You discover what your priorities actually are.Tracking your time lets you verify if these stories are actually true. We tend to tell ourselves things such as that we have no free time, that we spend very little time with our family, and that we work far too many hours. You can separate from the stories you tell yourself.A time log lets you see, at a glance, how many hours you truly spend at work and at home. As Laura explains in the episode, we tend to overestimate how many hours we work by a significant margin (sometimes by as much as 20-30 hours). You can see how many hours you actually work.
There are countless benefits to tracking your time.
#Track work timer update
It takes just a few seconds to jot down what you worked on during each half-hour chunk of time, and once you settle into the practice, you can update your time tracking sheet every hour or two, recalling what you just did. Tracking your time takes less time and attention than you might think. You don’t have to make a pie chart and account for everything, but you’ll want to look out for whether you’re spending your time intentionally, in ways that are important to you. For example, depending on your situation, you may be interested in paying special attention to things such as how much time you spend: What do you like about your schedule? Make sure you celebrate your wins, and the things you’re doing right already, instead of just picking apart all of the ways that you could do better.ĭifferent people will want to track different things.In looking over your time log, Laura recommends asking yourself a few things: Once you have about a week’s worth of data, you look it over. Each half-hour, you jot down how you spent your time during that previous half-hour.
#Track work timer pdf
Tracking your time is a pretty simple practice ( here’s a printable PDF and an Excel template that’ll let you track a week).
#Track work timer how to
The episode is well worth a listen-and there’s a link to play the episode at the bottom of this post-but as always, in case you don’t have the time to do so, here are the best nuggets from our conversation, including how to track your time, and why you should do it. On this week’s episode of Becoming Better, my special guest Laura Vanderkam and I dig into the intricacies of managing and tracking your time-including how and why you should keep a time log, the stories we tell ourselves around how we manage our time, and what Laura has learned from tracking her time every single day for years. Time tracking is something I often write about on ALOP, and rightfully so: tracking your time helps you gain perspective on your life, so you can determine whether the way you spend your time is true to your priorities and what’s important to you. Plus, doing so lets you discover how many hours you actually work, step back from the stories you tell yourself, makes time feel richer, and may end up being the push you need to change how you spend your time.
Keeping a time log sounds like a hassle, but it takes less time and attention than you might think. Takeaway: Keeping a log of how you spend your time, even if just for a few days, makes you aware of whether you’re spending time on what’s actually important to you.
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