One of the things I've gotten tremendous amounts of mileage out of it is tracking my time, habits, and life each day.
To put it simply - I now realize it's impossible to understand how your life is going without some careful observation. There's a lot of time each day, and knowing where that time goes, what you ate, what you did and didn't do... it's almost impossible to get a good picture of your life without some kind of measuring.
I'm going to you my newest tracking template, and then I'll give some analysis. Before I start though, I'd like to share a quote -
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.” -John Gall
Thus, if you want to track your time, please do not attempt to track 20 things at once, because it's unlikely to work. I started very simply, as I described in "The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking" - I'd recommend you read that post if you want to do something like this.
Okay, here's my newest template -
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START OF DAY ROUTINE:
Time awake:
Total sleep (hours/minutes):
Appointments today:
Other time-sensitive things:
What assets could I build/improve/acquire today:
Planning:
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DO BEFORE GOING ONLINE:
Vitamins (C, Fish oil, Calcium/D):
Stretching:
Situps:
Brush/floss:
Breathe:
Borderlands (+24 Hours):
Gratitude:
Review Life Goals:
Review "Current Targets":
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DO SOMETIME DURING THE DAY:
Exercise (walk/run/other):
Listen to audio:
Blog post:
Email in box, start:
Empty inbox completely:
Help someone:
Get slightly more organized:
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TIME TRACKING:MINUTES:
A-task:
Exercise:
Thinking/planning:
Writing:
--> Subtotal Excellent:Maintenance:
Reading:
Social:
--> Subtotal Good:Semi-productive:
Family:
Relaxing:
--> Subtotal Okay:Surfing/wasting time:
Transit/dead time:
--> Subtotal Bad:
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FOOD/CALORIES/TRAININGCalories:
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CHALLENGES:
Did I start the day in my planner instead of online?
Did I only check email when I was ready to write back immediately?
Did I only check a site once, then done with it?
Did I check "Current Targets" if I caught myself wasting time?
Did I prioritize books/good learning instead of mindless surfing?
Did I make war on procrastination?
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END OF DAY:
What are my key life goals? Spend 5 minutes on this.
Expenses for the day (estimate)?
Cash gotten or worked towards today:
What did I do right to move me towards my goals?
What would I do differently if I had the day to live over?
Plan tomorrow:
Make a request of my subconscious:
Set alarm:
You'll see there's seven sections -
START OF DAY ROUTINE
DO BEFORE GOING ONLINE
DO SOMETIME DURING THE DAY
TIME TRACKING
FOOD/CALORIES/TRAINING
CHALLENGES
END OF DAY
Some analysis -
START OF DAY ROUTINE:
Time awake:
Total sleep (hours/minutes):
Appointments today:
Other time-sensitive things:
What assets could I build/improve/acquire today:
Planning:
This is simple enough - I fill this out at the start of the day every day. If I know roughly what's most important, it takes less than two minutes to fill out. It only takes longer when I'm not sure how I want to be spending the time, and that's actually when it's the most valuable. I pretty much always, without exception, fill this out within the first hour of the day. I need to because this is where I check my appointments and build my day around it.
DO BEFORE GOING ONLINE:
Vitamins (C, Fish oil, Calcium/D):
Stretching:
Situps:
Brush/floss:
Breathe:
Borderlands (+24 Hours):
Gratitude:
Review Life Goals:
Review "Current Targets":
Funny, the title of this section - "Do Before Going Online" - is a throwback to me trying to do my habits before logging on to the internet. I've now gotten past this and it's automatic for me to start the day with my habitual stuff, so I suppose I could re-title it "Morning Routine" - so you see, your time/habit/life tracking is going to be a living, evolving thing.
Nothing too crazy on here - some basic health/fitness stuff, looking at my goals. "Borderlands" is roughly equivalent to "Meditate" - it means reflect on the fleetingness of life for a moment, which is important to me philosophically. In "Gratitude" I list a bunch of things I'm grateful for, which helps a lot. "Current Targets" is a list of a books I'm currently reading, things I want to write and do, etc. I described it in greater detail in "Want to read more? Okay, here’s a few ways to do so" if you're curious - looking at Current Targets gives me an idea of what to do if I don't know what to do.
DO SOMETIME DURING THE DAY:
Exercise (walk/run/other):
Listen to audio:
Blog post:
Email in box, start:
Empty inbox completely:
Help someone:
Get slightly more organized:
This is stuff I want to do sometime during the day, but I'm flexible as to when. All of it's pretty self-explanatory - I write down the number email in the start of my inbox at the day to get an idea on volume (it's not perfect, because I get/answer email throughout the day sometimes which doesn't get counted). "Get slightly more organized" is useful - it just means clean or improve or maintain something I'm using. It could be some of my things, could be my environment, or clearing up the files/desktop on my computer.
I've also got "Listen to audio" on there, because I find listening to audiobooks, podcasts, or audio programs correlates really well with getting a lot done in life. I try not to go more than 3-4 days without listening to audio. Recently I realized I'd gone almost a week, and that's when I realized I didn't have any new audio programs and I went and got a couple audiobooks.
TIME TRACKING:
MINUTES:
A-task:
Exercise:
Thinking/planning:
Writing:
--> Subtotal Excellent:Maintenance:
Reading:
Social:
--> Subtotal Good:Semi-productive:
Family:
Relaxing:
--> Subtotal Okay:Surfing/wasting time:
Transit/dead time:
--> Subtotal Bad:
This is the largest section on my template - I fill it out throughout the day. I make a note when I switch activites, and then I classify what I did afterwards.
Here's an excerpt from yesterday's time tracking - it was a bit of a strange day since I had a 3:30AM call back to America -
1:05AM: Rested in bed for a while, got up, relaxed and watched a movie, getting started with some work now. (85 minutes relaxing)
1:55AM: Answered emails/blog comments. (50 minutes maintenance)
2:40AM: Research. (45 minutes A-task)
2:50AM: (10 minutes maintenance)
3:45AM: Reading. (55 minutes reading)
4:30AM: Prepared for call, had call, went well. (45 minutes A task)
5:50AM: Reading. Getting some more sleep now. (80 minutes reading)
This actually isn't hard to do. I make a note when I switch tasks. I classify things into groups. At the end of the day, I add it up. Here's yesterday's minutes -
MINUTES:
A-task: 90
Exercise: 150
Thinking/planning: -
Writing: -
--> Subtotal Excellent: 240Maintenance: 150
Reading: 175
Social: 90
--> Subtotal Good: 415Semi-productive: -
Family: -
Relaxing: 145
Semi-relaxing: 40
--> Subtotal Okay: 185Surfing/wasting time: 60
Transit/dead time: 20
--> Subtotal Bad: 80
It takes 5-10 minutes to add these up at the end of the day. Sometimes I have to create new categories - like yesterday "Semi-relaxing" when I was eating dinner and half-thinking... it wasn't dead time, it wasn't relaxing, it was... half-relaxing.
"A-task" means very big, expansive things. I find these tasks correlate really well with success, but it's hard to put time into that category. Most of my work is "Maintenance" type stuff, which is also very good time, but not as excellent as really excellent time.
FOOD/CALORIES/TRAINING
Oatmeal. 300 cal?
Noodles with chicken and vegetables. 850 cal.
2x small portion jack fruit, half-apple, 3x portions cucumburs. 400 cal.
3 hard boiled tea eggs. 250 cal.
2 pieces of bread with butter. 250 cal.
Calories: 1750 cal. Done for the day. Good eating today, right on the mark and feeling very satisified... I almost had fruit juice, but turned it down - and that makes the difference betwen very successful and moderately so. Cucumburs help a lot with making diet. Also, oatmeal is good for good calorie/fiber mix.
That's an example of food/calories/training filled out. Again, I just jot down food as I eat it. It was time consuming to figure out the calories at first, but now I know off the top of my head what anything I eat commonly has for calories, so it doesn't take any extra time. Currently, I'm trying to run a caloric deficit of about 500 calories per day - I put some weight on when I was recovering from the crash in Cambodia, as described in "Keep Death In Mind."
I went and got my weight and body composition tested on 11 November, here's the results and the targets I set:
82.6 kg (182.1 lbs)
Body fat 22.5%
Body water 56.7%
Muscle mass 60.7 kg (133.8 lbs)18.6 kg fat (41 lbs fat)
To take a third of the fat off is to lose 12 lbs. That's 3 months of -500 cal/day.
My daily burn rate without exercise: 2255 cal
Targets:
1755 without exercise
1955 with one hour of light walking
140 g protein/day (560 cal from protein)
It's going a bit slower than I wanted it to - my calories/day tend to average in the 1900 to 2100 range. So it'll probably take 4-5 months, and then I'll be at 14% bodyfat, which is good. I could cut more at that point, or start hitting the weights. I wasn't really concerned with bodyfat levels after the motorcycle crash in Cambodia, I wanted to make sure I had enough nutrients to heal, so I made the conscious decision to eat a lot every day while recovering. Anyways, I'm shedding that now. Filling out the nutrition info takes another 3-5 minutes per day.
CHALLENGES:
Did I start the day in my planner instead of online?
Did I only check email when I was ready to write back immediately?
Did I only check a site once, then done with it?
Did I check "Current Targets" if I caught myself wasting time?
Did I prioritize books/good learning instead of mindless surfing?
Did I make war on procrastination?
These very simple yes/no questions at the end of the day have gotten me a a lot of mileage for staying on top of habits. Many of these are becoming automatic, so I'll probably take half of these off my tracking and add new questions sooner or later.
END OF DAY:
What are my key life goals? Spend 5 minutes on this.
Expenses for the day (estimate)?
Cash gotten or worked towards today:
What did I do right to move me towards my goals?
What would I do differently if I had the day to live over?
Plan tomorrow:
Make a request of my subconscious:
Set alarm:
All of these are good. I write out what I think the most important things are. I track all my expenses, which helps me keep them down (or at least notice when they're high). I love these two questions - "What did I do right to move me towards my goals? What would I do differently if I had the day to live over?" Good for a quick reflection.
"Make a request of my subconscious" isn't new age craziness - it just means pick a mantra to repeat as I fall asleep. Here's one I've been using lately - "Celebrate the gains and victories, especially small ones." - I realized I was hard on myself when falling short, but I wasn't celebrating the wins. That's not so good, so now as I fall asleep I think of celebrating the gains and victories (especially the small ones).
Your turn?
I've gotten a lot of mileage out of tracking. A lot of mileage - it shows me how my life is going, and allows me to make changes.
What's really staggering is how unaware I was of my time, eating, habits, and life were going before I started tracking. It's strange to realize how oblivious I was to how my own life was being spent.
If you'd like to see some of the concrete benefits of tracking, I laid out what happens in this piece -
"What Gets Measured, Gets Managed"
If you'd like to do some tracking yourself, I'd recommend you start small! Track one or two small things. You might start by reading how my own evolution went -
"The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking"
I definitely started small, and built up to where I am now. Don't go crazy trying to track 20 things at once - it's unlikely to work. Start small, then add a few once tracking the first group is second nature to you.
I strongly recommend this - I've made so many strides forwards from this. Highly, highly recommended.
Questions, comments, feedback, and personal stories very welcome in the comments.