time_blocking v1.0.0

name: time_blocking description: Build a time-blocked day or week that survives reality: energy-matched blocks, deliberate buffers, and a weekly reset ritual. Use when someone asks for help scheduling their time, planning a focused day, fixing an overloaded calendar, or setting up a weekly review.

Time Blocking

Purpose

Turn a to-do list into a day where every working hour has a job, with the demanding work matched to the person's actual energy peaks, slack built in for the things that always go wrong, and a weekly ritual that keeps the whole system from rotting. The output is a concrete plan (a Markdown schedule or a calendar draft), not advice.

Workflow

1. Energy audit. If you don't know the person's real peaks, don't guess. Ask them to run the 7-day log in references/energy-audit.md, or use their best-known windows provisionally and mark them as unmeasured. Peaks go in peak_windows, the afternoon dip in trough_windows.
2. Collect and size the work. Gather every task with a duration. Apply the outside view: use logged past durations where they exist, otherwise multiply the gut estimate by 1.5. (See references/buffer-design.md.)
3. Label by cognitive demand. Each task is deep (writing, design, hard debugging, strategy), medium (reviews, routine coding, planning), or light (email, admin, errands). Deep tasks never go in troughs.
4. Anchor the fixed points. Meetings and hard commitments go on the calendar first. Defend peak windows before they get booked.
5. Place the blocks. Deep work inside peaks, in blocks of 90 minutes to 2 hours. Batch shallow work into one or two admin batches in troughs. Keep blocks at least 30 minutes; anything smaller gets batched.
6. Add the buffers. Post-meeting buffers (15-30 min), transitions between deep and shallow (10-15 min), one overflow block mid-afternoon. Plan at most 80% of the day; leave the rest empty on purpose.
7. Run the weekly reset (references/weekly-reset.md) at a fixed weekly slot: look back first (what ran long, which estimates missed), then forward. A project without a next action is a wish, not a commitment.

For a mechanical first draft, use the planner:

python3 ~/workspace/skills/time-blocking/bin/block_planner.py day.json

It anchors meetings, adds post-meeting buffers, puts deep work in peak windows, and lists what doesn't fit instead of squeezing it in.

Output Contract

A finished plan includes:

• A dated schedule: start/end times, one label per block, block kind (deep, medium, light, fixed, buffer). No gaps without a label; unplanned time is labeled "open" on purpose, not accidentally.
• Deep blocks inside peak windows, light work inside troughs.
• Buffers visible as blocks, totaling roughly 20% of the day.
• Anything that didn't fit, listed openly with a reschedule decision, never silently compressed.
• A next action for every active project, and the date/time of the next weekly reset.

Operating Rules

• Replan, don't quit. When the day shifts, redraw the remainder of the day; an abandoned schedule is worse than no schedule because it teaches you the plan is optional. Cal Newport's whole method (Deep Work, 2016) rests on this discipline.
• The plan serves the work, not the reverse. If a deep block is flowing at the bell, finish the thought, then replan.
• Time blocking ("I'll write from 9-11, whatever it takes") is different from time boxing ("I stop at 11 no matter what"). Use blocking for creative work, boxing for bounded chores. Don't mix them up.
• Never plan over 100%. A full calendar with no buffer is a promise you already know you'll break.
• Every factual claim you make about productivity research must be verifiable. The evidence this skill stands on (Newport 2016; Leroy 2009 on attention residue; Kahneman & Tversky 1979 on the planning fallacy; Di Stefano et al. 2014 on reflection; the Wharton chronotype-synchrony work) is cited in the references. Don't invent studies, numbers, or quotes beyond them.