Time blocking 101: A step-by-step guide to mastering your daily schedule

You can probably count on your fingers the number of times you've completed 8 hours of work in an 8-hour workday. Whether it's endless meetings, constant emails, or coworkers popping in for a "quick chat," your productivity rarely makes it through the day.

The problem is that when you design your to-do list for an 8-hour workday but end up with just 1-2 hours of productive time, you're going to be in trouble.

But to-do lists aren't the only way you can organize your daily schedule. Some of the world's most productive people, from Elon Musk to Bill Gates to Deep Work author Cal Newport have sworn off to-do lists in favor of something else: Time blocking .

You can probably count on your fingers the number of times you've completed 8 hours of work in an 8-hour workday. Whether it's endless meetings, constant emails, or coworkers popping in for a "quick chat," your productivity rarely makes it through the day.

The problem is that when you design your to-do list for an 8-hour workday but end up with just 1-2 hours of productive time, you're going to be in trouble.

But to-do lists aren't the only way you can organize your daily schedule. Some of the world's most productive people, from Elon Musk to Bill Gates to Deep Work author Cal Newport have sworn off to-do lists in favor of something else: Time blocking .