It's 9:15 and you're already twenty minutes into rearranging colored rectangles, because yesterday ran long and now everything you blocked out is in the wrong place.
You haven't done any work yet. You've been doing scheduling, which is a different job that snuck onto your morning.
The morning spent dragging blocks
Time blocking gets recommended constantly, and for good reason, since a thing with an hour reserved for it is more likely to happen.
The trouble starts when every task gets an hour. Now your day is thirty rectangles, and the moment one meeting runs long, every rectangle after it is a lie. So you drag them. Then a call comes in and you drag them again. By Thursday you're not keeping a schedule, you're maintaining one.
What a calendar is actually holding
Look at what belongs on a calendar and it's pretty consistent. The dentist at 2:40. The flight. The standup. Your kid's recital.
Every one of those has a time you don't control and usually somebody else who'll notice if you're not there. That's what a calendar is for, and it's why it's rigid on purpose. Moving a calendar item should feel like a small deal, because for a real appointment it is one.
What a list is actually holding
Your tasks mostly aren't like that. "Write the update", "call the roofer back", "renew the registration" all need doing this week, and none of them care whether it's 10am or 3pm.
Putting a fake time on them buys you nothing and costs you the dragging. What they actually need is a day, and then to turn up on that day wherever you happen to be1. A due date does that job without pretending you know what 10am is going to look like.
Where the two really meet
They do meet, in one spot. When something on your list genuinely needs protected hours, put a block on the calendar for it, on purpose, because you're defending the time from other people.
That's worth doing for the two or three hard things in a week. Doing it for all twenty is how the morning gets eaten. And it helps to see your day's tasks next to your day's appointments, which is why 42 Todo! connects to your calendar. Looking at both is useful; merging them isn't.
A due date is not an appointment
The clean way to hold it is that a calendar answers where you have to be, and a list answers what you owe. Ask each one the question it can actually answer.
If a task slipping to tomorrow doesn't inconvenience another human being, it was never an appointment.
Frequently asked questions
Should I put my to-do list on my calendar?
- Only the few things that need protected time. Two or three hard items a week works well. Block all of it and you rebuild the day every time a meeting runs long. Most people quit after a couple of weeks of that.
What's the difference between a due date and a calendar event?
- A calendar event happens at a set time, and other people expect you there. A due date is just the day a task comes back to you. You do it whenever you get to it. Most tasks want a due date.
Can I see my tasks in Google Calendar?
- Google Tasks puts dated tasks right on your Google Calendar, since the two were built together. 42 Todo! connects to your calendar on the Personal plan, so you can see what's due next to where you have to be.
Does time blocking work?
- It works for deep work you'd never start otherwise, because the block keeps other people out of those hours. It works badly for a whole day. The first thing that runs long throws off every block behind it.
Footnotes
- What actually belongs on today's list why a date beats an hour for almost everything you owe. ↩
- Where Google Tasks runs out the closest thing to tasks living inside a calendar, and its limits. ↩