Concept · Time & Prioritization
Time Blocking
Origin: Cal Newport and others
Biological Parallel
Animals partition their day into discrete behavioral blocks: elephants dedicate 16 hours to feeding, 4 to rest, specific windows to watering holes. They don't multitask—shifting between feeding and vigilance fragments both. Time blocking mirrors this temporal segregation of activities. Context-switching between tasks carries a metabolic cost (attention residue), just as traveling between water and feeding grounds burns calories. Batch similar activities to minimize transition overhead.