Managing time in small blocks

So how do busy people find the time for all those things they manage to do? They have learned to use time in small blocks.

Ever since we were little, we have consistently improved our procrastination skills by training ourselves to wait for big chunks of time to schedule our activities. You know how that works. Let's say we had to study for a test scheduled for next week and figured we would need about 4 hours. Here's the thought process of a budding procrastinator, "Hmm. Let me see, when do I have a 4-hour slot open? Today looks difficult, I have to go here and then meet a friend at the mall, so by the time I get back, I will only have an hour before dinner. Tomorrow doesn't look good either. I have leave early for class and then I need to get that chore done. Only 2 hours left then. Saturday looks good. I will set the alarm for 6 am and get down work in earnest at 6:30. By 10:30 I should be done. No wait, I have the weekend badminton game at 9 am. Perhaps Sunday then." You get the picture. There is no 4-hour slot open.

Go getters think differently. They will use, the 20 minutes available now before they have to leave for wherever and then come back and use the 40 minutes before dinner and then get an hour's worth of reading done between dinner and bedtime.

The epitome of this disciplined behaviour was a classmate at B-School who is now a senior director at a top tier consulting company. He had little post-its on his study table with notations like "3:05 pm to 3:25 pm - Finish SMDA." At 10 pm he would politely usher us out of his room, "I am sorry guys, I need to read the case for tomorrow and get my 7 hours of beauty sleep."

That is the secret to his success.