I Love Commercials, Maybe You Should Too.

Ok, ok, ok, I know most of you read that headline and thought. “What the hell are you talking about? Commercials suck!” And while yes, I agree that most commercials do, in fact, suck. Stick with me and hear me out. Have you ever switched on Netflix, started watching, been sucked into a Netflix black hole, only to come out on the other side 4 hours later. Having been completely sucked in, with no willpower of your own, only to find out that you haven’t gotten a single thing you needed to get done, done? I know I have. It’s too easy to get caught up in streaming websites. This is simply because they have no commercials and only a 15 second lapse between episodes! There is no time given for you to wake up from your binge watching coma. To snap yourself out of it. Even the strongest of wills cannot always save you from the “I’ll just watch one episode.” trap.

If you have cable and still watch regular tv with commercials then you are safer from this phenomena than us streaming people. I ditched cable many years ago to help save money on my monthly bills, but it came as a double edged sword that I had to figure out how to deal with. I never realized how commercials helped me with my time management. I want you to think back to being a kid. Did you ever experience your parents telling you to stop watching the tv and go get something done (chores, homework, etc...)? I know I do. And what would I say to them every single time? Just wait until it gets to a commercial! That was our bargaining tool. Get the show to a commercial and then I could stop and get done what I needed to get done. Nowadays since I don’t have cable and don’t have to watch those terrible commercials anymore I have to be more conscious of my time management.

So here we are. This post is about time management. If you aren’t aware of your time management strategies, then you can never learn to develop better strategies to help you get sh*t done. When I went back to school at the age of 30, I had no cable, I was in a very difficult medical program, and I had to relearn time management strategies so that I could make time to study, do homework, work in the hospital, and go to classes. This was very tricky at first because I hadn’t needed to do that for a very long time. Even in my undergraduate studies at University of Kentucky I wasn’t nearly as busy as I was in this program. I had to figure something out quick! So I started doing a little research and found out about “time blocking” I gave it a try and found that my productivity went through the roof! I was able to get more done, in less time. I became a big proponent of time blocking. I used it all throughout school and graduated at the top of my class. I used it to study for my Board Examinations and aced them as well. Time blocking works.

So what is time blocking? A quick search on the internet will tell you that time blocking is simply scheduling blocks of time in which you have to get stuff done. They say just take your calendar and if you have 8 hours in your day just block it off into segments and you will magically get more done! Yay! Congratulations! It’s as easy as that! Well… is it? I’m sure we have all tried that before. It’s basically taking your to-do list and giving yourself blocks of time to finish each task. The problem is, I've found, that there is little regard for taking into account how long you can keep your attention on a task and little regard to letting yourself decompress in between tasks. So we need to dive deeper into time blocking and realize it’s not as simple as just timing out your to-do list.

If I have a task set out before me and I know it is going to take a couple of hours to get done (we will say 3 for this example) I am not going to just time block 3 hours in my calendar to get it done. I am going to give myself 3.5 hours to get it done AND I am going to split up my time into work blocks of 45 minutes and break blocks of 15 minutes. Think about it like the tv shows we already mentioned. They give you 15-20 minutes of your show, and then a 5 minute break of commercials. While they may be doing it for different reasons (like making money by showing commercials). The effect is the same. It gives you a break from the show. All we are doing is using the tv format to hack our time management skills and GSD(Get Sh*t Done!). Now, back to the matter at hand, personally I have found that a 45/15 work/break ratio works best for me. My attention span lags after 45 minutes or so and I need to take a break. But here’s the secret. You can manage your work/rest ratio however you want! Some studies have shown that a 90 minute work block and 20 minute rest blocks also works very well. And, sometimes I will push my 45 minute work block longer if I am in a flow state and want to keep going. It’s up to you! However you structure it, time blocking and work/rest ratios will boost your productivity and keep you from getting distracted and sucked into time wasting activities much better than any other way I have tried. Just make sure you are using a timer when you work in these blocks. If you don’t use a timer, your self control can wither away and you might find yourself 4 hours later coming out of a Netflix coma with an empty bag of chips on your stomach and crumbs everywhere!

I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know what time blocking strategies work best for you!