First book talk & signing

And the most common objection to timeboxing

On Saturday, I spoke to 250 people at the Change Your Life Festival. There were other, more experienced, authors like Ruby Wax, Tim Spector, Ros Atkins and Adam Phillips. We had 30 minutes each to bring out insights from our respective books, and help people in the audience to change their life. 

I think my talk went pretty well. I’d done my preparation, timeboxed well in advance and spaced out with consolidating sleep to give my brain any extra help it needs. The session itself got the timeboxing treatment with a mid-way point slide, enabling me to a) tell if I were ahead of or behind schedule and b) demonstrate one element of the practice (Chapter 16 - Pacing & racing), live, to the group. After the talk, the book signing queue was long and we sold out:

(Just) one pile of books have sold out

It was fun chatting to people about the talk, time, timeboxing, and their unique lives. Hearing about how a universal method can harmonise with real lives is fascinating in every single case — the delight is in the detail. 

So far, from several audiences, the most frequently asked question is some form of: 

But what happens when plans change?

I thought it would be helpful to lay out my best answer here, for the record. It comes in three parts.

First, we can and should timebox in order that any changes to plans are minimised. That means not timeboxing during periods that are likely to be overrun by unexpected events, like kids coming back home, home deliveries, neighbourly visits, important, expected phone calls, etc. It also means being realistic about the duration you’ve allocated for each timeboxed task — with practice you will get better at box-sizing.

Second, know that most plans don’t change. In my experience, less than 10% of timeboxes need to be rearranged. 

Third, for the 10% of timeboxes that need to change…change them. It’s not a big deal dragging a couple of pixelated boxes around a digital calendar, and crack on. Timeboxes are much like meetings (to put it more precisely: meetings are just a particular kind of timebox). How many meetings do you really have to shift? I’d bet it’s much less than 10%. And when you do move a meeting, is it a big problem? I bet it’s not very big. Well, it’s exactly the same with timeboxing.