We’ve talked about time blocking before, which is taking chunks of your day and categorizing it into tasks to complete. It’s kind of taking your to-do list and assigning each task a time and day to be completed, if you want to read more about that, you can read that blog here. 

But, time blocking isn’t the only way to schedule your days and increase your productivity. In fact, some people actually find that they are more productive when they can dedicate a whole day to certain tasks, instead of spreading them out over the week. This is what we call day blocking.

What’s the Difference?

Well, time blocking means that your week is scheduled in a way that looks similar day-to-day. You categorize your tasks and work on them a little bit each day. For example, you might work on social media content every day from 9-11am and schedule meetings 12-2pm every day. 

When you look at day blocking, it’s blocking out the entire day to work on specific tasks. So Mondays might be the day you plan content and Thursdays might be your meeting days. Essentially, you’re dedicating the entire day, or most of it, to focus on a specific task, instead of spreading it out through the week. 

A really easy comparison is thinking about laundry. Are you the type of person who does a load of laundry every night or every couple of nights? That’s time blocking. Or, are you the type of person who saves it and does laundry every Sunday? That’s day blocking. 

Which one should I choose?

Well, it depends on your work style, how you focus your business and your clients. Some people find that time blocking breaks up their day too much and they feel like they’re never finishing the whole job. Other people feel like day blocking makes the days too long. Maybe writing blogs isn’t your favourite task, are you going to dread every Tuesday? 

Think about working with your clients too. With time blocking, you can schedule client work to be completed as needed. Maybe something popped up for Client A that you can squeeze into your “client work” time slot on Thursday. If you schedule client work that you only work on Client A stuff on Mondays, what happens when something pops up for Client A on Thursday? 

It’s really a decision you have to work through to see what you like better, what works for your business best, and what increases YOUR productivity. I can’t give you the answer to that! 

Now, we showed you an example of a time blocking schedule in the Time Blocking blog. See how the days look pretty similar, with time blocked out for each task throughout the day?

Well, here’s an example of what day blocking might look like. Each day is dedicated to a specific task. Your day might be scheduled a little differently, knowing you still do yoga and take the kids to school before you start your work day, eat lunch, and spend the end of the day working on social media engagement, and responding to emails. But you’ll know that during your working hours (which is maybe cut down to 9am -3pm to leave room for the other things) on Mondays you focus on planning social media, on Tuesdays you focus on blogs, etc. 

I hope that’s helpful for you when you’re choosing how to schedule your days/weeks. We know that having a schedule increases our productivity and keeps us motivated. It’s just important that you find one that works for you. If you try one of these methods, let us know how it works! 

We’d love to hear back!