THE
TIME-BLOCK
PLANNER

A Daily Method for Deep Work in a Distracted World.

The Method The Planner

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  • Most knowledge workers spend their day reacting to messages...

  • Creating constant distraction, making it impossible to think clearly.
  • Generating persistent feelings of anxiety and overload.
  • Impeding progress on the deep efforts that really matter.
  • Making it seem like your work is never done, thwarting attempts to relax or recharge.
  • scribbles

Time blockers give every minute of their day a job…

  • Balancing the important with the urgent.
  • Leveraging a clear plan to minimize the urge to give in to unrelated distractions.
  • Replacing stressful busyness with empowering
    intention.
  • Enabling clear shutdowns at the end of the day.
Task Table

A Closer Look

The Time-Block Planner is easy to use. Each day you fill out a time block grid with a preliminary plan that gives every minute a job. If you get knocked off this schedule, you simply update it the next time you get a chance. Next to the grid is a collection page on which you can quickly capture tasks and notes to process later so that you don’t have to disrupt your current time block. And that’s all there is to it!

For fifteen years, author and professor Cal Newport has been extolling the benefits of time blocking. Now for the first time, this system has been captured in a daily planner that makes it easy for anyone to implement these ideas in their own professional life.

You already know what work really matters. The Time-Block Planner will help you push aside distractions and other peoples’ demands for your time, and focus on accomplishing more of these deep efforts than you ever thought possible.

Calvin Newport photo

More FromCal Newport

Cal is an MIT-trained computer science professor at Georgetown University who also writes about the intersections of technology, work, and the quest to find depth in an increasingly distracted world. He’s the author of seven books, including, most recently, the bestsellers Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and A World Without Email.  He’s been a zealous advocate for time-block planning for over a decade. LEARN MORE.

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Newport is the host of the popular Deep Questions podcast. LISTEN | WATCH

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