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How to track every hour of your day

I started in 2018. I haven't stopped. Learn from my mistakes.

NOTE: This write up is intentionally exhaustive as to help anyone who is struggling, I do not expect many people to do all of thisā€Šā€”ā€Šbut I do hope it helps structure how to improve. As a summary:
  • Use time tracking to establish your baseline
  • Make predictions and test them (I spend 20% of my time doing X)
  • Create goals for your year - what do you want to accomplish?
  • Create targets that would lead you there that are also measurable

Record only what is important to you

We live in a world where it is possible to track any metric about your lifeā€Šā€”ā€Što some success. Not all of these are actionable though.

For me, coming up with targets and hypotheses helps me structure my pots where I put my time and learn from tracking them.

Additionally the simple act of recording makes me feel accountable for what I am doing.

Get some baseline stats

It’s hard to know where to go if you don’t know where you are.

Recording just two days of your life as you already act can be insightful. In doing it, you may spot time sinks that you want to change.

Be detailed or be general it is up to you but just make sure you can recall what you did in each hour when you record (for some this means each hour note it down, for others each evening works).

If your time is ā€œbityā€ record the general intent of the hour. For example, when I am making lunch but also on a work call I would classify that as working. When I am getting up, making and eating breakfast, looking at my phone and setting up my desk, I group all that time as ā€˜admin and chores’ or ā€˜morning routine’.

Hypotheses

A good example is work. Before tracking I looked at work as generally things I needed to do for my own benefit going foreward. I never asked "Do I like my job?". Now I personally assess every hour of work into 4 pots.

  • Joyful workā€Šā€”ā€Šthe work I want to be doing
  • Developing workā€Šā€”ā€Šlearning and skills and challenges that I may not love but do improve me
  • Grim workā€Šā€”ā€Šwork I hate, that is tedious and unhelpful
  • Just workā€Šā€”ā€Šnot everything is joyous or useful, some things are just work and that’s fine but numbing

This may feel extreme but I started me understanding when I was wasting my time and helped me optimise for better work to enjoy.

I recommened you make a list of hypotheses about your time. To help you start here are some random onesā€Šā€”ā€Šdon’t create a lot of these, we should be specific:

  • I think half my work time is joyful.
  • I think I spend as much time with friends as I do chilling alone.
  • I sleep for 8 hours each day.
  • What I eat rarely affects my next day.
  • Over 50 hours of work a week stresses me out.

Break each hypothesis into things you can measure

  • I will measure how I feel at work - joyful, grim, boring, learning.
  • I will compare hours relaxing alone to time recorded with friends.
  • I will record when I sleep and when I am in bed but awake.
  • I will keep a food diary and track how productive I feel on the day
  • I will each day record how stressed I feel and also measure how much I work.

Doing this will give you a good opportunity to learn about yourself.

Think of your long term goals

What do you want to complete or start this year?

Try to make them achievableā€Šā€”ā€Šie not ā€œdo moreā€ but ā€œdo double the number of hoursā€, or ā€œhit 2 hours a weekā€ (aka 100 hours this year), or complete X.

Write your goals down and think about how you will happily say you achieve them
  • Read six books this year — are you interested to record time to each book or will one pot for reading do?
  • Exercise for 4 hours a week — do you have a target event or goal
  • Build my first version of my website/project/design.
  • Get a new job - will you record how much time you are browsing for jobs and how much time is spent actually applying?
  • Run a marathon - recording planning and prepping, as well as training or should that all go into one pot?

Think about what you regularly do

Some things can’t be avoided. Everyone must sleep, eat and pay taxes…

You will likely need time for doing admin like activities. The same with chores.

They are unlikely to be things you will have goals for doing, but they may be things you’ll be interested to compare with. Ie, I have spent more time cleaning than I have listening to Podcasts. Can I do both?

Finally, consider these categories:

Is there anything missing from your list that would go in here?

You should have a list now of what you want to categories by

Here are the first pots I created when I started, for inspiration. Notice how I never prioritised hobbies. This is completely different now.

And finally...


… and you will do more of it

Automation makes things easier but so do other things. If you want to make a habit remove barriers to do it.

Story: I was training for a triathlon so I brought cycle rides inside and did them early in the morning with a film set up ready to watch. Less fussing, no going outside and getting cold. It is easier to do as less effort is required.

Finding a time to record is important too but not dramatically. I tend to record each time I unlock my phone but I started recording it when I first opened my laptop in the morning originally, then I was recording as I got into bed. Now it is natural to do it whenever I think of it - which is multiple times a day.

And I started wearing a watch, so I was more aware of the time. It helped make mental notes of what I was doing at what time.

Value your time

Tracking should take time. It should be simple and easy. I takes me less than 3 minutes a day to record my time in total.

For me, I used a spreadsheet for a year before I started to look for apps. When I used timer apps I hated them as I felt the timers ticking up put stress on me eating seconds setting them flutter on by.

I ended up back at the spreadsheet. It let me do my own data crunching and was complete free (in cost and ability).

But spreadsheets are a pain to use on mobile.

Instead I built everyhour for myself, and you can use it!

If you would rather use a spreadsheet here is my original template (which you will need to tailor for your own work). But I will bet that if you start, you will want to use everyhour for all the same issues I came across.

My original spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OZlQG-h6HM8-WFfjkA9tRQZbyAuPpOZcG1exnNMXlyI/edit?usp=sharing

Get this superpower?

I started tracking with a spreadsheet. Feel free too. I built everyhour so that you don't have to. You can record easily on any device. You can customised it as much as you want, with as many categories as you want. You can view analytics on your time in one click.

You can sign up here:

If you are struggling with setting up a way for you to track time, please give me a message!

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