As a PI, you'll probably find that you do a lot more at work than just representing clients. You'll be drawing up paperwork, handling queries, or even guest blogging. So it's easy to lose focus and get bogged down in time-consuming tasks with few hours left to do the important things.
This was a challenge that Brent Sibley of Modern Injury Lawyers faced until he learned about Time Boxing.
What Is Time Boxing?
Time Boxing is the practice of allotting specific time frames to tasks to help you manage projects and take on time-consuming or unpleasant jobs more efficiently. You can time box any length of task from a few minutes up to a few months. And the great thing is that you can break big tasks down into smaller tasks! This gives you a sense of perspective and achievement as you complete your jobs.
A Key Technique with Agile Roots
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by a long to-do list or found yourself drowning in endless tasks, you’re not alone. Enter time boxing — a powerful technique that can revolutionize your productivity. But here's the kicker: time boxing is not just some trendy productivity hack. Its roots run deep in the agile methodology, a framework originally designed for software development.
Agile is all about flexibility and iterative progress, enabling teams to respond quickly to changes and deliver solutions faster. At the heart of Agile lies a commitment to breaking work into manageable chunks, typically in short cycles called sprints. Within those sprints, teams use time boxing to dedicate a fixed amount of time to each task, ensuring that they focus on what truly matters without getting bogged down by perfectionism or scope creep. This isn't just about keeping a schedule; it’s about fostering a culture of accountability and efficiency.
Benefits of Timeboxing for Attorneys
The beauty of the timeboxing technique is that it’s easily adaptable beyond agile software development. Whether you’re an attorney prepping for a case, a marketer planning a campaign, or even someone tackling a home project, time boxing can keep you on track. You set a timer—say, 30 minutes for researching a case or drafting a brief—and then you work intently until that timer goes off.
There's also some flexibility in time boxing as you can have either soft or hard time boxes. This means you can use the time frames as a rough guide for how long each activity could take (soft). Or you can have strict time boxes (hard), which dictate exactly when to stop and move on (hard). Once your time is up, you can evaluate your progress, adjust your approach, and either extend your time box or move on to the next task.
Clearly, the strategy had stood the test of time. So, how do you implement Time Boxing? And how could it help you?
Why Should You Time Box?
You might already have a system for managing time and projects. For some, a to-do list is a great way to manage their workload. But, the humble to-do list has its drawbacks, including:
- They give us too many 'to-dos'
- They make it too easy to prioritize simple but unimportant tasks
- They don't give you an idea of the time you have available
- They don't allow you to track the progress of larger tasks
That's quite an attack on the to-do list. But, if that technique is leaving you with more to-dos than have-dones, time boxing might be the solution.
Breaks Big Tasks into Manageable Chunks
One of the standout benefits of this time management technique is its ability to break large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. When you face a lengthy project, it can feel daunting and lead to procrastination. However, by implementing this time management technique, you can split the overall job into bite-sized sections that you can chip away at systematically. This approach allows you to tackle each individual task with a clear focus rather than getting overwhelmed by the entire project.
Ensures No Job Is Forgotten
With timeboxing, every task on your to-do list is accounted for, even those less appealing or tedious jobs. By scheduling dedicated time to address all of your responsibilities—however dull they may seem—you eliminate the risk of scrambling around at midnight trying to finish what you’ve put off. This comprehensive approach ensures that every aspect of your work gets due attention, enhancing your productivity overall.
Provides a Clear Time Frame
This time management method gives you an absolute amount of time to work with, creating a structured time frame for your most important tasks. When you set strict limits—say, 45 minutes for research—you turn abstract deadlines into tangible milestones. This accumulation of smaller deadlines leading up to the strict deadline of a major project helps you become more efficient with your time. Instead of having your next big milestone floating several months away, you’re now working toward short-term goals that propel you forward.
Reduces Time Wastage
As you juggle multiple deadlines, timeboxing helps you recognize which aspects of your work are truly important. This helps prevent what's known as Parkinson's law — that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" — from creeping in. If you have the entire day to do a task, you might well spend all of your allocated time doing one thing — even if, in actuality, it might only take you a few hours to do.
Time blocking forces you to prioritize critical, individual tasks so you can stop wasting time on lower-value activities. It allows you to hone in on what's essential, ensuring that your energy and efforts are spent wisely.
Promotes Balance and Well-Being
Another key advantage of the timeboxing time management technique is that it cultivates balance in your daily routine. Timeboxing works by helping you avoid unnecessary distractions, and projects get completed faster, freeing up more time for rest or personal activities. Among other benefits of timeboxing, this technique includes short breaks, allowing you to recharge while maintaining productivity.
A Perfect Fit for Agile Methodologies
Timeboxing also ties in beautifully with agile methodologies, particularly in project management tasks. Agile teams utilize timeboxing during sprint planning sessions to allocate fixed periods for specific tasks. This helps maintain focus and keeps teams aligned on their goals, whether they’re engaged in a daily scrum or completing a sprint review. By establishing a strict limit on how long to dedicate to a particular task, agile teams can effectively manage their time and resources.
Ultimately, whether you're managing a challenging work project, studying for an exam, or organizing your daily life, implementing the timeboxing technique can dramatically increase productivity and efficiency. The combination of structured focus and planned break times helps maintain momentum and prevents burnout, making timeboxing a powerful ally in your quest for better time management techniques.
Understanding Sprints
When we talk about sprints, we're referring to a core concept that drives an agile team.
So, what exactly is a sprint? At its most basic level, a sprint is a set period during which specific tasks or objectives are completed. These periods typically last anywhere from one to a few weeks, but most frequently, you'll see them structured around two-week cycles.
Sprint Planning
Think of a sprint as a focused burst of activity designed to allow teams to tackle a particular set of features or tasks with clear objectives in mind. This structure helps teams maintain momentum and fosters an environment of continuous improvement. Each sprint begins with a planning session where team members outline the goals and scope of work for the upcoming cycle. They pull from a prioritized backlog of tasks—essentially a to-do list of features, improvements, or bug fixes that need attention.
Sprint Focus
Once the planning is complete, the team dives in, dedicating their time and resources to the sprint’s goals. The key here is focus; during the sprint, teams should aim to avoid distractions and prioritize the tasks at hand to ensure they complete everything they’ve committed to.
Sprint Retrospective
At the end of the sprint, there's a dedicated time for reflection during the sprint retrospective. Here, the team reviews what went well, what didn’t, and where they can improve moving forward in the next sprint. This feedback loop is crucial for refining processes, increasing efficiency, and enhancing collaboration among team members. The emphasis on iteration allows teams to learn and adapt continuously, ensuring they're always moving towards better results.
The beauty of sprints lies not just in their ability to produce tangible outcomes but also in the way they foster teamwork and communication. Each member has a clear role in achieving the sprint goals, and by working together closely, they build camaraderie and accountability. This ultimately creates a deeper connection to the project and enhances overall job satisfaction.
How to Time Box
1. Choose Your Tasks
First, you need to choose some tasks you want to Time Box. The best place to start would be with the jobs that take up a lot of your time or you don't particularly enjoy doing.
Take emails, for example. As a PI, you'll get a ton of emails every day from prospective clients and colleagues. These can be overwhelming and take up a lot of time that could otherwise be spent doing more important things—like helping your actual clients.
Also, look at unpleasant tasks such as tidying your office. Rather than having a big clean every Friday, set aside some moments throughout the week to break the process down into smaller chores. Maybe 10 minutes on a Wednesday to dust the bookshelf and 10 minutes on a Thursday to polish all of your awards. And before you know it, you've got a continuously spotless workspace.
2. Set a Target
Now that you know which jobs you're going to Time Box, you need to establish some targets to meet within your specified windows. Going back to the email analogy, you might decide that you want to respond to 20 emails in an hour. So, given that you're going to split that one hour into two half-hour slots, that's 10 emails per session.
That's a nice and manageable target, and if you need motivation, you can gamify the task. So rather than replying to 10 emails within 30 minutes as an absolute limit, you could try to beat that number.
As you use Time Boxing, you'll be able to better gauge how long tasks will take you. So, if you're not quite sure how much time something is going to take, start off with some soft Time Boxes until you get the hang of it.
3. Choose a Time Limit
Deciding how much time to allocate to each Time Box gets easier with practice. But that doesn't mean you should shoot in the dark when calculating the numbers.
An important part of the technique is deciding how much time to allow yourself. If it's a short-term activity, like responding to emails, you can set aside one to two hours a day for this. But, for long term projects like launching a new marketing campaign, you might have a Time Box of several months.
The way to approach any big project, whether it's a few hours or a few days, is to break it down. Rather than setting a continuous 40-hour Time Box for a task that needs to be done in a week, break it down into sections — a few hours for planning, a few hours for writing, and a few hours for revisions. This way, you won't have to face a daunting solid block in your calendar for the week, and by ticking off the Time Boxes and sub-tasks, the challenge becomes less abstract, and you can measure your project and contextualize your achievements.
An important thing to remember is that people can usually stay focused on something for about 45 minutes at a time. So for longer tasks, try not to exceed 45 minutes at a time and remember to take a short break between each time box. As mentioned earlier, it'll take some time to get used to how long to allow for each job. What you think might take four hours might only take two or vice-versa. It just takes a bit of practice. So be patient and stick with it.
4. Monitor Your Results
Now, you can finally do the work. By allocating this time to one task, you should hopefully be able to maintain your focus more easily without the distraction of your to-do list clouding your mind.
If you've got a good idea of how long it takes you to complete different activities, you'll probably complete your Time Boxes on schedule. And if so, great! You can move on to the next task after the break you've hopefully planned for.
However, if you reach the end of your allotted time, you must decide what to do next.
For example, if you're in a meeting and have only allotted 15 minutes to discuss a certain topic and that time is up, you can either:
- Continue the discussion a bit longer (Soft Time Box)
- Wrap up and move on (Hard Time Box)
If you opt for the soft Time Box, there is a risk that discussions will continue (in the example of a meeting), which could potentially affect subsequent Time Boxes. However, by setting a rough deadline, you allow everyone in the meeting the opportunity to act as a timekeeper and encourage them to stick to the deadline.
If you choose the hard Time Box, it might be frustrating at first because you might not achieve everything you wanted to. However, in the long run, this strict adherence to the Time Box will help you to stick to time limits and focus your attention instead of drifting off-topic. If this is something you're introducing to a team, it'll make your co-workers more efficient, too.
Now That You Know How to Time Box, Why Not Give It a Try?
It's a great tool to help you manage your own lawyer productivity, but it can also help teams maximize their potential. If you'd like more ideas about cutting out waste from your firm, you should also check out our blog on Lean Six Sigma For Lawyers to find out.
