Keeping track of where that time goes

I hear a lot of people complain “Oh, I just haven’t got enough time”, but when you ask them where they spend their time they’re not sure. If this sounds like you, then simply keep a time sheet for 2 weeks. A daily sheet of paper will do. Break it down into 10 or 15 minute increments.

Then set your smartphone to sound an alarm every 10 minutes. Stop what you’re doing and write down what you spent that last segment of time on. At the end of the week, spend an hour categorising and summarising your time sheets. You will be astounded at the results. You now know exactly how to get more time: Stop doing the things that, at the end of the day, are not contributing to the outcomes you seek.

What’s the end result? Most of the people I work with can recoup a crazy 30% of time spent. Say you do a 45 hours workweek, that’s 15 hours back every week. There’s huge potential in that!

Effectiveness comes in so many forms: unsubscribe to email lists where you haven’t read their stuff for the last 6 weeks. Don’t check the news; it’s old anyway. Turn off unimportant reminders. We are commonly so distracted that effectiveness suffers badly—we simply don’t get stretches long enough to get the real work done!