Logging my time
People say the way to understand how you spend your money is to keep a log of all transactions. One of these days, I’m going to do it. First, I’m working on the same concept for how I spend my time.
Yesterday I picked up a little book called Manage Your Time. Since it held my interest for a number of minutes at the store, I bought it. It is full of ideas and encouragement, one of which is time-logging.
Today I am keeping a log of everything I do. Every thirty minutes an alarm goes off on my computer to remind me to log that half hour’s work. The idea is that after a few days I’ll be able to see a pattern and make some changes.
So far, the effect has been that I have treated the logging as mini-deadlines, wanting to get something of substance done by the next half hour.
Semi-related link: Mark Wieczorek’s Get Back to Work.