For the past year or so, I’ve been experimenting with calendar blocking, and it’s honestly changed my life. If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’re either just getting started with time blocking, or have been experimenting with it for a while, but want to optimize your time blocking categories. In this article, I’ll be sharing the most essential categories to add to your calendar to be productive (most 😉) every day.
Importance of Time Blocking Categories
Creating time blocking categories for your various responsibilities and goals will help immensely in your productivity journey.
If you’re just starting out, it can take some trial and error to find the right ones. There’s nothing wrong with deleting certain categories or swapping them out for new ones if you find they’re not working for you.
It’s important to find the most relevant time blocking categories for your daily life.
For example, a new mom’s time blocking categories will probably look different than a college student who is in classes all day.
In this article, I’ll be sharing some common categories that almost everyone can benefit from. How you choose to use them and the other categories you add on are totally up to you!
What should be included in time blocking?
When you first start out with calendar blocking, you might be wondering what to include vs. leave off your calendar.
The truth is, the more you can add to your time blocked calendar, the more focused your time will be on your daily habits and priorities.
It’s totally okay to leave blank space on your calendar, and it is completely necessary for everyone to take time to relax and recharge. It’s up to you if you want to include these relaxation times on your calendar or not.
Scheduling time to relax (ex: a calendar block that just says “Netflix” or “bubble bath”) can help some people stick to it instead of skipping over time to themselves.
For other people, it can feel overwhelming to have every minute of their day blocked on a calendar.
I can understand both sides, so experiment with each option and find what works best for you!
That being said, the majority of your calendar can be divided up into these 5 time blocking categories…
5 Essential Time Blocking Categories
Work
This one’s pretty self-explanatory, but it’s essential to have time blocked off for your job, as that’s where you’ll spend a good majority of your time throughout the week.
I use the “Work” time block for my full schedule each day (usually around 9-5), as well as adding in meetings on top of the 9-5 block.
I have a separate Google Calendar on my work laptop with more specifics about the meetings and what I need to get done once I’m at work. So I keep it really general on my personal calendar, and just add in 1-hour blocks titled “Meeting”, so I know if I need to be prepared to get on a Zoom call or have a meeting in person.
If you don’t have a separate calendar on your work computer, you might choose to include more detail than I do in the work category. Which could also mean more time blocking categories such as meetings, admin tasks, and anything else you do at your job.
Also, if you commute to your job, be sure to add in time for your commute in the work category. 🚗
Side Hustle/Hobby
This will vary from person to person, but if you have a side hustle or important hobby, it could take up a good portion of your week.
For example, I have a “Blog” category on my Google calendar and will schedule out everything I need to do in the coming week to make sure my blog posts are on schedule.
In this category, I’ll include researching, outlining, writing, editing, admin, and more blocks. In the past, I’ve had separate time blocking categories for all of these tasks, but I found that to be overwhelming.
You can choose how far you want to break down your side hustle or hobby into more specific tasks.
Personal
This can be as inclusive as you want it to be (ex: include all your other categories like workouts, errands, meals, etc. into this category).
Alternatively, you can break it down further into more specific categories.
For example, I have different categories on my Google calendar for workouts, wellness (a very general category), and “life admin“. These could all easily fall into the personal category if you want. It’s up to you if you want to be looking out for any of these specific categories in your week.
For me, it’s easier to have a separate colored workouts category because I can quickly scan my calendar at the beginning of the day, look for any blue time blocks, and know that’s when I’ll work out today.
Travel
If you regularly travel, having a travel category is a game changer. You can easily look through the following months to see when you’ll be out of town, keep track of your flights, travel plans, and more.
I always make sure to put flight times and information in my Google calendar as soon as I book a flight. This saves so much time down the road instead of having to search through my emails or booking websites to find my flight information.
In this time block, I’ll also keep track of how many bags we have, when we should leave for the airport (or if someone is giving us a ride), and the flight number/airline for easy reference.
The travel category can also be used to block off the entire week (or however long you’re traveling) to show that you’ll be out of town.
Relax/Breaks
Like I said above, this is up to you if you want to include your recharge time in your calendar or not. For me, it’s been a game changer to be more intentional about my relaxation time, and schedule at least some time every day for this.
I’ve found that when I block an hour or two at the end of the day to recharge, I’m able to fully relax during that window. It stops me from thinking of the tasks I could be completing, or trying to multitask relaxation with accomplishing something on my to-do list.
It gives me the full freedom to enjoy the time and not worry about my to-do list for an hour.
For example, I’ve been blocking out a few hours during baseball season to watch the Cubs games. Or, I’ll block out an hour over the weekend for “self-care” and just do whatever I’m feeling when that time comes.
I’ve even found that blocking off a 30-minute window in the morning with just a coffee emoji ☕️ has allowed me to slow down and enjoy my mornings so much more. I’ll usually sit on the porch, sip my coffee, and have some time to myself before getting into blogging and the workday.
How you use (or don’t use) the Relax category is totally up to you.
Make sure to personalize it to you!
Feel free to choose more or less main categories, and add on as many other ones as you want.
I’ve found that having one category for a lot of random tasks works best for me. Having it too broken down can overwhelm me a bit, so having one “Wellness” category that includes things like cooking, eating meals, going on walks, getting things done around the house, reading, etc., makes it feel less stressful when deciding where to categorize something.
If it works better for you to have different categories for every single thing, then by all means, do that!
Time blocking is meant to help you be your most productive self and therefore will be super individualized to you: your daily routines, responsibilities, and goals.
That being said, your Google Calendar (or whatever calendar you use) will probably look very different from mine, and that’s the beauty of calendar blocking.
That’s all folks!
I hope this article helped you to start calendar blocking or optimize your time blocking categories.
Let me know in the comments what your most used time blocking category is.
Unfortunately, I had to disable open comments due to a ton of spam comments coming in, so comments will only be open for one month after a post goes live now. If you’re unable to comment but want to get in contact, feel free to email me. I’d love to hear from you! 🙂
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Thanks for reading! 💛
