A practical guide to using the time boxing time management strategy to boost focus, sharpen your prioritisation, overcome prioritisation, mitigate perfectionism and ultimately get your work done faster.
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Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert Podcast
and to the second installment ina three-part mini-series on how
to get your study tasks donefaster.
In part one of this three-partseries, back in episode 204, we
talked about the surprisingpower of how having a better
to-do list can actually help youget your work done faster.
(00:23):
Today, in part two, I want totake a look at how setting
limits on the time you'reallowing for your study tasks
can help you get through them inrecord time.
I had meant to get this episodeout last week, but I have not
been too well.
You might still be able to heara bit of that in my voice.
So I'm going to try and keep itshort and sweet for today,
which, if anything, does fitquite well with today's theme.
(00:46):
So I was originally taught thisas a time management technique
called time boxing.
The idea with time boxing isrelatively simple.
You write out your task list inorder of attack, as we did back
in episode 204, then youeffectively fill in a timetable
for your to-do list next to eachitem.
I find this works best when youadd in the actual times per the
(01:10):
clock, not just the duration ofthe task.
It then saves you kind of havingto translate your plan onto the
clock as you go.
So rather than writing, I'mgoing to allow 30 minutes for
the first task, an hour for thesecond, 10 minutes for the
second for the third task, andso on, you would instead write 6
to 6.30 for task one, 6.30 to7.30 for task two, 7.30 to 7.40
(01:32):
for task three.
Then you can easily keep an eyeon where you're at in your plan
as you work through yourevening.
When it's 7.15, you know you'reon the final 15 minutes of task
two, for example.
So why does time boxing work?
Why does restricting the amountof time we allow for tasks help
us get through them faster?
(01:54):
The wisdom behind this is notanything new.
Many of you may be familiar withthe age-old Parkinson's law,
which is often stated as workexpands so as to fill the time
available for its completion.
And it was originally from apiece by naval historian Cyril
Parkinson for The Economist.
(02:16):
The mechanism by which timeboxing or kind of restricting
the time available for tasks, uhby which this actually works to
help us get them done faster,more efficiently, the mechanism
varies a little bit.
So it can be about a reducedtendency to procrastinate or
reduced tendency to getdistracted.
In other words, helping you stayfixed on your task for a greater
(02:39):
proportion of the available timerather than wasting it being
procrastinating onprocrastination activities or
getting distracted and off-task.
It can also be about kind of asense of forced efficiency.
So you have to be sharper aboutthe way you prioritize your
efforts, reducing the time youspend on tangents or lower value
parts of the task, and shuttingdown our opportunity for
(03:02):
perfectionism or completionisttendencies, forcing you to
settle for something that's goodenough, if not completely
polished to the nth degree ofperfection.
Tight time boxing, so beingparticularly sort of closely
tightly restricted with theamount of time you give
yourself, that tends to be agood approach when you're
already fairly confident withthe kind of task you have to do.
(03:26):
So it's it's it's for example aa broadly doable set of problem
sheets to get done or or a setof readings to complete.
And you know, you've done thissort of thing before.
It's it's you know, you may haveto think about it a little bit,
but it's not going to like bethe most incredibly difficult
thing you've ever had to tackle.
You know, and this allows youto, this sort of familiarity
with the kind of task allows youto be relatively accurate in
(03:48):
predicting how long it shouldtake.
And also that time restrictionwill then serve as helpful
guardrails to help keep you ontrack and help get you done, get
get the task, help help you getthe task done efficiently.
On the other hand, if the taskis something very new or very
creative, and it's going todemand some original thinking,
or or it's or it's verychallenging, it's just simply
(04:09):
really, really difficult stuff.
You might want to be moregenerous with your time boxing,
or perhaps consider not usingthe strategy at all.
Psychologists uh Brian andLocke, in a classic 1967 study,
found that loggers log faster,um, chop down more trees when
given tighter time deadlines andincentive for meeting them.
(04:29):
On the other hand, Berkeleyresearchers, Moore and Tenny,
noted in a more recent 2012piece that when we comes to more
cognitively demanding orcreative or innovative tasks,
um, doing too much time pressureplaces constraints, as they put
it, on the capacity for thoughtand action that limit
exploration and increasereliance on well-learned or
heuristic strategies.
Translation, you're less likelycome up with something new or
(04:51):
groundbreaking, you less likelymake a huge leap in your skill
set, for example, as a writer,when you time box, for those
kind of big innovative jumps orbig leaps in your sort of level
of skill for a certain kind ofthing, it we often benefit from
less time pressure and thefreedom that comes with that to
experiment and take risks.
There's a time for that.
(05:12):
But as scholars, there's also atime for just bashing out a more
standard and routine set ofstudy tasks on a day-to-day
basis.
So there's a key point hereabout awareness of the kind of
work you're working on.
Is it very challenging?
Is it very creative, in whichcase time boxing perhaps not
might not be the fit, or is itperhaps a little bit more
routine, uh a little bit morewithin your comfort zone, in
which case uh turning on thetime boxing might help us get
(05:35):
through it uh more efficientlyand save ourselves some time in
the process.
So, um personally, I turn totime boxing on my most
high-pressure days.
Those days when you look at yourto-do list and you just think,
oh my gosh, how on earth am Igoing to get through all of this
uh in in the time I need totoday?
Uh I do the time boxing exerciseand I find some sense of peace
(05:56):
when I've done that because Iknow that there is a plan to get
it done.
I just need to be disciplined ateach step of the way.
Um my wife, on the other hand,she spent many years as a French
teacher, uh, and teachers almostnever have the luxury of enough
time to spend on all the thingsthat they want to do, as I'm
sure my teachers that listen tothe podcast know all too well.
Um, so my my wife used timeboxing extensively as probably
(06:20):
the main productivity tool I sawher use.
Um and she could easily spend,she could have easily chosen to
spend, you know, maybe two hourson a given lesson plan for an
upcoming class, given unlimitedtime.
She simply didn't have theluxury of allowing herself that
much time for every single task.
She just wouldn't have fitted inthe time available.
Um so she'd time box, she'd giveherself, say, 40 minutes to get
(06:41):
that lesson plan done.
She'd focus hard, she'd find away to make it happen, and it
happened.
It might not have been uh theyou know the absolutely sort of
perfect, glowing, you know,fizzies and whizzes kind of
lesson plan that if she'd hadtwo hours to spend on it, but it
was good, and she was a goodteacher, uh, and she did a
really good plan in the 40minutes uh and and and it led to
a great lesson.
(07:01):
So, time boxing, think of thisas a useful tool to have in your
arsenal, whether you choose touse it as a daily tool to
sharpen your work rate and getthings done in time and get
things done a little bit faster,or whether it's something you
you dip into from time to time,uh perhaps as I do when you're
facing a big time crunch.
So give it a spin, and as ever,let me know your thoughts,
(07:22):
feedback, queries, and questionsdown in the comments section uh
wherein platforms that supportsuch a thing, for example,
Spotify or YouTube.
That'll do it for today though.
Um the plan, just to look aheada few weeks a little bit, uh the
plan to take us through toChristmas uh is uh next week
we're gonna be having a lovelyconversation on confidence with
(07:46):
my friend and confidence coachuh Scott Hardiman.
That's a really nice episode.
I think you'll really enjoythat.
Um, followed by uh the weekafter that, we'll have the third
and final installment of thislittle how to study faster
series uh that we've been uhwe've been working on over the
past uh couple of solo episodes.
Um the week beyond that, whichwill be our final week before
Christmas, um I've got aparticular treat for you.
(08:08):
Uh a very special guest who'snew to exam study experts.
I think you're gonna love thatone.
Uh, should make for perfectholiday season listening uh to
pop on in the car, somethingreally, uh, really kind of
fascinating and probably quite afresh bit of science that's that
is quite new to many of youalready get your mind spinning
with all the kind of practicalimplications.
I think I think that'll be areally interesting one.
Uh pop up pop it on in the carif you're traveling to visit
family over the holiday season,perhaps.
(08:29):
Uh, and I'll be sharing moreabout that, of course, uh a
little bit nearer the time in acouple of weeks.
Looking even further ahead to2026, um, as I've been
mentioning once or twice overrecent months, uh, I've I've
been hard at work uh building upa really great run of episodes
for us for um the pretty muchwe've pretty much got the first
half of 2026 uh more or less inthe bag now.
(08:50):
We've got interviews recordedthat I think that takes us out
to around May time or so uh onthe broadcast schedule.
So we're well on top of thingsuh and in really great shape to
bring you a really first rateand very well structured season
uh of top-notch episodes toinform, inspire, and help you
study smarter.
So stick around, tell yourfriends, there's lots of great
stuff coming your way.
(09:11):
As always, I just wanted to takea second to say thank you so
much for tuning in today.
Uh, particularly thank aparticular thanks to those who
support the show on Patreon andlooking forward to seeing you
again soon.
SPEAKER_00 (09:25):
If you've got exams coming up, you can now get all
of William's favourite tips andtricks to save you time and get
you higher grades all in onehandy cheat sheet.
Grab your coffee atexamstudiexpert.com slash free
tips.
Thanks again for listening andsee you soon.
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