{"id":2888,"date":"2019-11-26T09:28:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T14:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/?p=2888"},"modified":"2019-11-26T09:35:38","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T14:35:38","slug":"i-tracked-every-second-of-my-time-for-a-week-heres-what-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noelfigart.com\/wordpress\/2019\/11\/26\/i-tracked-every-second-of-my-time-for-a-week-heres-what-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"I tracked every second of my time for a week. Here\u2019s what happened."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
An Average Day in Chart Form<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just for giggles and to give my border collie brain\nsomething to do, I decided I was going to track every minute of my day\naccording to what I was doing at the time. \nYeah, I know.  What\u2019s the point of\nthat nonsense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In searching for a justification better than \u201cI like playing\nwith and analyzing data,\u201d think about this: \nTime is all you have, and it is finite. \nAre you spending it in a way that is useful and happy-making to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did I learn from tracking every minute of the day?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Some things that need change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I got some serious feedback on things I need to think about\nand take action on<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The act of time tracking messes up the data.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rather like someone who has decided to keep a food log, the\nvery act of tracking my time has meant that the feedback has become more\nimmediate.  Having to press a button on\nmy phone to log what I was intending to do made me a bit more deliberate about\nwhat I was choosing to do.  I tried very\nhard to reflect what my time genuinely looks like, screwing around on the\nInternet or hopping like a bunny from task to task.  That didn\u2019t stop me from wincing when I\nneeded to deliberately say, \u201cOkay, I am going to screw around on the Internet\nnow!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time tracking is a time-consuming pain.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I could only stand doing it for about six days before I felt like it was distracting me from things I genuinely wanted to get done.  I could have sucked it up for the purposes of this article, but the sample of how I spend my time was reasonably representative, spanning workdays and a weekend, so I ran with the data I have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will probably start treating tracking my time rather like\nI treat tracking my food \u2013 only if it looks like there is a problem and I want a\nreality check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I realized my priorities were screwed up<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I suspected this. \nWhile I was spending a decent amount of time on my family[1]<\/a>,\nI was not so good at spending an appropriate amount of time on my friends.  In fact, it helped cement a decision to get\nmy butt off Facebook \u2013 which I will discuss in another article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also was spending far too much time on chores and\nhousework.  I know that sounds nuts, but while\nhaving a tidy house is one thing, and yes, I do want that, puttering around all\nday looking for things to put away or clean and listening to audiobooks isn\u2019t\nreally where I want to put All the Energy.  I deserve a nice environment, yes.  But I can and should corral that time into\ndiscrete units so that it is taken care of efficiently and doesn\u2019t get out of\nhand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found that my time was badly scattered<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I already knew multitasking is a myth.  You\u2019re not multitasking, you\u2019re context\nswitching<\/strong>.  Thing is, if you do that,\nyou\u2019re bearing a cognitive load.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numerous\nstudies<\/a> point to the fact that as you context switch between tasks, your\nefficiency on those tasks, as well as your accuracy, suffers.  For work that has a heavier cognitive load, a\nflow state is important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you take a look at the screenshot, you\u2019ll notice that unless I was teaching a class, sleeping, exercising, or knitting, a lot of my time was spent in context switching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the reality? \nMost housework chores simply don\u2019t take all that much time or cognitive\nload. I\u2019ve talked about that before.  However,\nwhen you\u2019re switching your attention a lot, you\u2019re not getting as much done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am taking away from this particular data that how much\ntime I dedicate to something does need to depend a bit on the cognitive load\nthe task takes.   Laundry, not so\nmuch.  Writing? Learning a new computer\nlanguage?  I need to stop switching around\nand focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was putting too much mental energy into exercise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Look, I need to work out. \nI do<\/strong> work out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not<\/em> need to spend an hour looking for motivational\narticles on the Internet about why I need to work out or to get me excited\nabout my goals.  My body does not care<\/em>\nabout what it takes to get me on the treadmill or weight bench.  It only cares that I did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That hour I spend hyping myself up to work out is in no way adding to my life.  It would be better-spent knitting.  At least I\u2019d get a sweater out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things I won\u2019t change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because living on purpose choosing deliberately is a big\ndeal to me, I\u2019m happy that I got feedback about things I don\u2019t want to change\nbecause I\u2019m happy with what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spend a lot of time planning or preparing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Straight up, I\u2019m okay<\/strong> with this.  It wasn\u2019t a surprise and I was always happy\nwith spending my time this way.  I used\nto have a martial arts teacher who consistently said, \u201cPreparation precedes\naction.\u201d  True. Very true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making bento the night before takes about 15 minutes a\nnight.  If I eschew those fifteen\nminutes, I am running a non-trivial risk of not making a well-balanced lunch\nwhen I get hungry around noontime.  I\u2019m\nfine with giving Future Me that little present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laying out clothes and tidying while the bath is running (I\nhave low water pressure) definitely jump-starts my morning, especially when\nexercise clothes are staring me in the face on what I know is going to be a\nbusy day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five minutes with my Bullet Journal translates into more\nknitting and reading time because I think about what I want to accomplish in a\nday and when that\u2019s done, I\u2019m blasted well off the hook for being so-called\nproductive.  I had kinda figured this was\nso, but now I have a numeric comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spend a lot<\/strong> more time reading actual books than I thought<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I thought I consumed most stories in audiobook format while\nI\u2019m doing household chores these days. \nSo I figured that the \u201cReading\u201d part of how I spend my time under\n\u201cHobbies\u201d was going to be a bit anemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naw\u2026 Not really.  Part\nof this is that I read in the bathtub, and I had no idea how long I generally\nspent in the bath soaking and reading a book. \nI found out that I average about as much time doing that as I do\nexercising.  Nice balance and a pleasant\nsurprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get enough sleep.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

OK, I already knew that.\u00a0 I\u2019m protective of my sleep and have been for many years.\u00a0 I\u2019m stupid when sleep-deprived, so I avoid that.\u00a0 I find the bragging about running on too little sleep idiotic and I\u2019m sure it contributes to our unstable politics.\u00a0 That, and not making your bed.\u00a0 That\u2019s my story and I\u2019m sticking to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, a question for my readers.  Are you satisfied with how you spend your days?  If not, what do you want to do and how can you do that?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> If\nyou\u2019ve known me for five minutes, you know about the family thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just for giggles and to give my border collie brain something to do, I decided I was going to track every minute of my day according to what I was doing at the time.  Yeah, I know.  What\u2019s the point of that nonsense? In searching for a justification better than \u201cI like playing with and … <\/p>\n

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