Time-Blocking
Your Method to Supercharge Productivity
& Reach Your Goals
Luke Seavers
One Nine Pro Publishing
CHARLESTON, SC
Copyright 2020 by Luke Seavers
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.
One Nine Pro Publishing
www.oneninepro.com
Book Design by Luke Seavers
Edited by Cortney Donelson
Author Headshot by Sarah Elaine Photography
Time-Blocking: Your Method to Supercharge Productivity & Reach Your Goals / Luke Seavers . -- 1st ed.
ISBN: 9798588777780
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV.
Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
www.zondervan.com
The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.
To my Mastermind Group
THOMAS HEATH, JON STROUD, & LISA BURBAGE
for keeping me accountable to get this book done.
&
To my wife
SEMONE
for always supporting me and encouraging me
in everything I do.
CONTENTS
Introduction
T heres just not enough time in the day...
I would consider myself to be a driven person. Im an entrepreneur with many dreams and goals that I long to see accomplished in my life, even in this year alone. But with this, has often come the familiar frustration: theres just not enough time in the day.
It felt as if I had uttered this lament on more occasions than I could count. This time, I was in the kitchen venting to my wife after a long day. Sure, I had gotten several things checked off my To-Do list that day, but I just wasnt able to get to all the things I had planned to do.
But my wife, of course, met me with a familiar reply: Well, you know, everyone is given the exact same twenty-four hours each day.
This had never seemed that helpfulit certainly wasnt at this moment. In fact, it only served to fuel my frustration.
Why couldnt I get everything done that I wanted to get done? Was I doing something wrong?
Was I not working hard enough? It sure felt like I couldnt work much harder than I already was.
Was I not working long enough? I was already burning the candle at both ends, plus working many weekends.
What was I missing?
As much as it pained me to say, when it came down to it, I had to admit that my wife was right. Every one of the all-time greatsindividuals such as Thomas Edison, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling, and Michael Jordanwere all given the same amount of time each day to accomplish incredible things. Each of these men and women, on top of all the others you could name, had just twenty-four hours.
One thing was for sure: whether winning an NBA championship or building a multi-billion-dollar business, they did something right. They took the twenty-four hours they were given and maximized it to their greatest ends. I would venture to guess they managed their time well.
When we talk about productivity, the conversation often goes to time management. How can we manage our time better? But what if I told you that the secret to productivity was actually not managing your time.
Time is a limited resource. Its constantly slipping by, with no way to retrieve it. And though we can learn to manage the little time that we have, we will still never be able to get more of it. The expression we use to make more time for __ is ultimately a lie.
So, you see, the secret to productivity is not managing your time but managing your focus .
What we can do is find ways to increase our capacity to focus, and use this to maximize the time we are given.
Of course, to say that the answer to all of your productivity woes is focus management is like saying the secret to winning the Super Bowl is by playing football well. What you need is a game plan.
Time-Blocking is your game plan for effectively managing not just your time, but, more importantly, your focus. It will allow you to achieve new levels of productivity and reach your highest goals.
When I first discovered this productivity superweapon, I was skeptical of it. The idea of planning out my entire day hour-by-hour initially seemed too constraining. I was also concerned that spending the extra time to Time-Block my day would end up taking valuable time away from me. But what I have found is that it has provided me more freedom, not less. I eventually learned how to do it in less than a minute on any given day.
I see now why this tool has been utilized in some form by accomplished individuals, including Elon Musk and Bill Gates.
During my first year using this method, I managed to reach ninety percent of the goals I had set for that year. Yes, ninety percent! (The missed ten percent was due, in part, to circumstances beyond my control and, in part, to setting one very unrealistic goal). Among these goals were finalizing my daughters adoption, joining a growing tech startup putting in over 200 hours of sweat equity, raising $12,000 dollars for a project to bring water to remote villages in Haiti, and taking three vacationsall while continuing to run my branding and marketing agency and remaining present as a husband and a father.
The Time-Blocking Method can be used to win your day, giving you the focus you need to manage large tasks, reduce daily distractions, and complete your To-Do list in less time.
It will allow you to accomplish long-term professional goals, such as launching a product, meeting monthly sales quotas, or writing a book. (This book was written using the Time-Blocking Method.) You can use it to learn a foreign language, schedule daily prayer and meditation, train for a marathon, or master a musical instrument.
It can even help you improve your relationships, giving you more time and better quality time with your children, spouse, or close friends. It is for business owners, employees, CEOs, managers, athletes, artists, stay-at-home-moms, and more.
Time-Blocking is not a magic formula. In fact, its actually a simple concept.
If I shared just the bare bones method with you, I could probably explain it in just a page or two. But I feel that I would be doing you a massive disservice.
You see, you could go and start Time-Blocking today and begin filling up your schedule with loads of tasks. You may even see that you are getting a lot of things done. But lets make an important distinction here. Getting a lot of things done does not necessarily mean you are achieving productivity. It probably means youre achieving busyness.
Chances are, you are already busy. You are too busy right now to accomplish all of the things you want to accomplish. Busyness has gotten you nowhere up until this point, and it should not be the end goal. What I am about to teach you in this book is how to be truly productive, not busy.
And for this reason, I am not only going to teach you the Time-Blocking Method, but also explain the mindset behind it. In Section 1, we will dig deep into the Time-Blocking Mindset. This is the philosophy behind why it works, as well as the approach you need to take in order to be successful with it.
Throughout these first few chapters, we will discuss the Five Rules of Time-Blocking, which are:
Maintain Single-Focus
Determine Your Essentials
Achieve More by Doing Less
Plan to Recharge
Take Back Control of Your Time