In an earlier post, I mentioned my ‘hard reset’.
And how it came from “a prolonged session of year-end introspection.”
That involved a TIME AUDIT.
Here’s how I run one…
#1: Record Time Consumption
An old expression in the field of computing is: GIGO.
Garbage in, Garbage out.
To analyze anything, you first need RELIABLE data.
For several years, I’ve used a tool called ‘Rescue Time‘.
It runs on my computer, tracking all that I do on it – and generates diverse reports at the click of a button.
(I use the paid Premium service, but there’s a decent Free plan you can try first.)
#2: Set Categories
You can decide how to group your time consumption.
A broad plan might be:
- Sleep
- Personal
- Work
Within ‘Work’, you might have sub-categories:
- Project tasks
- Study and preparation
- Travel
- Entertainment
- News
Pick whatever suits your needs best.
#3: Generate Reports
Using your time management tool – or by simply adding up what you’ve jotted down in a diary or notebook – generate your ‘time report‘.
It should give you information about how your day (or week, or month, or year) breaks up.
At first, you may be shocked to see how many hours you spend on each category.
And that shock leads… to your decision to change!
#4: Study Reports and Plan Changes
Simply staring at your time report won’t help.
You must study it critically – and make decisions.
- Is this amount of time spent on an activity justified?
- Can it be reduced without adverse impact?
- Are there ways to bring this down?
- What else can I use the time for instead?
‘Rescue Time‘ allows me to color-code specific activities and websites – BLUE for productive, RED for wasteful.
It gives me a quick visual indication, hour by hour, of whether my time is being usefully spent – or not!
Your Time Audit Is Done!
That’s all it takes.
But what a ‘time audit’ can give you is phenomenal.
You can take control of your life – and skyrocket your productivity.
It begins with your time audit.
Then comes the hard part.
Making tough decisions.
And taking disciplined action upon them.
I’m (kind of) a specialist at that.
And teach hundreds of people every year how to do this well.
If you’re keen to learn… If you’re willing to invest the time, the effort and yes, the money into this… then let me know.
I’ll keep you posted about upcoming programs and courses.
No, they will NOT be inexpensive.
But you’ll make a high multiple back in terms of
– time you’ll save and
– productivity gains you’ll enjoy.
Make your year more productive.
Run your time audit soon.
And take action.
🥳
P.S. – The images below are screenshots of my time consumption record.
It tracks my computer-usage alone. Other offline activities are separate.
You can see I’ve worked 2,721 hours on my machine in 2022 – that’s an average of 7.5 hours daily.
Roughly half of that time (48%) has been productive work.
The wasteful time (coded in RED) is mainly:
- Utilities: which include FB, WhatsApp and Twitter
- Entertainment: which has movies and chess
- News & Opinion: which is mainly keeping up with world news
My decisions to boost productivity, therefore, are guided by picking the ‘lowest hanging fruit’.
- Cut out social media – completely (saves 619 hours)
- Limit chess – to two 3-minute games a day (saves 65 hours)
- Reduce news consumption – to half (saves 150 hours)
It helps that my favored news portal changed owners recently, with a shift in reporting style/quality that anyway turned me off!
So IF I manage to stick to these goals, then I will potentially save eight hundred and thirty four hours …in 2023 alone!
😯
NOW do you begin to see the impact of a ‘time audit’ better?
AND appreciate why my time management programs are worth paying a LOT for?!
😜