Do you schedule free days?
I have understood for many years the value of blocking time, but I have had varied degrees of success in implementing time blocking in my day-to-day activities.
There are a number of authors who write about the benefits of dedicating uninterrupted time to a task, any task.
The Power of Flow
In the 1990s, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced us to the concept of “flow” and its relationship to creativity and personal satisfaction (Flow and Creativity are among his books published in that decade). He equates a flow state to children playing. Children are great creators of new worlds and often maintain an active imagination that comes out beautifully in play.
When fully immersed, he notes, all time and space evaporates and they are taken to a mental state where, at the conclusion, they would have trouble telling you if they had been playing for thirty minutes or two hours.
With adults, he goes on to say, we can find flow states at work or in hobbies. His research suggests that two things seem to be critical to a flow state. The first is that we must be enjoying ourselves. If we are in flow, the activity is bringing us some kind of joy, satisfaction, or sense of achievement. Secondly, in a flow state, we are more likely to be doing something just outside our current level of competence in that task. We are stretching ourselves, but we are not engaging in something that is too far beyond our abilities.
Free, Focus, and Buffer Days
More recently, there has emerged a lot of research on the negative impact of being interrupted. It takes us some time to mentally adjust to the task we have in front of us. Interruptions, like a drop-in to your office or something as simple as a buzz from an incoming text, negatively impact our productivity beyond the time that it takes to address the interruption. It can take us up to as many as twenty minutes to get back to the level of engagement and productivity we had achieved prior to being interrupted.
But what happens if we took this concept one step further and spoke about it in terms of days? In their book, 10X Is Easier Than 2X, Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy define three different kinds of days.
Free Days
In Sullivan’s early professional life as an entertainer, these were rejuvenation days. He recommends that the first priority on these days is focused on your physical health and often involves lots of sleep and rest. It is also filled with freedom of thought, space to allow your mind to wander. By giving space between us and the ideas and tasks that dominate our workdays, we often wind our way to new ideas and breakthroughs that we were too close to the task to see.
Focus Days
In the entertainment space, Sullivan notes that these were the performance days. In our work world, they are the days when we show up and do the thing that we do for a living. While he does not discuss it in his writings, I believe these are the days where time blocking, as described earlier in this text, is critical.
Buffer Days
These were known as organization and preparation days in Sullivan’s entertaining career. They are for any form of preparation or organization, whether that be meeting with key collaborators, working with consultants or coaches, meeting with your team, or preparing notes or resources you will later use on your Focus Days.
Making It Work in Your Life
As a business owner, I have found my time muddied. One “problem” I have experienced is that I am really enjoying the work I am doing and the people with whom I am doing it. It is easy for me to justify working long hours when I continue to be energized by what is being accomplished and who is being helped.
After reading Sullivan’s book, I have felt compelled to double down on some of the time-blocking tactics I share here. I am writing this text in the middle of a three-hour block of time I am dedicating to creation. I have also challenged myself to maintain a day where I do nothing related to my business. I read and spend time with my family. I exercise and work in the yard or in my workshop.
I am finding a new level of productivity and creativity when I am able to hold myself accountable to these tactics. It is also remarkable to me the phenomenon of how not thinking about something allows me to find answers to that something. If I allow my mind to wander, it seems to unlock something in my brain where new ideas sit.
What in your daily or weekly routine is worth re-evaluating? Where could you be smarter with your time, and what would that potentially make possible?
Start Designing Your Days
If you’d like help designing your work days as a business leader, I’d love to continue the conversation:
No pressure—just an opportunity to explore how creating space and clarity in your days can lead to better decisions, stronger leadership, and more effective, thriving teams.
