Timeboxing 101: 3 Lessons Learned after two years of Timeboxing
Do you want to create a successful company?
Then learn to manage yourself first. Timeboxing is a method that helps you with your self-management and also your organization to optimize the business towards more efficiency.
Managing organizations means managing a lot of people. Many believe everything falls into place once they get a lot of capital from investors and hire many people, but this is far from reality.
Everybody who wants to create a successful business must clean their closet first and understand how to focus people's attention on the company's mission.
One way to eliminate part of the clutter is using Elon Musk's timeboxing methodology.
Here is my article that describes the basics:
After writing this article, I started focusing on timeboxing to get more done. It sounded quite simple and easy in theory, but it created severe challenges after I was into the method for a few months.
Here is how I resolved them:
Smaller Boxes, Clear Tasks, and Stick to It
Parkinson’s Law is the old adage that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. The term was first coined by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in a humorous essay he wrote for “The Economist” in 1955.
The first problem I ran into was experiencing Parkinson's Law. Whatever time I assigned a specific task took the entire time.
Writing, for example.
I started with defining a list of articles I wanted to write and created a 60 minutes box for Writing.
Well, it was what I did. I jotted down notes and researched — mostly reading books and surfing the internet.
It felt good, but the output of the articles went down. It was unsuccessful since my success criteria was "Number of Articles published."
One of my first learnings was being clear on the purpose of a task in a timebox. Instead of Writing, I started defining which article topic I wanted to produce at which stage.
For example — instead of "writing," the Task is "1st Draft of a Review of my Experiences with Timeboxing" — 30 Minutes.
A draft should be a free flow of thoughts and not killed by perfection.
Declutter Your Day — Eliminate What You Don't Need
It’s not the daily increase but the daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. — Bruce Lee
The martial arts icon Bruce Lee defined decades ago that success is a clear focus on the few things that create success.
The Pareto principle states that 80% of success is created from 20% of the activities. Focus on the 20%, and the rest will fall into places.
It is an insight that helped me declutter the way I handle meetings.
I like talking with people. It doesn't matter whether they are useful for my business or not. Every conversation is an opportunity to learn something new.
On top of that, some people are quite entertaining in a positive way and charming. Spending hours with them is fun.
But the caveat: It doesn't create a business that pays the bill.
"Try not to make a 12-minute meeting into an hour."
This is true for all activities. I was surprised at how much time a day has after this insight.
When I meet people, I re-assess every 15 minutes if it makes sense for my goals to continue meetings. There is no need to be rude or impolite.
It is just an "It was nice to meet you, but sorry, I have another meeting starting in x minutes and need to go." Everybody respects that and presented with a smile and some kind words, never creating any pushback.
It is also a perfect method for those 2023 Timesinks like Social Media. It is ok, just set the alarm 15 minutes later that pulls you out of consuming content for another hour.
Know Your Goal and Journal what you do.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat — Sun Tzu
A strategy is a high-level roadmap to achieve a specific goal. The goal is often described in a vision statement, while the tactics are short-term actions — aka action plan.
Using timeboxing sharpens the awareness towards the question:
To what end? What is the long-term goal?
In simple terms:
Sure, it is nice to have a conversation in the coffee shop around the corner. But after 15 minutes, everybody usually knows whether this is a fun talk or can create something meaningful for personal or business goals.
But:
What is the compass to assess the situation? What is the north star?
It is your goal.
In the first days of timeboxing, I often felt that a specific action — like browsing the web — felt odd.
Once I started questioning why this helped accomplish my goals, it became clear that many actions don't help me move forward.
Sure, it is nice to show off at viennesse balls in Winter. But when I am in the middle of building a company and what that to be my core mission, the most important question is quite obvious:
Do I find customers or investors at the event? What is the likelihood that I come home with 5 high-value contacts?
When I look through this lens, a meeting with a low likelihood of adding value to my goal is a meeting to which I have to say no.
It frees up time for more practical tasks. Instead of hanging out late at night at a ballroom, it is often better to get 8 hours of sleep and invest 5 hours writing emails to prospects with a high probability of turning into a business.
To wrap it up, after two years of timeboxing — the benefits are incredible:
- I have decluttered my mornings—a clear routine with clear timeboxes — non-negotiable.
- The first thing I do in the morning is look at my goals and consciously decide which five tasks my collaborators or I should finish today to move the needle towards my goals.
- Of course, there is a "more ideas" list — but the five most important ones are first thing in the workday.
Timeboxing helps you think about your goals and align your daily actions.
Everyone on this planet has the same 24 hours every day. How people fill their days is what makes a huge difference.
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