An experiment with rigid daily scheduling. Mixed results.
In September I read Cal Newport's case for time-blocking and decided to commit. Every day for three months: every 15-minute block of working hours assigned to a specific task in advance. Here's what happened.
Each evening I'd block out the following day in a paper notebook. Tasks pulled from my todo list, slotted into time windows. Email had specific windows. Deep work had longer blocks. Breaks were scheduled.
I got more done in three weeks than I had in two months prior. The scheduling forced me to confront which tasks actually mattered and which were performative busywork.
The novelty wore off but the structure held. Deep work blocks consistently produced something. I was less anxious during off-hours because I knew tomorrow was planned.
Days that didn't go according to plan (most of them) created a sense of failure. I started feeling like the schedule was the work, not the actual work.
The overhead of scheduling started eating into the time I was supposedly gaining. I spent 30 minutes a night planning a day that often blew up by 10am.
I dropped strict time-blocking. I kept the practice of choosing 2-3 "must-finish" tasks each day and protecting time for them. The 15-minute granularity was overkill for me, but the underlying idea — be intentional about your hours — survived.