I quite often talk to my clients about how they need to protect their time and attention when they’re working on their most important tasks of the day.
The other day when working on site with a great team, I shared some advice from a brilliant productivity book called The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papsan.
In the book, they talk about the importance of Time Blocking - setting aside time every day to work on the things that will make the biggest impact in your working day, and protecting that time with everything you’ve got, because people will always make use of your time if you don’t.
The authors suggest you block a minimum of 4 hours of uninterrupted time per day. I know some people reading this will think that’s impossible, so you can start with a smaller block but guard it well, nonetheless.
They suggest four great tips to protecting your time:
1: Build a Bunker. I love this idea! Obviously, not everyone has access to a real bunker in their office, but you can build a virtual bunker by putting a Do Not Disturb sign on your desk, pulling down the blinds if you work in a place with glass walls, putting in headphones, or simply taking yourself off to an empty room or different location entirely to get your deep work done.
2: Store Provisions: Take everything you need for your Bunker Time into your bunker. The only thing you should need to leave your desk for is the call of nature. Take drinks, snacks, resource material…everything you need to get the job done, and hunker down.
3: Sweep for Mines: Get rid of anything that could distract you - turn off your phone, turn off all notifications on your computer. Author Dan Heath once said he bought himself an old PC to work on and deleted all browsers and even disabled the wireless network to give himself a distraction-free working environment.
4: Enlist Support: Tell people what you’re doing. The authors say it’s surprising how accommodating people will be if you tell them your plan and let them know when you’ll be available again.
It sounds like extreme measures, but if you ever feel frustrated that you don’t get everything done, then maybe it’s time to get into your bunker!