3 Reasons to Make Your Time Blocks Outcome-Focused

One of the biggest mistakes people make with respect to productivity is focusing on a “to-do” list.

This is a recipe for overwhelm. It’s like a putting a list of ingredients on a shopping list with no sense of what you’re going to do with them.

Instead, your first focus should be on defining the outcomes — or results —you want to achieve and let the tasks flow from there.

One reason many people don’t think about the outcome is that outcomes take longer to achieve than individual tasks. It’s harder to maintain momentum on something that can take long stretches of time to complete. It’s much more fun to check items off a to-do list than to manage a longer term process.

That’s why time blocking is so useful. One of the many benefits of time blocking is that it gives us a “bucket” for the tasks we need to do to achieve an outcome.

By tying time blocks to specific outcomes you can visually see the time you’ve allocated to achieving that result.

Of course, when planning your time blocks you want to be clear on the specifics of what you plan to do, because that dictates the other other essential elements, including where you’ll do the task and what you need. It also helps you determine how much transition time you’ll need.

That said, it’s important to keep your focus on the outcome you’re aiming for. The best way to do this is to label each time block by the outcome or result.

3 Reasons to Define Your Time Blocks By Outcome Instead of Tasks

Here are 3 reasons why you want to tie your time blocks to specific outcomes, rather than just tasks.

(1) Save Time and Energy

Here’s a newsflash: for any result, there are many things you could do, but not all of them are necessary.

Defining the outcome first helps you determine what tasks are relevant and necessary to achieve the results you desire.

Once you define the outcome and the tasks you believe are relevant to the outcome, you can potentially reduce your workload by applying the Pareto Principle.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, says that approximately 80% of your result comes from 20% of your tasks.

In other words, you don’t have to do everything. By eliminating what’s not necessary you’ll save yourself time and energy.

For example, your dinner recipe might require chopping a lot of vegetables. Instead of allocating time to chop all the vegetables yourself, you might decide to buy pre-cut vegetables, which will reduce your meal prep time.

(2) Feel a Sense of Purpose and Progress

It’s unlikely that you’ll achieve a major outcome in one time block — most big results take months to come to fruition. By dedicating a time block to working toward a particular outcome, you frame your time with a sense of purpose.

For example, one reason many people struggle to maintain consistency in their workouts and fitness is because they haven’t framed the activity around a bigger purpose. Without a tangible outcome, going to the gym every day can feel boring and monotonous.

On the other hand, if you’re training for a competition or event, you see every workout as a training session; a small piece that leads to a bigger prize.

Tying your tasks to a larger outcome fuels them with a sense of purpose and helps you feel a sense of progress toward the ultimate result. This gives you a dopamine boost that will motivate you to schedule more time blocks in your week to work on that result.

(3) Adapt Your Tasks Based on Energy Levels

Here’s a real truth about ADHD: sometimes, despite our best efforts at planning tasks for our best energy times, we may not have the energy level we need for a task when that time comes.

Or, sometimes stuff comes up, forcing us to cut a time block shorter than we had planned.

If you defined the time block by a specific task, you’ve set yourself up for an easy out when your energy isn’t aligned or you don’t have the time you had planned.

You’ll be more likely to procrastinate or write off the time because you didn’t have “enough” time for that task. What happens next? You’ll likely feel bad that you didn’t make progress. You might feel disappointed, deflated, and demotivated, which makes it harder to return to that task the next time.

On the other hand, if you tie the time block to an outcome, you can easily pivot to a different task related to that outcome that better fits the energy or time you have available.

This allows you to make progress on the outcome no matter how much time or energy you have available.

Even a little bit of progress will help you maintain momentum and motivate you to schedule more time blocks to work toward that outcome.