Welcome to Marginal Gains

Hello, Marginal Gains community!

We're excited to have you with us once again as we explore ways to make meaningful changes in our lives.

This week:

This simple method can help you get more out of your day.

All it needs is a pen and a piece of paper.

That's all you need to plan a productive day according to Cal Newport, author of bestseller Deep Work.

As well as being a full-time professor, he's: • Authored 7 books

• Hosts a podcast

• Exercises daily

and still has time to spend with his kids!

What's his secret?

Timeboxing.

Timeboxing helps to plan an effective day.

Cal recommends before starting work, schedule your activities for the day in to time blocks for the day.

Use a page of lined paper and mark an hour every other line.

The minimum length of a block should be 30 mins or 1 line.

This is enough time to allow you to batch smaller, quicker tasks into each 30 minute block.

You can also schedule longer tasks into hour blocks or longer if needed

Don't worry if things don't go to plan due to interruptions or some tasks take longer than planned. Simply revise the schedule for the remainder of the day.

Or you can add overflow blocks when planning to account for this.

This way if you go over the planned time you have slack time to work in to complete the task.

And if you don't need the overflow block, plan in a task or tasks as backup to make use of the time.

Ultimately, the aim of timeboxing isn't to constrain you but to make you mindful about the time you have and be more intentional with it.

For more information on this technique and many other techniques check out Deep Work by Cal Newport.

Try this technique out and let me know how it improved your day.

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Stay Tuned for More Marginal Gains

Thank you for being a part of the Marginal Gains community. We're dedicated to bringing you practical tips that elevate your life one step at a time.

Stay tuned for more transformative insights in the upcoming issues of our newsletter.

Stay Thriving,

Shoaib.