You should all time track at least two weeks of your lives.
If you have a busy work life and want to
→ spend your time wisely
→ focus on your stated priorities
→ act with intention throughout the day
you absolutely have to try time tracking.
I’ve been doing some form of it for almost seven years—and it’s been an invaluable tool for me.
Getting started is easy: pick a tracking app (two recommendations below), come up with a few relevant categories to track, and start a new timer whenever you start a new task.
Even if you only track for two weeks, you will very quickly find two things:
If you’re just a little bit diligent about it, the timer is your nudge towards intentionality. Find yourself working on something completely different than your currently running timer? You got distracted! (This will happen at least a dozen times in your first two days.)
Start a timer, start a task, focus. Repeat.
I often hear “Topic A is a top priority for me and my team right now”. At the end of two weeks of time tracking, they’ve spent 10% of their time on Topic A.
Managers should spend a significant percentage of their working hours leading. Too often they invest less than 20% of their time in coaching and leading their teams.
Your priorities are only as good as the actions that follow—that’s where the magic happens.