was one of the first things that I did when I started working from home as a consultant for BigCorp. Being home all the time was *very* distracting and I found that using that grid was essential.

Soon those types of repetitive tasks became part of a routine, and I was able to further enhance productiveness by focusing on the MITs for the day.

[Brad Blackman]

Well, the grid didn't go over with my wife, who felt I didn't allow her enough time to do her work. Don't forget, we have a baby who requires undivided attention when she's awake, and naptime is getting shorter and shorter, and eventually she won't even take morning naps anymore. In a few years she'll stop naps altogether, but by then she will be much more self-sufficient. But in the meantime, it's just not feasible to try to work 50-60 hours a week from home with a baby around, and we don't want to put her in daycare. So I'm going to have to cut back some of my time in different places so we can make it work for the 2 (3!) of us.

[MarinaMartin]

I made my own version of David Seah's Emergent Task Timer with a goal to spend X hours (or under X hours) in certain areas... say, 30 minutes a day on calculus, and less than 30 minutes a day eating. (I'm trying a new thing where I do nothing *but* eat at mealtime. Drives me insane, so I figure I could stand to build my "sitting still" muscle.) It has bubbles to fill in for what I'm doing every 15 minutes, and that helps keep me on track without the rigidity of "Calculus from 2:30pm to 3pm" which never works for me because I prefer to sleep and wake up when I feel like it and not based on arbitrary concepts of day/night.

I've been meaning to blog and share my version (which I made in Excel) ... I should do that today. I'll post the link.

Marina

[Michael Ramm]

@Brad

That grid looks great! I know that with a little wifely tweaking, you will find the right balance that $wife/$daughter wants!

I am trying to figure one out for my after work hours to maximize my time post-5pm (especially after the kids go to bed around 8:30pm).

I will have to grid out my 5-12pm soon. Thanks for the inspiration.

Michael

[Brad Blackman]

@Michael, wifely tweaking is definitely what it takes. ;-) Now that Annie is starting to go to bed around 8:30, it does free up a few hours. Lately though I've started winding down around 10 so I can go to bed at 11 and get my 6-7 hours of sleep. I've started to turn into an early riser, although by nature I'm a night owl.

[yann]

I wrote an article about a very similar subject over the weekend, that's why this post caught my eyes in my RSS feed...

Well... I don't have a baby to worry about so it certainly makes things that much simpler, but still, until recently I had a very hard time using my GTD system beyond my work... There was a million things I wanted to do but never seemed to get to them and I felt guilty about it... I came to a similar conclusion: a need for a schedule, with a slightly different approach and implementation. More on that on my blog: http://minimaldesign.net/articles/read/gtd-for-freelancers-the-missing-piece-of-the-puzzle