March 19, 2019 • 8 mins
Laura explains what she’s learned from tracking her time, and why you should try it too.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Good morning. This is Laura. Every day on this before
Breakfast podcast, I share a practical tip that will help
you take your day from great to awesome. Today's tip
is to track your time. You can start with twenty
four hours, but I hope you'll do more. In this episode,
I'll be explaining why I write and speak about time
(00:25):
management and so. People sometimes tell me that they want
to spend their time better. They asked me what's the
first thing they should do. My answer is always the same.
If you want to spend your time better, you need
to figure out where it's going now. Because if you
don't know where the time is going now, how do
you know if you're changing the right thing. Maybe something
(00:48):
you thought was a problem really isn't. Maybe something you've
never even considered is taking a lot more time than
you thought. Just like when you're making a business decision,
you want to be sure you're working from good data.
The best way to get that data try tracking your time.
Ideally for a week, but even a few days or
(01:09):
just one day can be helpful. I guarantee it will
be enlightening. How do I know that, Well, it's definitely
been enlightening for me. I've had thousands of people track
their time over the years. Generally people use a spreadsheet
I've designed, which you can get from my website or
you can build one yourself. It's got the days of
the week along the top from Monday to Sunday, and
(01:32):
half hour blocks running down the left hand side from
five am to four thirty am, So if you're counting,
that's three thirty six half hour cells representing the hundred
sixty eight hour week. Other people use apps. I mean,
there's dozens of commercial time tracking apps on the market,
or some arts A types like to walk around with
a little notebook and keep notes, writing everything down in
narrative style. So since fair is fair, I've tracked my
(01:55):
time too. I actually began tracking my time continuously in
half hour blocks in April. No crisis or dark moment
prompted this tracking, but I had recently had my fourth child,
and I suspected that this might introduce some new challenges
into my family's already busy life. So I started tracking
(02:16):
in mid April and figured i'd go for a month
or so. Then after a month, I decided it was
easy enough and interesting enough that I would just keep going,
at least for a year. Sure enough, one year in
I found out all sorts of interesting things. Even as
someone who thought she knew everything there was to know
about time. First discovery, I worked less than I thought
(02:40):
I did. In my mind, I was working fifty hours
a week or maybe more. After all, I worked all
day during the work day, I worked at night after
my kids went to bed. I often did work on
the weekends. I traveled for speeches, so that's easily fifty
fifty five maybe sixty hours, right ump. I rarely did
all those things in the same week. In my mind,
(03:01):
I was remembering my most work heavy weeks as typical
because I wanted to see myself as the kind of
serious professional who was working long hours. When I tracked
all my time, I saw that the long term average
was closer to forty hours. Forty is a different number
than fifty. It's not that I never worked fifty hours
(03:25):
a week, because sometimes I did. Sometimes I worked sixty
hours a week, but those weeks were no more typical
than the weeks I worked thirty hours. I have since
learned that this is a common blind spot. There was
once a study comparing people's estimated work weeks with time diaries.
They found that people claiming seventy five plus hour work
weeks were off by about twenty five hours. You can
(03:46):
guess in which direction right. It's funny, but it's important
to understand what's going on. We live in a world
where being busy is seen as a badge of honor.
We feel like we're working hard, heard, and we feel
like we're working long, so we put a high number
on it. You know how these conversations go. I worked
sixty hours last week. Sixty. I wish I worked sixty.
(04:09):
I worked seventy. Seventy, Oh, seventy is my light season,
so on it goes. I once met a young man
at a party who told me he was working a
hundred eighty hours a week at his startup, which is
very impressive if you multiply by seven. Keeping track of
time gives us a more accurate picture of our life.
When we know where the time really goes, we can
(04:30):
make better choices. I could make sure that I spent
the forty hours I was working wisely, and that I
made good choices with those ten other hours that I
didn't know. We're there. I also learned that I spent
a lot of time in the car since I run
my business out of a home office. I don't have
a daily commute, so in my mind, time in the
(04:51):
car was this negligible number. Except it wasn't. I soon
learned that I spent more than an hour a day
in the car, mostly on short trips. This is actually
one of the reasons I got into podcasts. I realized
I needed something constructive to do at this time, and
maybe other people did too. Just to give you a
sense of how far off my estimation was, I was
(05:13):
spending way more time in the car than I was exercising.
But in my mind I was exercising a lot and
I was rarely in the car. But what was most
interesting to me is that I still had space in
my life. My husband and I both work, we have
four active children. Yet I could see on my time
log that there was space I could redeploy to new
(05:35):
activities if I chose so. For instance, I joined a
choir that rehearsed on Thursday nights during the school year.
I had been saying how much I missed singing. It
turned out I did have time to sing. Time tracking
showed me that I promised that time tracking is easy.
I just go in three to four times per day,
(05:55):
writing down what I've done since the last check in.
Broad categories are okay, we're sleep, drive, run, cooked, dinner,
play with kids. Consistency is more important than getting bogged
down in the details. Each check in takes me less
than a minute, so time tracking takes me about three
minutes a day. That's the same amount of time I
spend brushing my teeth, and that's an activity I've yet
(06:17):
to declare myself too busy to do. I hope you'll
give it a try. You can start now. In fact,
here's a way to feel like you've got a head.
Start starting now, write down how you've spent the past
twenty four hours. It turns out most of us can
remember the past twenty four hours with reasonable accuracy. Now
(06:37):
just keep going for the next twenty four hours, and wow,
you've got two days of data to work with. That's great.
You may already be seeing patterns. Make sure you track
at least one weekend day, because weekends are real days too,
and this time really counts. After a week. Add up
the major categories. Ask yourself what you like, ask yourself
(06:59):
what you want to change, No judgment. This is just
about data and learning. More about yourself. But I can
tell you this, Knowing where the time goes has been
life changing for me, and I promise it will be
for you too. If you track your time, I'd love
to know what you find out. You can email me
(07:19):
at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
This is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
(07:41):
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i
heeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out
with all the letters. Thanks so much. I look forward
(08:04):
to staying in touch.
Good morning. This is Laura. Every day on this before
Breakfast podcast, I share a practical tip that will help
you take your day from great to awesome. Today's tip
is to track your time. You can start with twenty
four hours, but I hope you'll do more. In this episode,
I'll be explaining why I write and speak about time
(00:25):
management and so. People sometimes tell me that they want
to spend their time better. They asked me what's the
first thing they should do. My answer is always the same.
If you want to spend your time better, you need
to figure out where it's going now. Because if you
don't know where the time is going now, how do
you know if you're changing the right thing. Maybe something
(00:48):
you thought was a problem really isn't. Maybe something you've
never even considered is taking a lot more time than
you thought. Just like when you're making a business decision,
you want to be sure you're working from good data.
The best way to get that data try tracking your time.
Ideally for a week, but even a few days or
(01:09):
just one day can be helpful. I guarantee it will
be enlightening. How do I know that, Well, it's definitely
been enlightening for me. I've had thousands of people track
their time over the years. Generally people use a spreadsheet
I've designed, which you can get from my website or
you can build one yourself. It's got the days of
the week along the top from Monday to Sunday, and
(01:32):
half hour blocks running down the left hand side from
five am to four thirty am, So if you're counting,
that's three thirty six half hour cells representing the hundred
sixty eight hour week. Other people use apps. I mean,
there's dozens of commercial time tracking apps on the market,
or some arts A types like to walk around with
a little notebook and keep notes, writing everything down in
narrative style. So since fair is fair, I've tracked my
(01:55):
time too. I actually began tracking my time continuously in
half hour blocks in April. No crisis or dark moment
prompted this tracking, but I had recently had my fourth child,
and I suspected that this might introduce some new challenges
into my family's already busy life. So I started tracking
(02:16):
in mid April and figured i'd go for a month
or so. Then after a month, I decided it was
easy enough and interesting enough that I would just keep going,
at least for a year. Sure enough, one year in
I found out all sorts of interesting things. Even as
someone who thought she knew everything there was to know
about time. First discovery, I worked less than I thought
(02:40):
I did. In my mind, I was working fifty hours
a week or maybe more. After all, I worked all
day during the work day, I worked at night after
my kids went to bed. I often did work on
the weekends. I traveled for speeches, so that's easily fifty
fifty five maybe sixty hours, right ump. I rarely did
all those things in the same week. In my mind,
(03:01):
I was remembering my most work heavy weeks as typical
because I wanted to see myself as the kind of
serious professional who was working long hours. When I tracked
all my time, I saw that the long term average
was closer to forty hours. Forty is a different number
than fifty. It's not that I never worked fifty hours
(03:25):
a week, because sometimes I did. Sometimes I worked sixty
hours a week, but those weeks were no more typical
than the weeks I worked thirty hours. I have since
learned that this is a common blind spot. There was
once a study comparing people's estimated work weeks with time diaries.
They found that people claiming seventy five plus hour work
weeks were off by about twenty five hours. You can
(03:46):
guess in which direction right. It's funny, but it's important
to understand what's going on. We live in a world
where being busy is seen as a badge of honor.
We feel like we're working hard, heard, and we feel
like we're working long, so we put a high number
on it. You know how these conversations go. I worked
sixty hours last week. Sixty. I wish I worked sixty.
(04:09):
I worked seventy. Seventy, Oh, seventy is my light season,
so on it goes. I once met a young man
at a party who told me he was working a
hundred eighty hours a week at his startup, which is
very impressive if you multiply by seven. Keeping track of
time gives us a more accurate picture of our life.
When we know where the time really goes, we can
(04:30):
make better choices. I could make sure that I spent
the forty hours I was working wisely, and that I
made good choices with those ten other hours that I
didn't know. We're there. I also learned that I spent
a lot of time in the car since I run
my business out of a home office. I don't have
a daily commute, so in my mind, time in the
(04:51):
car was this negligible number. Except it wasn't. I soon
learned that I spent more than an hour a day
in the car, mostly on short trips. This is actually
one of the reasons I got into podcasts. I realized
I needed something constructive to do at this time, and
maybe other people did too. Just to give you a
sense of how far off my estimation was, I was
(05:13):
spending way more time in the car than I was exercising.
But in my mind I was exercising a lot and
I was rarely in the car. But what was most
interesting to me is that I still had space in
my life. My husband and I both work, we have
four active children. Yet I could see on my time
log that there was space I could redeploy to new
(05:35):
activities if I chose so. For instance, I joined a
choir that rehearsed on Thursday nights during the school year.
I had been saying how much I missed singing. It
turned out I did have time to sing. Time tracking
showed me that I promised that time tracking is easy.
I just go in three to four times per day,
(05:55):
writing down what I've done since the last check in.
Broad categories are okay, we're sleep, drive, run, cooked, dinner,
play with kids. Consistency is more important than getting bogged
down in the details. Each check in takes me less
than a minute, so time tracking takes me about three
minutes a day. That's the same amount of time I
spend brushing my teeth, and that's an activity I've yet
(06:17):
to declare myself too busy to do. I hope you'll
give it a try. You can start now. In fact,
here's a way to feel like you've got a head.
Start starting now, write down how you've spent the past
twenty four hours. It turns out most of us can
remember the past twenty four hours with reasonable accuracy. Now
(06:37):
just keep going for the next twenty four hours, and wow,
you've got two days of data to work with. That's great.
You may already be seeing patterns. Make sure you track
at least one weekend day, because weekends are real days too,
and this time really counts. After a week. Add up
the major categories. Ask yourself what you like, ask yourself
(06:59):
what you want to change, No judgment. This is just
about data and learning. More about yourself. But I can
tell you this, Knowing where the time goes has been
life changing for me, and I promise it will be
for you too. If you track your time, I'd love
to know what you find out. You can email me
(07:19):
at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
This is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
(07:41):
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
number four, then Breakfast p o D. You can also
shoot me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i
heeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out
with all the letters. Thanks so much. I look forward
(08:04):
to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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