Unlock Your Productivity with the Best Time Blocking App in 2024
January 30, 2024 · 15 min read
People tend to overwhelm their life with sophisticated planning solutions saying that using a calendar is just not enough to improve productivity. But are you sure that you’re making use of a calendar to its max?
The truth is that instead of planning actual work, we rather schedule interruptions which are events that distract you from doing your work like meetings, calls with customers, doctor appointments, etc.
In this article, we’re going to uncover the beauty of the time blocking approach which is all about planning out your time right and saying no to things that are less important.
What is time blocking?
Time blocking is a productivity technique based on planning out your days in advance by dedicating specific time blocks to tasks, events, and responsibilities. Rather than creating open-ended to-do lists, you have to focus on making a concrete schedule for each day that lays out what types of activities you’re going to do and within which time frame.
Briefly, you have to list out things you need to do, prioritize them and estimate how long they will take. Then, get a sketch of your working hours in the calendar view and distribute tasks from most important to least important.
At the end of each day, review tasks that are not finished as well as any new tasks that have come in and adjust your time blocks for the rest of the week accordingly.
Time blocking approach will help you to avoid making a choice about what to focus on during the working day and let you have enough time to do the task from start to finish without distraction.
One of the biggest concerns in regards to time blocking is that it doesn’t work for jobs like customer support, account manager, etc. where you should be reactive to new tasks that can show up at any moment.
So, is it realistic to utilize this approach for those who manage customer requests? Well, we’d agree and say yes, as even a small amount of control over your schedule will be a helping hand.
The best time blocking apps
Today there are lots of apps able to bring the idea of time blocking to live. We’ve explored about 40 most popular apps and are happy to share our insights with you so that you can choose the one that will help you supercharge your productivity.
Planyway
Planyway is one of the best tools that combines all you need to schedule work in the easiest and most effective way. It’s the ultimate time-blocking solution that allows you to drag and drop tasks to block time on a calendar or timeline.
Let’s see what you can do with Planyway in more detail:
To distinguish different types of activities, make use of color-coding. This way you may label tasks and filter them as soon as you need it.
In case, you have the hierarchy of tasks, you’ll be happy to hear that Planyway supports subtasks. And the thing is that you not only have them visible inside the parent tasks but may visualize them on the calendar too and use them to block time.
For the tasks that appear in your schedule on a regular basis, we recommend applying the recurrence rule. By doing it, the task will show up on the calendar automatically.
Apart from blocking your time slots with Planyway cards, you can integrate the app with Google Calendar, Outlook, and other external calendars so that you have a full picture of your schedule.
What’s more, you can create time blocks the other way using Time Tracking:
Simply by starting the timer you can track time on tasks and focus on deep work. If you forget to hit the start button, no worries, manual logging time is available too. Also, you may leave notes to time entries in order to clarify how exactly the time was spent.
Plan
Plan is a simple app mixing both a to-do list and a calendar. All to-dos can be grouped into different projects and prioritized, then easily dragged onto the calendar. As well as its competitors, it provides you with multiple calendar views from a daily agenda to weekly and monthly calendars.
One feature that distinguishes this app is the dashboard. If you’re interested to know how many meetings you had this month, how much time is spent on activities of a similar type, what locations you visited, etc. — Plan can do it for you.
This time block app syncs with your Google or Outlook calendar, getting out your meetings and other events, and allows you to block time for new tasks and projects keeping in mind other commitments.
Sunsama
Sunsama has a very nice and easy-to-use interface. No doubt, you’ll get how to use it straight after you set it up. The app suggests creating to-do lists sorted by days and then quickly dragging tasks to your calendar.
Sunsama not only syncs with external calendars but supports integration with such project planning instruments as Trello, Gmail, Asana, Jira to manage tasks from your existing tools as well. Slack integration is worth mentioning as an extra point. It’s super useful as it lets you first share your daily plan with teammates and secondly turn messages into tasks on your calendar.
TickTick
In comparison with the others, this app is good for those who need to add new tasks on the go. TickTick lets you add tasks faster and easier — through voice input, by turning emails into tasks, or using Siri, widgets, and Quick Ball.
There is also a cool filter allowing you to see tasks in smart lists such as "Today" and "Tomorrow", or alternatively it's possible to create your own custom smart lists. TickTick went further with the reminders too. You can create multiple reminders for one task, set up reminders for check items to get reminded separately, and enable "Annoying Alert" to avoid missing.
To get an idea of how productive you are, make use of so-called "Historical Statistics" that shows the progress of each task, what you've achieved, and even calculates the Achievement Score based on the completed tasks. Another feature that helps TickTick to stand out among the others is a Pomodoro timer to control your performance.
HourStack
HourStack is another example of how a time blocking planner gets even more power in combination with the time tracking mode. Apart from visual planning through lists and calendars, you’ll find the built-in timer to track your efforts which helps to identify ways to be more nimble through the report feature.
HourStack also allows you to organize tasks with color-coding which makes it easier to understand what is happening at a glance. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with your favorite apps from Google Calendar and Slack, to GitHub and Hubspot.
Todoist
Todoist is a to-do list app that can be used to plan your time blocks too. The tool is user-friendly which helps you navigate easily. Here you can personalize tasks with due dates, labels, use filters, recurring events, subtasks, priorities, etc., and have them scheduled on the calendar.
Todoist also allows you to set up daily and weekly goals and what’s more — get productivity reports. The app can be integrated with dozens of other applications like Google Calendar, Dropbox, Zapier, etc. And last but not least is the view customization. We guess you agree that it’s a very nice option to pick a theme you like.
TimeBloc
TimeBloc was created specifically for time blocking. Unfortunately, it’s only available as a mobile app but still has everything you need to streamline your calendar blocking experience. TimeBloc lets you block your day into multiple events, create a daily routine with recurrences, and integrate with your existing calendars.
With this app, you can add icons and colored tags to distinguish events easily, get notifications not to miss anything planned, and visualize your progress over time.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is the classical instrument that everyone has tried at least once in their life. It’s a universal tool and even though it has basic functionality it gives you lots of flexibility to make the most out of your day. Not everyone knows that Google Calendar has not only the calendar views but provides a to-do list as well which you can use to collect tasks before scheduling.
Don’t forget that Google Calendar is part of Google Workspace which is great to improve teamwork. Together with your team, you can schedule meetings quicker by checking teammates’ availability, create calendars to book meeting rooms or other shared resources, and share calendars so people schedule meetings just if you are free.
Another perk — when you get an email about an event like a flight, hotel, or restaurant reservation, it can be added to the calendar automatically. And, of course, the biggest advantage is that due to its huge popularity, we doubt there is a chance you can’t integrate it with other tools you’re used to.
Any.do
Any.do is a very simple and intuitive app to manage your schedule. Your tasks can be organized in lists and projects. Also, you may color tag your activities, set priorities, and assign categories. Tasks you create simultaneously appear in the calendar view to block time. Notification is one more helping hand that can ping you on time so as not to miss important things.
ClickUp
ClickUp allows you to drag&drop tasks onto your agenda with the color code to have a clear plan of your day at hand. Moreover, there is a time tracking functionality that lets you know exactly where you allocate time both in the desktop and mobile app. Added task estimation will help you see how long each person is expected to work on a project.
Clockify
Clockify is a purely time tracking app that lets you track time spent on scheduled time blocks as you work on them. You’ll be able to add time manually or with a timer on the Time Tracker page, or in a timesheet view.
It also provides an option to analyze the time you’ve spent on projects in Weekly, Detailed, and Summary Reports. Plus, there are multiple integrations with other tools which are very handy.
TimeCamp
TimeCamp can help you estimate the time needed to get all your tasks done and create a perfect schedule. It lets you create timesheets to record time effort in the form of daily and graphical weekly views with colorful time blocks.
It supports popular productivity, project management, CRM, and accounting tools to make it easier for you to incorporate the tool into your routine.
Fantastical
Fantastical is a macOS calendar with time-blocking features. The tool lets you schedule work in multiple views, get reminders about upcoming events and reorganize your schedule around team priorities. Fantastical supports maps to view the locations of scheduled events and weather forecasts so that you can get a reminder to take an umbrella. Additionally, you may customize the app with templates of events and tasks.
Clockwise
Clockwise is a browser extension working in the background with your Google Calendar. This solution creates so-called Focus Time in your calendar by rearranging existing meetings to open up long blocks of free time, which are so great for focused work.
How to start time blocking?
Are you ready to give it a try but not sure what to start with? We’ve made a list of seven key steps, so you can take charge of your calendar and get valuable results straight away:
Step 1. Identify what you need to work on
No matter what time management technique you use, the first step you should take is to identify what you need to get done on a given day or week. Make a list of your to-dos and prioritize them all based on how important they are. Prioritization will grant you a clear understanding of which tasks should be completed today and which ones you can finish later.
Step 2. Define your most productive time
You can significantly improve productivity by scheduling your daily activities according to periods when you have the most or the least energy. Are you more productive in the morning? Then, consider it for tasks requiring more focus. Feel sleepy in the afternoon? Deal with smaller tasks like emails. Have a second wind in the late afternoon? Work on important tasks and try to minimize distractions so that they can’t interrupt your workflow.
Step 3. Block off personal time
Time blocking is not just about scheduling work, it’s also about scheduling your free time. No need to plan it by minutes, just create time blocks for personal activities to easily stick to them and at the same time restrict your working hours.
Step 4. Group meetings
The problem about meetings is that they’re scattered throughout the day which makes it unbelievably hard to switch contexts and return to work again. Instead of being interrupted, aim for a block of meetings, so you have them scheduled close to each other.
Step 5. Schedule tasks with time blocks
Once you know when you’re most and least productive, it’s time to schedule work on the calendar. Think of the priority you set before and allocate tasks to your time slots accordingly. It’s also absolutely fine if you want to come back to tasks more than once a day, e.g. replying to emails. Just plan it out in advance.
Step 6. Plan breaks
Schedule breaks beforehand, so you have a more truthful picture of your day. Find time not just for lunch but also for a quick stretch or walk to give your brain a rest — quality leisure time is highly important.
Step 7. Allow interruptions
Time blocking will eventually fail if there is no room for unexpected tasks during the day that has to be done asap. Of course, you don’t want them to totally destroy your plan but still, it’s important to engage. If this is a frequent situation, we recommend dedicating a special block with flexible time.
Why is time blocking helpful?
Now let’s see how exactly time blocking calendar makes your life more productive:
It prompts deep work
Deep work means the ability to concentrate on a cognitively demanding task with no distraction. When you have a certain time booked to work on a specific task, you focus all your attention on one thing rather than spreading it across several tasks and cut off all distracting factors. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide a sense of true fulfillment in the end.
It helps you reduce shallow work
Shallow work is the term that describes urgent but not very important tasks like paperwork, emails, chat messages, etc. The time blocking method allows you to set clear limits on how much time you can spend on this kind of work per day. You can group shallow tasks in one or several dedicated time blocks to manage them all together so that you can reduce the context switching from higher-impact work.
It makes you realistic about how you spend time
It’s not an easy job to predict how much time a task will take. In general, we tend to underestimate our efforts and then get into a situation when we don’t have enough time to accomplish a task. Blocking physical space on your calendar makes you far more aware of how much time you need to do a certain type of work. Then, when you do similar work next time, you can refer to your previous experience and make more accurate estimations.
It counteracts perfectionism
The main problem of any perfectionist is that there is always a place for improvement. If you often prolong tasks because of trying to get everything just perfect, imposing limits can help you say “good enough” and move on.
It helps you achieve your goals
Having a concrete plan of action will help you walk through towards your goals much faster. By scheduling time blocks you can take a step forward every single day and make your plan of action come to life to reach your final goal quicker.
3 most common mistakes in time-blocking
Now when advantages are uncovered, it’s also important to be aware of the traps that may show up on your way. Here’re the most common mistakes people make when they’re just setting up and some tips to avoid them:
Mistake 1. Underestimating
You’ll get a better feeling of how long tasks take over time but until you nail your instincts avoid the situation of overplanning your schedule. Cater for extra hours to complete tasks in case you fall behind.
Mistake 2. Lack of flexibility
There is nothing you can do about new things coming up and ruining your perfect plan. But please do not forget that your plan plays the role of your guide rather than a binding contract that makes you a slave of your calendar. So, take a moment to think if the new task is something that can wait its turn or should inevitably interrupt your plan.
Mistake 3. Overscheduling non-working hours
It’s a very common case when people try to apply the same principles to planning their leisure time which might not be the best decision. Studies show that scheduling leisure activities makes a negative impact on enjoyment. Instead, it’s much better just to block time to disconnect from work without a fixed plan for how you will spend this time.
Final thoughts
Time blocking software is a great approach to improve your productivity. It makes you focus on things that make the most impact, see how long a task takes, and distribute your time the most effective way. When choosing the right solution, make sure the app is quick and has a user-friendly interface.
It’s also great to have the opportunity to use the mobile version rather than only stick to the desktop. In case you already use other calendars, it’s important to pay attention to whether the app integrates with other tools so that have all scheduled events in a single place.
We hope our basic guide will help you set up the time blocking and make a difference in how self-disciplined and productive you are.
