Gijs Verheijke

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My system to fight distraction and get work done

11 July 2023

My system is not ground breaking. In fact it's anything but. However, I can say that it is very thought through, backed by (some) science, and the result of years of iteration. When people see it they often ask me how they can set themselves up in a similar way.

My home base to get things done is my calendar. I use Vimcal, which is the fastest and most helpful calendar app I've been able to find*. What's in my calendar is going to happen, and nothing else is. My calendar contains recurring blocked slots dedicated to work, during which I appear as busy to my teammates so they don't book meetings with me. Every week, I prioritize my tasks, decide how long they should take, and then put them in my calendar replacing those slots.

This approach is often called 'Time Boxing'.

Why working from a todo list is a recipe for disaster

• A list of items is detached from the dimension of time. If I look at the meetings in my calendar for the coming week, and then look at my todo list, it becomes clear that there is not going to be enough time between meetings to finish all my todos.
• And during the course of my day, new todos are constantly being created.
• So at the end of the day my todo list will never be empty. It will be a bit shorter, if I'm lucky...
• Since the implicit assumption behind a todo list is that you need to finish it, this makes me feel like I'm failing to be as productive as I want, which is demotivating and demoralizing → bad for productivity and a vicious cycle.

The solution is to schedule the work in your calendar

• You look at the items on your todo list, estimate the time it will take to do them, and then schedule that time in your calendar, including a specific location.
• This is called making an implementation intention. Now, instead of just having a list of things you have to do, you have committed to a specific time and place where you will do that task.
• Try to schedule your tasks as far in advance as possible. In the morning, you should be looking only at your calendar, not your todo list.

Focus not on the destination (finishing the task), but the journey (working on the task for x hours)

Once you have boxed time in your calendar to work on a task, the goal is not to finish the task, the goal is simply to work on that task with full attention for that entire time. It turns out that people who use this technique actually end up finishing way more than people who don't. They end up being a lot more productive (and happier). I have one more tip related to tool use for your happiness and productivity: your brain doesn't make a distinction between 'work' and 'personal' tasks. So, why use separate tools? I strongly believe that you should have one unified task list and calendar for everything in your life. Read more here {work in progress}

For the rest of this post I will lay out which components a good timeboxing 'stack' requires, and suggest options you can try ranging from free to paid.

Build your own Timeboxing Stack (or steal mine)

You'll only need 3 components:

1. A gathering place for tasks. let's call it our 'Tasklist' or 'Backlog'
2. A system to schedule those tasks in your calendar
3. A calendar

Do it for free

Requirements: Available on all platforms, able to add tasks while offline.
Nice to have: Ability to separate tasks by category (often called 'project' in those apps).

• Task list
• Reminders app
• Todoist (solid free plan)
• A Google Sheet
• Emails to yourself
• WhatsApp messages to yourself
• Scheduling
• A weekly ritual to prioritize and plan tasks
• Some time to manually plan the tasks in your calendar
• Calendar: Whatever you're using

Steal my stack

• Todoist for task list
• Tascaly for 2-way sync between Todoist and Calendar
• Vimcal for calendar

For a detailed explanation of why I use this setup, and how to set it up, read this {in progress}.

All-in tools

Timeboxing is quite hip (because it works). There are a shocking number of all-in tools that aim to get more people to do it. Some of the more well-known ones are: Akiflow and Reclaim. I tried these and others and I didn't really like them. Unfortunately I don't fully remember why for each, but I think mostly because I felt it was too cumbersome to capture tasks compared with Todoist.

I do actually use Reclaim for one life saving feature that is available in the free plan: When I add an event to my personal gmail calendar, it automatically creates a shadow event with the title 'personal commitment' in my work calendar.

*Disclosure: I'm an investor in Vimcal and the link I shared is my own referral link. Use it to get a free month and give me one too.