Time is our most valuable resource. However, not everyone is tracking how their time gets carved out day by day. Instead of identifying how long they stay on social networks, most people make an educated guess. However, an educated guess is not good enough. Chances are you know your strengths and weaknesses in time management. However, what few people know is how powerful their strengths are and how flimsy their weaknesses are.
In order to measure your strengths and weaknesses, you need to track your time. Before you start something, write down the time that you started. When you move on to another activity, write down the time that you stopped. Then, write down the time that you started your next activity and continue the process.
Here is an example: I start writing my book at 5 pm and stop at 6 pm. Then, I look at my Twitter feed from 6 pm to 6:30 pm. Then, I write blog posts from 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm.
By continuing this cycle, you will be able to identify how much time you are spending on certain activities. Maybe you are spending more than an hour looking at your Twitter feed. It is better to catch yourself than it is to make an educated guess. In addition, continuing this cycle and creating this kind of schedule will allow you to identify what you did on your most productive days. If you wrote blog posts from 11 pm to 12 am on 1 day, and you wrote blog posts from 6 am to 7 am, you would be able to identify the time in which you are the most productive for a certain task.
By tracking your time for a week, you will be able to find common patterns. You will be able to identify where you spend most of your time and what goals you need to spend more time on. Write everything down in a notebook so you are able to look back at your results months later. Although this process does help you find out where you are carving your time, the process of writing times and activities is a long one. My recommendation is to track your time once a week every month and compare your results. Then, you will be able to see how you should be carving your time throughout the day.
Time is truly our most valuable resource. In order to get the most out of our most valuable resource, we need to track how we are using time. The numbers may surprise you. What are your thoughts on tracking time?
Perfect strategies!
Thank you 🙂
Good advice, and in the words of Alan Weiss, “freedom of time is true wealth.” Hard to make adjustments and improvements if you don’t fully understand your current patterns.
Wanted to share an idea that I use with my clients who are resistant to tracking their time in the fashion you suggest. Rescuetime.com tracks your time – working to record your online activities in the background AND allows you to enter offline time so you have a full picture of where your time is going.
Excited about your success to date and anxious to see where you go from here…
Thank you. I’ll look into Rescuetime.com. It sounds interesting.