Timeboxing Principles: How Boxing Time Increases Productivity

Timeboxing is a project planning strategy and time management technique centering on defining an amount of time to complete tasks before you start them. Suppose you want to complete individual tasks on your to-do list for a week: Task A, Task B, and Task C. You know Task A will take the longest, Task B will be a moderate lift, and Task C will take the least time of all.

The timeboxing methodology suggests you break each task into manageable segments per day—say an hour a day for Task A, half an hour for Task B, and fifteen minutes for Task C. This grants you more structure on both a daily level and across the entire week to complete all three tasks.

Timeboxing originated within the Agile software development life cycle, but people now use it in a host of different arenas. A daily scrum or planning meeting preset for just fifteen minutes is one example of timeboxing. Similarly, longer-form sprint planning takes the principles of timeboxing and extrapolates them over a more extended period. Outside of your workday, timeboxing can prove useful as a time management tool in your personal life, too.

Time blocking differs from timeboxing largely in how strict the constraints are. In time blocking, you assign blocks of time to complete tasks, but you might still go over your preassigned end period. In contrast, with timeboxing, you come to a hard stop at the end of your preset period of time regardless of whether you’re in the middle of something or not.

Timeboxing can improve your personal time management as well as that of your team members. Keep these three benefits of the technique in mind:

1. 1. Greater efficiency: Timeboxing can light a fire under you to increase your efficiency and productivity. Parkinson’s Law—a wry, work-related adage—says a person’s work will expand to its allocated time for completion. In other words, when you give yourself more time to complete a task, you’re likely to spend more time on that task than you would’ve if you gave yourself stricter time constraints. Timeboxing allows you to place those constraints on yourself to improve and guide your workflow.
2. 2. Improved focus: When you experiment with this Agile project management technique, you might find spending less time on a task per day actually increases your focus. Combine your preset work periods with five-minute breaks to give yourself a chance to give your all to each timebox as it comes.
3. 3. Increased motivation: Timeboxing allows you to subvert both perfectionism and procrastination, potentially leading to increased motivation and a greater sense of faith in yourself. When you start work with firmer constraints, it’s easier to just step back and let things go at the end of the timebox. Over time, you’ll see you complete more in shorter periods of time than you did without these constraints—and it might be easier to start work each day as a result.

Knowing how to timebox well can improve your work ethic and productivity levels. Remember these seven core tips when trying the timeboxing technique for yourself:

1. 1. Be realistic. Even though the goal of timeboxing is to place constraints on yourself, it’s necessary to remain realistic about your goals. Grant yourself enough time over a sustained period to complete any given task. For instance, assigning yourself only five-minute timeboxes a day to complete a ten-page essay due in a week is probably untenable. Instead, break down the time you’ll need on any project into reasonable, realistic chunks.
2. 2. Distinguish between tasks. To prioritize timeboxes well, pay attention to the particular tasks on hand. Hard timeboxes are tasks you can complete and be done with completely once your preset time is up. Soft timeboxes are longer-form projects you would do well to break up into shorter chunks over a long period of time. Balance these two types of timeboxes the best you can to finish all the work you need to get done, proceeding to the next task on your list as soon as time is up on the previous one.
3. 3. Divide goals into smaller chunks. If you have a longform, soft timebox you need to complete, divide this larger goal into small chunks over a set time frame. In this way, you can turn soft timeboxes into a long set of hard timeboxes that are easier to complete and walk away from at the end of each day. Breaking up longer projects into smaller tasks like this is a core tenet Agile teams use in their sprint reviews and planning.
4. 4. Reassess regularly. If you consistently have a long backlog of incomplete timebox assignments at the end of a sprint retrospective, it might be time for brainstorming. Try to adjust the time limits for each task to accommodate for the additional time you might need in the next iteration of your planning. If you’re working with a team, ask them for input about ways to improve efficiency during the sprint review.
5. 5. Supplement with other techniques. Seek out ways to achieve integration between timeboxing and additional project planning tools and techniques. Silence notifications on your devices to make it easier to focus. Seek out a time tracker app with additional functionality to help schedule both timeboxes and short breaks. Try the Pomodoro technique or use the Kanban methodology to further improve your time management.

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