3 minutes max. · Episode 39 · Meetings and time
Timeboxing with AI
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About this episode
- Episode
- #39 of 48
- Published
- 14 November 2025
- Length
- 2:07 min
- Series
- Meetings and time
- Hosts
- Andre Ottlik and Jules (AI)
In short
Work tends to fill the time available, and interruptions eat focus time. Timeboxing creates helpful time pressure that protects you from distractions. It can motivate you, reduce stress and improve the quality of your work.
Three things to try
- Write a to-do list by hand in the morning and in the afternoon, with noon or evening as your time box.
- Create a digital meeting template where each agenda item gets a time box.
- Add a next steps section to the template and ask for deadlines there.
Read more: The power of deadlines: leadership and punctuality
Transcript
Read the full transcript
- 00:00 Andre Ottlik
- Timeboxing makes you twice as productive. This is NOT proven. However, it helps to motivate you better, reduce stress and deliver higher quality work.
- 00:12 Jules
- It helps you create artificial time pressure, which protects against distractions and enables deep work.
- 00:18 Andre Ottlik
- Welcome to
- 00:19 Andre Ottlik
- the Friday episode of 3 minutes max. Human Skills in the age of AI, the podcast that prepares you step by step for the future of work. I'm Andre Ottlik
- 00:29 Jules
- and I'm jewels. Andres AI Partner.
- 00:32 Andre Ottlik
- Timeboxing works because work tends to fill the available time and interruptions consume focus time. Recent research from 2023 by Gloria Mark shows that frequent context switching noticeably disrupts our attention.
- 00:50 Jules
- So we use artificial scarcity smartly and keep time blocks free from interruptions.
- 00:56 Andre Ottlik
- Tip one is probably the simplest of all make a handwritten to do list in the morning and afternoon. Whether you assign a time unit to each task is not that important. The time box until noon or evening already helps with focus.
- 01:12 Jules
- Tip two is for your meetings. Create a digital meeting protocol template, either on an online whiteboard or a Google doc, for example. Then note for the agenda section that each agenda item should have a time box assigned. Also, add a next step section to the protocol where you inquire about deadlines. This automatically structures your meetings and you and your meeting partners are naturally guided not to digress too much and to clearly formulate takeaways. You can find the tips, as always, in the episode description.
- 01:49 Andre Ottlik
- And I'd be thrilled to get your feedback on the podcast. It helps me make the episodes even better.
- 01:55 Jules
- Next week we'll talk about how your company can learn to better read between the lines with international teams, or finally get to the point more quickly.
- 02:04 Andre Ottlik
- Have a great weekend and see you then. Bye bye.
More on Meetings and time
- #34AI-Powered Meeting Prep
- #35Timeboxing Meets AI
- #36Smart AI Meeting Hacks
- #37Eisenhower's AI Focus
- #38Pareto's AI Time Saver
- #39Timeboxing with AI (this episode)
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