Plan.Paperless

As you may have seen on my Instagram, lately I’ve been experimenting with tracking my time. Essentially, this means having a record of what I did during the day. After watching this video by Matt Ragland, I was inspired to take his 5-day Time Tracking Challenge.

Now, to be truthful, I had come across Matt and his video while I was using YouTube to procrastinate studying for my final exams last month. As soon as I started to learn what it was that Matt does, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.

As I mentioned above, tracking my time consists of one main step: write down what I did all day! Like Matt, I created a table that separated every hour of my day into 15-minute blocks. However, unlike Matt I included all my waking hours from 6 am - 12 am, not just the ones outside of school/work. I did this since my schedule changes daily and I wanted to use my Time Tracker as a tool to look back on the past as well as a tool to plan my day. In fact, since I use my tracker as a planning tool, my process to track my time is slightly different to Matt’s as well. I’ve outlined it in the steps below:

Something extra that I also do (not related to tracking my time) is tracking what I ate on the same spread.

After doing this for a week, I noticed that I was so motivated not to write down the word “Procrastinated” in my blocks, that my productivity was greatly improved! Along with this, there were a total of 5 main benefits that I’ve associated with tracking my time.

As I said earlier, the benefit that I realized almost instantly was the incentive to be productive. I found that I was so motivated to record a productive time block, that I didn’t let myself even open YouTube, Instagram, Netflix or Facebook. The goal I set for myself daily was to have a total of zero for the “Procrastinate” category. 

By the end of the first few days, I found that I was so productive I entirely misjudged how much time I would need to study for each of my exams and I actually ran out of material to study. I ended up having a great mindset for my exams, as I felt well-prepared for each, was able to get a good sleep the night before (since I wasn’t cramming after using the day-time to procrastinate), and I was also in a much better mood since I felt that I had done something useful with my day.

Additionally, for many business owners and CEO’s, it is crucial to employ the mindset that “Time is Money”. If one’s time is being wasted, it is considered a financial loss, since that time could have been spent making money for the company. Even if not all of us are business owners or CEO’s we can still have the mindset that if we waste our time, it is time lost that could have been invested towards strengthening our relationships by spending quality time with friends, family or significant others, or it is time lost that could have been spent investing in our future careers by educating ourselves in our area of work or study. It could even be time lost that could have been invested in our physical and mental health, by exercising, eating and sleeping properly, and simply taking the time to have a break and let our minds rest!

I also found that I was able to get myself into the mindset to focus on what I was during each block. Before tracking my time, I often tried to do many tasks at the same time to see if I could get them done faster. Obviously, this wasn’t as effective since I often became frazzled and confused between the many items I was splitting my attention between

With time tracking, I can force myself only to focus on the item in the time-block I am currently in. I can keep my attention on just one task at a time and since I know what task I am supposed to be doing and for how much time, I can keep my mind from wandering.

Since there is a set time limit that I know I will work on a specific task, I can remind myself that time flies and every minute wasted is another minute I could allocate to fun things after my work is done.

Another benefit of time tracking is the realization of how you spend your time. There are many times where I have procrastinated an entire day and then justify it at the end of the day by saying: “Well, at least I finished this one thing I did at the beginning of the day.” It often happens that we waste time, but since we completed one or two of our tasks we don’t realize how much time we actually wasted. After my first day of time tracking, I shocked myself to see how much time I wasted, and that was one of the biggest motivators to push me to be productive the following days. At the very least, if I procrastinated a little bit, I wanted to make sure that I did not procrastinate as much as the previous day.

In an article for inc.com, (read it here) Minda Zetlin said the following: “I was surprised to see how much time I devoted to a single not-very-high-paying customer. When I compared that time to the month's revenues from that customer, it wasn't a pretty picture. On the other hand, I know this client has the potential to help bring in more lucrative work, and that the more time I put in, the likelier that is to happen. I'm going to keep a close eye on how much time I spend on those projects, and keep looking for ways to make that work more efficient.”

It is important for us to see how much time we spend on tasks that do not benefit us and compare it with tasks that do. If we see that we spend the majority of our time on tasks that do not pay off, we need to see how much of that time we can re-allocate to tasks that do.

So many times I’ve set a massive to-do list for myself and have become frustrated when I couldn’t complete it all in one day. After time tracking, I noticed how many tasks took longer or shorter than expected. With estimating how much time I would need to each of my tasks, based on tracking that time during previous days, it has become easier to estimate how much time each task would need. For example, I know now that my morning worship usually takes me at least half an hour, as opposed to fifteen minutes. Since beginning time tracking, I have adjusted the time allocation for this task accordingly. Similarly, eating breakfast usually takes me fifteen minutes depending on what I eat, so I am able to allocate that time better.

Laura Vanderkam writes about the difficulties of realistically estimating how much time we need for certain tasks. She says: “We are prone to over- or underestimate things based on socially desirable perceptions or current emotions. For instance, few of us love the routine aspects of housework or household administration. Emptying the dishwasher or paying bills doesn’t take much time, but we feel like we’re always doing these chores. So if someone asks us how much time we spend on such things, we overestimate — by something on the order of 100 percent for both men and women — compared to the actual numbers recorded in time diaries.”

Connecting with number four, the last major benefit to time tracking is being able to realize when there is simply too much on your plate. If you plan out your day and allocate your time realistically, and you still cannot fit all the things you need to in your schedule, then you know that something needs to be given up. 

Many times I have complained that there are not enough hours in the day to do all that I need to do. There was no way to do all the things I needed without sacrificing my health and sanity. Since we are not machines, trying to complete these tasks was an impossible and draining process, which caused me to suffer both physically and mentally.

When we really cannot set aside time for all the things we need to do to be productive, healthy and mentally stable, we need to realize that it is time to start saying no to new projects or even to end or delay current ones. 

It is so important to have this work-life balance for our personal health, as well as the health of our family and community. As Shawn M. Burn, Ph.D. said: “People need time and energy to participate in family life, democracy, and community activities. They also need time outside of work for rejuvenation, and to develop and nurture friendships and their ‘non-work selves’”

To conclude, time tracking is something that does not have to be complex or very structured, and it never has to be seen by anyone other than you. Regardless of why or how you track your time, the main objective is to improve your productivity in whichever way is best suited to you! I encourage each and every one of you to try time tracking using whatever method or structure works best for you, and after a few days, a week, or even a month see how your productivity, health, and happiness has changed. From my own personal experience, I can say that, so far, time tracking has helped me to improve all of these things and more and I know that it can do the same for you!