5 Do’s and Don’ts of Time Blocking if you’re Neurodivergent or Chronically Ill

If you're neurodivergent or chronically ill and struggling with time blocking, this is the video for you. Time management is one of the most popular topics inside my coaching program, the Action Navigator. Now it's your turn to get a taste. Let's go!

Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.

Time blocking, also referred to as time boxing, is a time management tool where you schedule not only appointments into your day, but also your tasks. The theory goes that by scheduling dedicated time for your tasks, you're more likely to follow through with them.

Don't worry though, I understand that starting a task is an entirely separate can of worms, so we're going to discuss that today too. What time blocking excels at is front-loading the decision making so that instead of waiting for free time, then deciding what to do, then using tools to help you take action, you simply follow your schedule and focus on what you need to do to support yourself to take action.

Constantly having to make time planning decisions throughout the day is cognitively taxing, and time blocking helps us avoid them. Now that we have that out of the way, let's dive into the do's and don'ts of time blocking if you're neurodivergent or chronically ill. Number one, don't block in your tasks into your schedule first. Do block in rest and breaks. It's really common when faced with our calendar, which likely has pre-existing appointments on it, like meetings or doctor's appointments.

When we're looking at that at the beginning of our day to plan our day or at the beginning of our week to plan our week, the tendency is to immediately go in and look at our to-do list and start putting task blocks into our schedule. That is an important aspect of time blocking, but when we do that first thing, we're setting ourselves up for burnout, especially when we're neurodivergent or chronically ill.

So the first thing that's really important to do is to block in rest and meal times. And remember that rest can also be play and vice versa. Rejuvenation is also important. So the first thing I recommend people do is look at their pre-existing appointments and look at the time before those appointments and the time after those appointments to determine how much time we need to prepare and/or recover.

And then once you've done that, blocking in meal times or snacks and also your rest and or your play for the day. When we block those into our schedule first, we're ensuring that we're going to be caring for ourselves adequately that day or whatever time frame we are time blocking for. And that is crucial when you're someone who has less capacity, like someone who's neurodivergent or chronically ill or has other forms of disability.

We tend to have less spoons to use the spoon theory terminology. So it's important to plan the use of those spoons proactively, which leads us to our next Don't. Don't assume task priority is the best way to time block. Do take your capacity in your gas tanks into account. I talked about gas tanks at length in this video, and I believe that is actually a time blocking video, so you should go watch that as well.

The gas tanks are the idea that you have three types of energy as a human being. You have physical energy, you have cognitive energy, and you have emotional energy. And depending on what's going on in your life, one or more of those gas tanks might be on the verge of being empty, or you may have one that's like tends to be full all the time, but the others are more empty.

Understanding where you are relative to the three gas tanks instead of just overall energy that isn't specific enough to be helpful can be really, really helpful. So we've already talked about how when you're time blocking, you want to block in your rest and your meals and your play first, and particularly around your pre-existing appointments, so you can prepare and or recover adequately for yourself. But when you're starting to draw your tasks into your time block schedule, taking into account which gas tanks you'll have to spend from in order to do those tasks and help you balance out your day better.

So for example if part of your tasks for the day are to leave your home and run some errands, it might be smart to consider that when you get home, you're not going to have as much physical energy as you did when you left to do your errands, which means putting in a task that is not physically intensive when you get home, you'll be more likely to successfully follow through on that task than if you were to add another physically exhaustive task when you get home.

That's just an example and it's for a very specific set of circumstances. It's for someone who doesn't have as much physical energy as an able bodied person. How you relate to your own gas tanks is going to be specific to you. So it's about understanding what tasks cost you, what type of energy, and then as you're blocking in your tasks throughout your schedule, you can alternate which gas tanks you're pulling from.

So let's revisit the language of this section again, don't assume that task priority is the best way to schedule your tasks. We don't want to make assumptions about what would be better, what would be worse. While task priority is something to take into account, the point of this section of this video is to remember that your capacity is also really important, and when we take it into account, when we're making time management decisions for ourselves, we can help stave off burnout and increase our ability to recover.

If the three gas tanks concept is new and exciting to you, write gas tanks in the comments below. Next up, don't time block too far into the future. Instead, do block time for important deadlines or important and not urgent projects, but be looser about it. So I find the time scale that I benefit the most room for time blocking is on a daily basis, either at the beginning of the day or the evening before I time block for the next day.

A long time ago when I was first trying to figure out this whole productivity thing for myself, I engaged in what one might call hypervigilant time blocking, which is where I time blocked every single minute of every single day for like whole weeks at a time. I would create like a structured time block that I, in theory, was able to follow daily or weekly, and then I would just fill in the gaps.

This created so much overwhelm, and so much burnout. It was terrible and I also wasn't following through on any of it. I was just overwhelmed. I'm like, hey, I did the time blocking. Um, I'm not doing any of it. It was not a good time. So if there is a deadline or project that you know you need to like, divvy up your time over a long period of time in order to accomplish it, it's possible to add that into your schedule.

But when you're making your kind of final time blocking decisions, I highly recommend doing that from a day to day basis and not further into the future. And that allows you to genuinely take into account your capacity for the day and anything that might have come up, either recently or on the day so you can manage it more effectively instead of creating this structure that feels really claustrophobic and you're compelled to follow it, even though that's not probably the best idea.

Long story short, I recommend time blocking day to day and doing loose guidelines of like, yeah, next week I want to spend an hour each day on this project, so I'm just going to like throw that into my Google calendar and then when I get to those days, I can move it around as needed. For example, giving ourselves the ability to make informed choices on the day of to better care for ourselves.

That's really important. Next up, don't force yourself to work too long in one sitting. And instead, when the time comes time for a longer time block, let's say you want to work on this particular task for an hour, similar to what I talk about in Butt in Chair Time. It's okay that when you get to that hour, if a whole hour feels like too much to break it down into smaller chunks, kind of like Pomodoros.

If that sounds intriguing to you, go watch this video. I teach you exactly how to break down your expectations for yourself for completing tasks in such a way that makes it easier to follow through and breaks it down into smaller pieces for you. Last but not least, don't give up on the day if you find yourself not perfectly following through with your time block plan. Instead, do adjust as you go if needed.

Stuff happens! It keep happening. I'm well aware of this. Existence persists, and it's quite annoying most of the time. So your initial time block plan at the beginning of the day or the evening prior, again, is slightly tighter guidelines, but they're still guidelines. So when it comes time to follow through with any section of your time block, if something has come up and you need to change your plan, that's okay.

There's a reason why in Cal Newport's actual time block planner, he has four columns on each daily spread. So that way your original time block plan can be in the first column, and then as you go, you're just adjusting your plan if needed. It's totally okay. Yes, the ultimate idea of time blocking is to help front load all that decision making. So you're reducing your need to make decisions as the day goes.

And some days that works perfectly and you can follow through on your original plan, and it's all great. On other days where stuff comes up because you have already done some decision making, it will make the new decision making of something came up easier because you'll have something to edit instead of having to generate a plan from scratch. I know how easy it can be to feel shame or to feel like you failed

if you haven't perfectly followed through with your plan. It sucks. The real key to being able to adjust as you go is to use what I call the self compassion muscle, and that's your ability to look at what you're experiencing and offer yourself the same empathy and compassion that you would offer a friend or close family member in that same position. It's not easy. It's something that you practice and you get better at over time.

It's one of the things that I love being able to model for all of you here on YouTube and for all of my precious clients inside my program. I get to give them that compassion directly on group coaching calls and I love that part of my job. So when something doesn't go as planned, shifting from shame and the urge to punish yourself and to give up for the rest of the day, instead of doing that, we have the opportunity to offer ourselves compassion.

And I know, I know that's not easy. I know it can be really hard. But that is a really important step. So if you find yourself really struggling with adjusting your plan as you go when stuff happens, you might want to try out some anytime pages and basically process through all that on your own, if you don't have access to a safe person to talk to about it.

If you do have someone safe to talk to about it, I highly recommend talking to them about it. I was caught in this like loop of shame and giving up for far too long. And I thought the answer, because like the neurotypical able bodied answer on the Internet was to "Get Disciplined". And the way I had been modeled that throughout my life, was to like just grin and bear it, suck it up and do it.

And that is a, that is the opposite of compassion. And I thought that if I was failing, I just needed to be better at being mean to myself. But that's not true. Instead, we need to shift away from that shame and judgment towards compassion. And that is what has the power to change your relationship with time and to change your relationship with following through on things that you want and need to do.

Earlier I mentioned my signature course, the Action Navigator. It's packed to the brim with tools and techniques for mastering your time, getting organized and offering yourself radical compassion as a neurodivergent spoonie. And like we just talked about, that's really, really important and can be life changing. If that sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, use this link to learn more. By the way, I'm Cassie Winter and you can check out some of my other time blocking videos over here.

And if you liked this video please hit that like and subscribe and be sure to share it with your friends. I'll be back soon with a new video. See you then. Bye.