What is Buffer Time & How to Find Your Sweet Spot

What’s the most underestimated time management tool? I’d say buffer time.

Buffer period (or padding time) is the extra time you allocate to tasks and projects to accommodate delays and any unforeseen events.

In its essence, buffer time has a dual purpose一it acts as a cushion and a shield:

• As a cushion, it absorbs unpredictable obstacles and leaves enough room to complete all the additional tasks without rushing.
• As a shield, it provides safety, allowing you to work on projects stress-free, knowing that if any delays occur, you will be able to handle them calmly and effectively.

But for buffer time to work, you have to find its “sweet spot” so you can maintain the project’s efficiency, cost, and overall success at an optimal level. That means you can’t have excessive or insufficient buffer time.

Excessive padding time can lead to high labor costs, lack of urgency, delayed start of new projects, etc.

Insufficient buffer time puts high pressure, reduces team morale, promotes rushed work and errors, and increases the risk of delays and penalty costs.

This article explores the concept of buffer time, its advantages, the amount of buffer time you should have, and the ideal buffer period for a project. All to help you use buffer time properly.

Let’s get started.

What is buffer time?

As mentioned above, buffer time is additional time that can go before or after a task or at the end of the project. It’s scheduled time, meaning you can’t “buffer” as you go; it requires advanced planning.

Think of buffer time as a safety net in a circus一you can always count on padding time to catch you when your professional or personal circus acts become more daring than anticipated.

The goal of buffer time is to protect you from last-minute changes, ensuring you stay calm and collected even when faced with interruptions and disruptions during work. By incorporating buffer periods in your work days, your time management becomes more solid, resilient, and robust.

Moreover, buffer periods reduce the need for overtime and last-minute rushes, allowing for a healthier work-life balance.

Who benefits from your buffer time?

Buffer time benefits all stakeholders or groups of interest with whom you collaborate, report, or share your life.

In a professional setting, this means that your team members, PMs, senior management, and clients all benefit from your optimal calculation of buffer time. They all know (or should know!) that having a padding time leads to more efficient operations and increased quality.

Here’s how buffer time in project management positively affects different stakeholders:

In your personal life, it allows you to handle all responsibilities efficiently, benefiting people around you一parents, partners, children, friends, etc. It even helps you better manage personal time and find a balance between responsibilities and spare time.

Advantages of Buffer Time

From the previously mentioned, you can say that adding a buffer period to your tasks or projects can greatly benefit you.

Implementing buffer time truly leads to fruitful results, making your work risk-proof.

Here’s why:

Are there any disadvantages to using buffer time?

Technically, no.

But there could be if you calculate and implement insufficient or excessive buffer time.

Insufficient padding time leads to stress, overtime, poor relationships with clients, etc.

Excessive buffer time leads to poor time management and the effects of Parkinson’s law.

Now, let’s focus on Parkinson's law for a second.

Parkinson's law supports the fact that you tend to slow down when you feel like you have a lot of time to complete a task, and speed up when under pressure.

In regards to buffer time in project management, it means that most people will relax and “take it easy”, knowing that the deadline is far off. They’ll even try to polish the project to perfection.

Moreover, the Parkinson’s Law relies heavily on the 80/20 rule: most likely, you will accomplish 80% of work fairly easily but the remaining 20% will give you the biggest migraine of your life.

You may be wondering how to combat these issues of slowing down and having decreased productivity and concentration.

Well, the answer is by calculating buffer time correctly.

Incorporating buffer time in project management

Calculating and implementing buffer time is easier said than done.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, implementing too much padding time has multiple downsides. One of those cons is feeling underutilized, like you should be contributing more.

Adding an insufficient buffer period can cause you to be in “crisis mode” during a project, as you’ll feel rushed to meet the project deadline.

So, the goal is to find an optimal buffer period. Here’s how you can do so.

Steps to defining and implementing buffer time

1. Start with prioritization. All your tasks should be prioritized based on two parameters: how important and time-sensitive they are.
2. Mark deadlines. Once you have prioritized tasks, find deadlines for tasks and think of buffer time.
3. Think of buffer intervals. It’s up to you to come up with optimal padding time based on the tasks themselves and potential risks revolving around those tasks.
4. Allocate buffer periods. You can add buffer periods before or after tasks; just make sure that the added buffer time doesn’t promote huge downtime.
5. Develop a plan for unforeseen circumstances. Think of the events that might occur during buffer time and how much extra buffer time those interruptions would require.
6. Reevaluate your padding time. Once you have a vague idea of potential risk factors, go back to your defined buffer periods and see whether you should update the duration of the periods based on how risky the situations are.
7. Monitor your buffer. Once allocated, buffer time doesn’t need to be “left alone”; you can update buffer time based on your performance and other potential disruptions that suddenly pop up.

How much buffer time should you have to manage your workday properly?

I’m sure you have experienced those hectic days when you plan every minute of your work day, and somehow nothing goes as intended. Constant interruptions make managing your tasks and schedules impossible.

As soon as you start working on a task, a co-worker stops by to chat and ask for advice.

Once they’re gone, a sudden email for an unexpected meeting comes up.

Once the meeting ends, a high-priority task pops up and you are asked to put out a fire.

After a day like that, you feel frustrated and behind on your to-do list.

To help you cope with such busy days you can use three strategies:

The first two tools on the list are pretty self-explanatory, so let’s focus on using buffer time to better manage your work days.

Integrating buffer time into your schedule

As mentioned, buffer time should be a regular part of your schedule. You can adjust it to your needs, role, and task requirements.

But you can also have fun with it.

How?

Well, by experimenting and finding how much buffer time is optimal for you.

A good rule of thumb is to allocate up to 15 minutes of buffer time for every hour of deep work. But you don’t have to follow that rule; you can review your working tempo and decide how much buffer time your work days need.

How Memtime can help

With Memtime, you’ll get to know your working rhythm.

Memtime is not a buffer time app per se一it can’t schedule padding time for you or determine its duration. But it can provide a detailed review of your day (down to the minute!) so you can determine where you lacked padding time and how you should update your buffer time strategy.

Here’s how Memtime can assist you in optimizing buffer time:

If you want to give Memtime a go and are not afraid of seeing how your work days are constructed, try the tool free for 2 weeks. And beware: you might be shocked to see how little buffer time you add to your schedule. I know I was!

Final tips on finding the sweet spot with buffer time

Buffer time isn’t something that should be taken lightly.

It’s an essential part of your time management and should be carefully calculated and implemented.

Here are some final tips on implementing optimal buffer time.

1. Consider time management a need一not a habit. Once you become aware of the benefits of time management, you will be more determined to make decisions about how you allocate and use buffer time.
2. Set realistic buffer time. Remember, the goal of buffer time is not to create downtime for extra coffee breaks; it’s to recognize the demands of tasks and adjust your pace accordingly.
3. Use time management tools like Memtime to help you integrate buffer time. Memtime can help you review your day and find gaps in your schedule that didn’t have enough buffer periods.
4. Adjust padding time to your projects’ requirements. Don’t forget to regularly monitor and adjust buffer time according to the evolving project demands.

I hope these tips help you define the optimal buffer time for your needs. Don't let your days go off the rails—add some buffer time for a smoother ride. 🙂