Many many years ago when I only had five kids eight and under, I developed a system for my homeschool and home management (or thought I did—I’m sure others had hit upon it long before me!) of BLOCKING my time in order to get everything in each day.
Time Blocking, for me, was more than just creating schedules. It was assigning a block of time to each child’s subject, group of subjects, etc., as opposed to 9:15 math with Joshua; 9:30 math with Kayla, etc. I would schedule things more like college–with large blocks of time less frequently.
Dave Ramsey calls budgeting “telling your money where to go.” I call Time Blocking “telling your time where to go.”
Fast forward several years later, and we used a version of this to teach our preteens time management. We would give them sheets of paper with 15 minute increments written on it in and they would fill in each period of time with what they did during that time. Then we would evaluate it together and help them see where they were wasting time or why math was taking “forever.”
So what does this have to do with Daily IF?
Come to find out there’s an entire successful, lucrative productivity company dedicated to nothing but Time Blocking. .It is called the One Thing (with a book by the same name), and it teaches people how to use Time Blocking and focusing on ONE THING in order to be more productive. That you don’t have to be able to produce constantly–you just have to block off the time that you are going to do the most important thing–and not do anything else during that time.
(Busy mamas have usually invented something that was vogue later–we just didn’t market it! lol)
So again…what does this have to do with Daily IF?
Most of the time, once we are fat adapted and no longer have terrible hunger pangs during the fasting window, we eat because we are bored. Or because we want a certain something right then. Or because time seems to be creeping by slowly. We watch the clock…how many hours do we have remaining? Seriously, still four more hours til i can eat? How can that be?
We talk on here a lot about how keeping busy is the best antidote for hunger in the early weeks of Daily IF. But most of us are busy all the time, yet we sometimes still have difficulty. (Sometimes we just WANNA EAT!)
This is where I (and many others) have found Time Blocking helpful during the fast. I used this method quite often in the early weeks of fasting. And I still pull it out on days that I want to do a 22 to 24 hour fast like today.
Here are some Time Blocking With Fasting tips:
1) Lay out your day in one or two hour increments with main activities/tasks bulleted in each time period. (If you can do it in pretty colors of pens and highighters with “smooth as butter” paper, it’s even better! 😉 )
2) You don’t have to be super specific about what’s happening in each time period. General phrases of what you will accomplish that you can see quickly will suffice.
3) If you drink coffee, tea, sparkling water, mineral water, regular water, etc., during your fasting window (I recommend you do), then pen these in. I also add my supplements to the schedule as they, along with my water, are things that help my fast, so I pen them in.
4) Pen in what hour you will be on for the fast. I have this in my app, of course, but it also helps me to have it in my Block Schedule!
5) Keep your Block Schedule handy throughout the day and cross out or highlight each block as time goes by and as you complete each task. Time will fly by with this much “purposefulness,” and your mental clarity and productivity will shock you!
6) This works for business people, homemakers, homeschoolers, and those who have a day off! As I mentioned above, it is especially helpful for beginners and for longer fasting windows.
Hope this helps! And I hope you have an amazing fasting and feasting weekend!
Love -n- hope!
Donna
