THE PUNCH CARD METHOD: AN ALTERNATIVE TO TASK LISTS AND TIME BLOCKING
THE PROBLEM WITH TIME BLOCKING
I love the idea of time blocking - blocking every hour of the work day to have a specific purpose, in order to get more done while also making it easier to determine if you’re on or off track.
However, as an ENFP, a type 7 on the Enneagram, and someone who has a constantly strained relationship with my calendar, I have found this method to be slightly anxiety-inducing. Looking at my calendar to see an entire day of tiny boxes on the calendar with no breaks and no blank spaces makes my exhales a bit shorter. I have found the same to be true for many of my clients; simply the idea of a tight schedule or rigid structure causes a bit of panic.
The thing I often dream about, and continually try to create more of in my life, is white space.
So how do we reconcile these two things - the desire to make the most of our time, to be on track, to give our precious hours a specific sense of purpose each day - while also allowing ourselves the freedom and flexibility to not have to be completely bound to the tiny boxes on the calendar?
THE PUNCH CARD METHOD
I like to use what I call the Punch Card Method.
The method is based on two key ideas.
We write down the 1-5 things that we absolutely must get done in a day.
We do these things between a specific block of time. I strongly advocate for first thing in the morning - for example between the hours of 6 and 10 am, or between the hours of 8-11 am. That said, I know that this doesn’t work for everyone, and that not everyone is a morning person, so there is flexibility here.
Rather than scheduling our entire day from start to end with tiny boxes on the calendar, we create one key work block at the time of day where we know we are most productive. And then, during that predetermined and pre-scheduled chunk of time, we do the things on our “punch card.”
I call this the Punch Card Method because I think of it as one of those coffee shop punch cards where you get a punch each time you buy a cup of coffee. It doesn’t matter what order the punches are filled in, or whether you get a latte on Monday or a cup of dark roast on Thursday. What matters is that you get to 10 punches after you purchase 10 drinks.
The same is true with this method. It doesn’t matter if you start with the first or the fifth thing on your list. What matters is that you do the things on your list, and that by the end of your block of time, they are complete. For some people, it might be easier to start with the low hanging fruit - sending the email or scheduling the appointment - to get your brain warmed up for the day. For others, it may be easier to start with the big, strategic, creative task that requires your full brain power, before you look at your inbox or any news or any other intake for the day.
This method might be helpful for you if you identify with one or more of the following:
You crave a level of structure, but you don’t necessarily like schedules.
You value being productive and getting important things done, but you don’t love when the calendar is filled with tiny boxes from 8-5 each day.
You have tried, and failed at, a plethora of time management techniques over the series of the last several years or decades.
You are very distinctly aware of your most productive time of day. Hint: most of us know this. The trick is to embrace this information in order to work with versus against our natural tendencies.
IMPLEMENTING THE PUNCH CARD METHOD
If you’d like to give the Punch Card Method a try, here is how to get started.
Block time on your calendar for the upcoming days (ideally for the whole week), during your most productive time of day. Ideally, this will be the first couple hours of your day. If this isn’t possible, block this time where you can get it for now - and then, moving forward, do this process further in advance, so that you can block this time first, before anything else gets scheduled in it. I find that looking ahead two weeks is often far enough out to remain flexible and adaptable, while also getting ahead of meetings that might pop in.
Think about your key goals for the year. What are the top 5 priorities for you right now, in this moment, for the duration of the year? Now, back up from these priorities to think about your top 5 priorities for:
This month
This week
Based on your reflection on the year, the month, and the week, identify your top 1-5 priorities for the day ahead. This becomes your punch card for the day - to be completed during the time that you’ve blocked.
Repeat this process weekly (big picture reflection + scheduling out your work blocks) and daily (creating the daily punch card) and continue to tweak and refine it in a way that works for you as you go.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why is there a maximum of five items on the punch card?
This, importantly, is different than just making a task list. Many of us make a task list where we write down every possible thing that we can think of to do for the day, and get about 2% of the things done. My favorite example of this is from the dear clients and colleagues who carry around a sheet of notebook paper with about 100 items scribbled all over it - adding to it, and adding to it, and adding to it - until there is no space left on the page. Research from multiple studies, most notably The Zeigarnik Effect, has found that the more things we put on our list, the fewer that we actually gets done - and that we are more successful and effective when we are actually able to cross things off of our lists.
Creating a cap of five items forces us to think about true priorities that are based on our goals, rather than simply a smattering of tasks. This is an important distinction.
What if I work in a place where we constantly have meetings 8-5 every day, and there is no free time for me to schedule a work block?
With love, I would say that both you, and your organization, have a problem. I say that not from a place of judgment, but rather from a place of empathy. I, too, used to work in an environment like this. I often found myself in meetings from 7 am (occasionally 6:30) until 5, 5:30, or 6 and beyond. On a couple of the teams I worked on, we didn’t flinch when we received a 6:30 am or 6:30 pm calendar invite. In other equally extreme examples I’ve watched leaders call into one meeting via phone, while dialing into another meeting simultaneously via Zoom. If this isn’t a modern definition of insanity, I’m not sure what is.
All of this is to say, if you find yourself in constant meetings, I understand where you are coming from. And, it is very hard to get deep work done when you barely have time to use the restroom, let alone sit down and complete a complicated task.
I would suggest that you approach this situation in two phases:
First- by focusing on yourself and your own schedule, and
Second - by focusing on the organization’s proclivity for excessive meetings.
Part One: Focusing on Your Own Schedule.
Here are some things that you can do to examine, and refine, your own schedule.
Do a meeting audit, looking at every single meeting on your calendar. For each of these meetings, ask yourself the following questions.
Do I know the purpose of this meeting?
Do I know the specific type of impact that I am trying to have at this meeting?
Am I crystal clear on why I am a part of this meeting?
Do I have unique knowledge, perspective, or experience to share?
Am I planning to be an active participant versus simply a fly on the wall?
If the answer to any of the above questions is no, I recommend that you a) begin to seek (or create) clarity for each of these meetings, and then b) begin to decline or step out of meetings where you realize you don’t really need to attend.
During this process, many colleagues and clients are concerned about how this will be received or perceived. Key to this going well is the idea of design.
Design means talking openly about what is going to happen before it happens. In this case, this would mean sharing openly with your team/colleagues about the process above, and letting them know why you’ll be opting out of certain meetings. Do this up front - so that nobody is surprised when you’re suddenly missing from the meeting.
I would recommend that you encourage your team members to do the same thing. I imagine that if you do, everyone will breathe a sudden breath of relief.
Consider the duration of the meetings on your calendar.
Take a look at the blocks on your calendar. Do the meetings need to be as long as they are? Or, could 30-minute meetings be a 5-minute phone call, and 60-minute meetings be 30? Look closely at the duration of the meetings and whether the meetings need to be as long as they are. Many times, meetings are scheduled for 30 or 60 minutes simply because that’s the default calendar setting. If your calendar default setting is 60 minutes, consider changing it to 30. And if your email system has a version of the “speedy meetings” feature, you may consider turning that on. It makes 30 minute meetings 20 minutes and 60 minute meetings 50 minutes. In Gmail, this is called “Speedy Meetings,” and in outlook Outlook there is an option to “end meetings and appointments early.”
In addition to looking at the meeting durations, you can also look at the duration of your participation. What is your specific function in the meeting? Are you giving input? Providing final review? Helping to make a decision? Depending on your specific purpose, you might only need to attend for the first 10 minutes or the last 5. Practice designing this up front as well. For example, “Looking at the agenda, it looks like I can be most helpful for the first 10 minutes of the meeting. I’ll happily join for the first half, and then you’ll likely notice me leave - so that I can best honor your time and mine, and also empower you all to finish up the mock-up autonomously.”
As you tackle your own schedule and your own relationship to meetings, you may notice that there’s a natural trickle effect with others. As you start to ask for agendas or clarify the purpose of meetings, you’ll likely notice that others will as well.
In addition to this natural trickle effect, the other thing you can do to try to chip away at a meeting-happy culture is to start to analyze the organization’s breakdown of deep versus shallow work.
This is a concept that comes from Cal Newport in his book Deep Work (buy via Bookshop to support local bookstores, or via Amazon). The exercise is to start to look at the breakdown of your day and week. How much of your time is spent doing deep work? I tend to think of this as the “high importance; low urgency” work that we’ve seen in the Importance/Urgency grid (formally known as the Eisenhower Method, and popularized by Stephen Covey). It’s the stuff that often doesn’t have a burning deadline, but that ultimately moves the organization forward. Deep work might include strategic thinking, working on high priority projects, creating a future vision, working on the future direction of the organization, or coaching and developing your next generation of leaders.
How much of your time is spent doing shallow work? This includes things like going to meetings that aren’t tied to critical projects, responding to emails, crossing tasks off the list, responding to higher urgency but lower importance “fires.” I tend to think of shallow work as minutia - things that often do need to happen, but not things that move priorities, or the organization at large, forward.
This can be an incredibly enlightening exercise. If, for example, you are in a senior level role within your organization but you spend 80% of your time doing shallow work, this is worth a conversation with your manager or executives. You are likely being paid for your strategic thinking capabilities, your creativity, your insight and ideas - not just your ability to execute a bunch of minutia throughout the day. Doing this analysis and having this conversation can be a powerful way not only to look at your own schedule and your own time, but the organization’s relationship to deep work, shallow work, meetings, and minutia. For more on this topic, I highly recommend Cal’s book, Deep Work, as well as his podcast, Deep Questions.
IN SUMMARY
I hope that this gives you a place to start with implementing The Punch Card Method. In short, and in review, this means:
Identifying your top 1-5 priorities each day
Completing these 1-5 priorities during your scheduled work block, which ideally happens first thing in the morning
I’d love to hear how this goes if you decide to try it out. Wishing you much easeful productivity in the meantime!
Sarah
