Execute Your Plan: Time Boxing

You’ve tracked your time, and you’ve developed a detailed plan to spend it more wisely. The next step is putting your plan into action and sticking to it. You’ll do this using a tool called time boxing.

Execution is by far the hardest part of the time-management process. When you’re juggling a wide range of tasks, goals, responsibilities, meetings, and deadlines, it’s not easy to stick to a plan, no matter how carefully crafted it is. But if you take a more disciplined, thoughtful, and organized approach to your daily schedule, it is possible to stay on track.

Time-boxing basics

Time boxing is a planning tool that’s a cross between a calendar and a to-do list. It involves breaking down your schedule into a number ...

Get Managing Time (HBR 20-Minute Manager Series) now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.