Timeboxing with Intentions
Practicing timeboxing with intentions can help you live more mindful and present in all areas of your life.
Pause a moment, take a breath, now ask yourself, have you ever:
- been impatient with your kids?
- been defensive with your partner?
- been distracted at your work?
- been critical of yourself?
If you’re honest, then you’ve likely answered ‘yes’ to some of these questions. But what if you could be better? What if you could move:
- from impatient to present with your kids.
- from defensive to curious with your partner.
- from distracted to focused at your work.
- from critical to accepting of yourself.
I believe you can, using these two mindfulness techniques.
Being Present
First technique is being Being Present, asking the question.
“What’s important right now?”
Being present is a core mindfulness principle, it helps avoid ruminating about the past or stop worrying about the future, instead becoming grounded in the present moment.
Timeboxing is a productivity technique where you allocate blocks of time called a timebox, to encourage focus, effectiveness, and predictability. Timeboxing is all about being in the present moment since you focus on your current task.
It’s a great strategy for work, you’ll find lots of examples for things like “deep work”, often used to pre-schedule time on your calendar to avoid others booking meetings during that time.
However timeboxing is not that common outside of work, but what if you could use it in other areas of your life? What if it could help you be more present with your family? Or help you be more accepting of yourself?
The answer is it can, and it’s easier than you think.
Life is hectic, it can be tough finding a healthy work-life balance. If you’re like me, being a parent and working full time can be a challenge.
It’s tough juggling making breakfast, getting the kids school, working during the day, picking kids up, making supper, taking kids to activities, getting them ready for bed. And then afterwards, still finding a moment of downtime for yourself.
So for the past several years, I’ve been using Google Calendar to divide my days into blocks of time, to help me “switch hats” between work, family, and personal. My entire day from the moment I wake to the moment I go to sleep, is split into blocks, here’s an example of my morning.
The nice bonus of using Google Calendar is getting notifications on my phone and smartwatch throughout the day, which helps remind me “what’s important right now”.
Setting Intentions
Second technique is Setting Intentions, asking the question.
“How do I want to show up?”
Setting intentions is the practice of consciously choosing what’s important for you, to help focus on an intended outcome. It can help you become more self-aware, see things you might have otherwise missed.
So, combining the previous Being Present with Setting Intentions, for each timebox in my calendar, I’ve added three intentions on ways I want to show up.
As part of my morning routine, when I exercise my intentions are to be Strong, Disciplined, Energized. It’s how I start every day and want to make the most of that time.
Afterwards when I sit to meditate, my intentions are very different, moving to being Mindful, Aware, Present, slowing my breath and staying grounded in the moment.
After I’m done exercising and meditating, I have a short window to work on side projects. Since it’s a limited amount of time, I want to be Smart, Efficient, Productive, avoiding any distractions so I can get as much done as possible.
Around that time, my boys usually wake up, so I switch to “dad mode”, aiming to be Patient, Present, Kind. Then when I take them to school, remember to be Encouraging, Supportive, Fun, giving them a good start for their day.
Then when I start work, setting the intentions to be Productive, Focused, Helpful. It’s easy to start work distracted, but getting the notification reminds me how I want to show up at my job.
The nice thing about setting intentions this way, is you can show up differently throughout the day. For example, for Pickup I set intentions to be Interested, Curious, Joyful, giving my kids my full attention to hear about their school day.
Important, this isn’t about being perfect. We’re all human, we all mess up, we all make mistakes.
When you do slip, for example when you’re impatient with your kids, your intentions can remind you “how do I want to show up?” Ah, right, how I just acted is not aligned with how I want to show up.
However since every day starts new, you’ll get reminded again tomorrow of your intentions, giving you another chance to be better.
The beauty of these recurring events is reminding you each day and throughout the day,“what’s important right now?” and “how do I want to show up?”
If this sounds interesting, what I would recommend is to start small. Add a few recurring events on your calendar like Family, Downtime, etc. Next think about what three ways “you want to show up”, hen add those to the title of the event.
When you receive that notification, take a moment to read it, and remember the intentions. You can also adjust your intentions as things change. Remember, this isn’t about being perfect, it’s about continually improving over time.
If you’re like me and have sometimes struggled with work-life balance, then these two mindful techniques can help. 🙏
