Hello there - long term readers of the site already know that I fill out a sheet of "time tracking" every day, writing down how I spend my time, what I eat, what I spend, and as I do my habits and daily appointments and things.
It does a lot of good things. It helps me stay on top of the lots of things I'm doing, and it helps me get data to improve things with.
My newest version has some incremental changes on it, but it's not a guide to getting started for yourself. If you want to get started for yourself, here's some posts to do that:
The post that shows how mine evolved from scratch, and guidelines for you to get started:
"The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking"
What the benefits are to paying attention to things like this:
"What Gets Measured, Gets Managed"
A couple instructional videos I made on the topic:
"Two Videos on How to Do Time Tracking"
Analysis of my last version:
"Detailed Analysis of My Current Time/Habit/Life Tracking (v4)"
Okay, here's the newest - changes bolded:
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START OF DAY ROUTINE:
Time awake:
Total sleep (hours/minutes):
Appointments today:
Other time-sensitive things:
Key habit today:
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 (+Solo):
Gratitude:
Review Life Goals:
Review "Current Targets":
Reach out:
Help someone:
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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:
Organize/cleanup/etc:
Look at to-do List:
Do one thing on to-do list:
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TIME TRACKING:MINUTES:
A-task:
Exercise:
Thinking/planning:
Writing:
--> Subtotal Excellent:Maintenance:
Reading:
Social:
Relaxing:
--> Subtotal Good:Semi-productive:
Daydreaming:
General-life:
--> 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 keep surfing under 60 minutes for the day?
Did I make war on procrastination?
Did I act on my key habit for the day?
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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:
There's seven sections I track -
START OF DAY ROUTINE
DO BEFORE GOING ONLINE
DO SOMETIME DURING THE DAY
TIME TRACKING
FOOD/CALORIES/TRAINING
CHALLENGES
END OF DAY
These changes are just incremental from the last post I made in December. At "Start of Day" now, I pick a Key Habit that I'm going to focus on for the day. This could be something I've slipped with recently, or something new I'm trying to add. I'm getting lots of mileage out of this.
At "Do Before Going Online," I added reflecting upon the part it that's just me - I'll probably write a whole post on this at some part, but I had a realization a bit back that you're the one that has to live with every action take, no one else will exactly perfectly understand why you do anything, and it's your life... flying solo to some extent. Rather than make this a bad thing, I think it's something to acknowledge. This came up because I'd been thinking lately, "Damn, no one's going to understand this I'm about to do for a while... and they'll only understand later if it works" - in a way, that sucks, but I've kind of embraced it lately and acknowledge it at the start of the day.
I also re-added "Reach Out" to the start of the day. Send a short note or question to someone I respect and admire that I haven't met or haven't talked to in a while. It takes not very long, but pays pretty big dividends.
"Do Sometime During the Time" now gets looking at my to-do list and doing one item off of it... pretty obvious in retrospect, but it wasn't there before. Some days I wouldn't look at my non-urgent to-do list... which isn't any good. These are good items.
I moved my "Time Tracking" section around. I moved "Relaxing" as in pure, good relaxing up and calling it good time, and I added two new categories in "Okay" time - drifting off in thought (Daydreaming) and doing little errands or buying food or whatever (General-life). Writing is now separated out in Excellent time as well.
Finally, I get a lot of mileage out of my "Challenges" section. At the end of the day, I answer all those questions. A great way to see if I'm on-track or off-track with things.
Two new questions: "Did I keep surfing under 60 minutes for the day?" which relates to the "Conceding Defeat – The Internet is Stronger Than I Am" post. And "Did I act on my key habit for the day?" which is where I evaluate the key habit I set earlier in the day.
Very, very important note - If you decide to get started on something like this, I strongly recommend it. It'll help you make lots of improvements in your life, planning, habits, and move your time and energy to pursuits you deem are most important.
But do not start this complicated. It's almost guaranteed to not work if you start with something this big and complicated. If you want to start with something like this, I'd recommend you read "The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking" or go check out the videos here - "Two Videos on How to Do Time Tracking"
Those will give you a good solid foundation on how to get started with this. I do highly recommend it though - I've seen massive increases across the board in my life from tracking and paying attention to the important areas.