The HALFWAY MARK! - Shello's January Time-Boxing Experiment

It has been a little more than two weeks since I've started my timeboxing experiment, how far have I gotten, and what have I learned?

Source

What is Timeboxing?

Timeboxing is a type of scheduling where you only allow yourself a certain amount of time to complete a task. Once the bell rings, it's done- You aren't allowed to work on it anymore (much like taking tests in school). I purchased a kitchen timer, cranked it to half an hour, or an hour and sat down to work on things like my assignments and blogs. Not all of them mind you, but here are the stats. Although this post is un-timed, Here are some of the posts that were specifically written within a specific limit:

2 Hours - Hawaii's Ballistic Missile Warning and What It Was Actually Like
30 Minutes - Don't Burn Yourself Out!
1 Hour - Feed Your Future, Don't Steal From It!
2 Hours - The Gaming Ghost - Returning After A Year Long Hiatus
30 Minutes - Click Click DING Sink or Swim Timeboxing With Alarms
2 Hours - How to Manually Enhance Your Photos and Bring Them to Life! [PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL Beginner +]

Things like perfectionism and distractions appear to melt away when I am pressed for time. When the bell sounds, it's over and time to publish whatever I managed to get in. Doing this has made me become not only more aware of how to remain focused on a task, but keeps me mindful of where my minutes and hours are actually going. Due to this, I have been able to complete my homework quicker, and have possibly been able to raise my blogging standards/quality when I am writing. Now something that may have taken 5 hours to write originally can be managed in 2.

At Work

By giving myself exactly half an hour to get ready per day, I can adjust my schedule accordingly to do things such as; cook breakfast, do extra planning, or even get an assignment, or blog completed, even if I have work relatively early in the morning. I have a clearer idea of how long it takes me to complete something, allowing me to get into work on time.

"Make it to every shift on time."

For the entire month until now, I have perfect attendance for getting into work.

In School

Although I'd like to imagine that I am a relatively good student, I've had to drop or even fail classes in the past for falling too far behind in my studies. I attend a year-round college divided into modules instead of semesters, meaning my classes change every 2 months instead of 6. If I miss a few assignments, or fall a week behind or more, I am failing my class. I shouldn't push it, but this morning alone I have:

Finished all discussions
Took a test
Built a translation application in Visual Studio

The second week of school is done now, along with all of my assignments before the due date. Of the 3 graded from my last week, this is my current grade.

"Pass school."

On Steemit

One of the things I focused on for most of 2017 was bringing my writing and formatting quality up in my Steemit blogs. All seemed well, except I wasn't posting anywhere near as frequently as I would have liked. Like my other goals listed above, I wanted to set a good goal for myself, without overdoing it. If I were to set the bar too high on any of them, failure ealry on would prevent me from staying motivated until the remainder of the month.

Instead of one blog every single day, I would allow to sometimes have none, but on my good days, hopefully up to 4 as a counter balance/contingency. I am still a ways behind, but how I set this up, I still have time to succeed here. I've already surpassed the number of blogs from some of these past months. It may not be apparent to my followers as of yet, but my amount of quality is beginning to go up, even with the amount of time going down. I am more aware of how I use my time. We still have 10 days to see how this plays out.

"Write 30 blogs."

Chain BB tells me that this is how many blogs I actually have. You can use this site to access posts, without the resteems!

July - 2
August - 28
September -19
October - 23
November -25
December -8

Counting my original "Time-boxing Announcement" - This is my 13th blog in January... so far, with school and work!

Greatest Hurdles

One thing that I noticed would take a lot of time from me, was going outside and hanging out with friends. Although it seems that things are going well, all-night adventures will definitely mess with my results in the end. I have to stick through the experiment until the end, before I take copious amounts of time out for other leisure activities.

I have been wanting to spend more time doing the other fun things in the Steemiphere such as; replies, visiting author's blogs, and chatting in Discord, and to my surprise, I am finding a little more time to participate here too, even though a couple of weeks ago I thought it would be impossible. Stick the path! And it will come. Don't fret if you haven't seen a reply from me yet, I got them planned during my work breaks today.

It's honestly amazing to see how tasks and goals can be rearranged!

If you are interested in my experiment, and want to see how it came to be from the beginning, here are my time-boxing posts in order from the start. Hopefully this can be of use when time is of the essence to completing your own goals!

Sort Order:

Trending

[-]

princeyk (48) · 7 years ago

Timeboxing is a type of schedule where you only allow yourself a certain amount of time to complete a task.

Let's look at it this way, what about if I have a task that needed to be completed urgently, but couldn't finish before the bell rang, and then I continue working on the task, can I still regard the process as ''timeboxing'' or I have broken the rules of ''timeboxing'' by doing such?

$0.07

2 votes

shello (62) · 7 years ago

That's actually a great question @princeyk!

The goal of time boxing is to give yourself a "deadline" to somewhat force yourself to start a task. It's more of a personal challenge. One of the biggest hurdles when working on a goal is not the work itself but starting. I often find myself pushing old limits and limiting beliefs, that allow me to work faster, and smarter.

For my two hour blogs, I plan it for one. Then revise it for two when the first hour is done! You want to keep the initial idea of adhering to it, only add time after, and you will finish properly c:

Mahalo,
@shello

$0.00

Thanks so much

sharminkona (55) · 7 years ago

This post very nice..i appreciate your blog..thanks for sharing your writing ,,best of luck.

What is your favorite part of this blog @sharminkona? Generic posts are bad to do on Steemit and can get you flagged!

puddinpaws (52) · 7 years ago

This is awesome! I'm glad there's a name for this, I occasionally do my own form of time boxing. I have to say your approach is much more disciplined. I use time boxing for smaller tasks.

For example, I will give myself max an hour and half for video gaming.

Or because I hate housework, I give myself exactly one hour to clean the entire house top to bottom. Other times I've used it alocate time spent studying and practicing my language skills.

This post is very helpful for managing your time in a more effective, yet stress-free manner.

naditinkoff (59) · 7 years ago

Good experiment and the original idea. I'll take note of it. Often when I write a post or comments, I lose track of time and end up going to bed at 2am instead of 11pm)

mahyul (40) · 7 years ago

Nice post :)

I'm proud of you, keep on working.
Not my intention to beg, but if you please please upvote my post as well. Nothing wrong if we support each other. I know if you are a good person and help each other: )
my support let me add the spirit :)
I wait your presence in my post :) @shello

https://steemit.com/aceh/@mahyul/jalan-jalan-ke-waduk-jelekat-lhokseumawe-8edd295ed6fc1

1 vote

I can't do that @mahyul,

Asking anyone for votes is bad manners on Steemit! You need to write a genuine comment after reading a blog and not copy/paste a response. I've given you a flag so that you know what you are doing is bad and not to do it in the future!