Preparing and completing a Time Log is the first step in identifying the best time management strategy for yourself.
Want to finish that novel you started a couple of years ago? Start a business? Donate time to charity? Spend more time with your family? Maintaining a Time Log is the first step in deciding a time management strategy.
What is Time Management?
At its core, time management prioritizes your goals and apportion your time accordingly. To accomplish this, you need to know your habits (both good and bad), daily activities, and you’re most productive when you’re. Once these are established, you employ practical tips to overcome stumbling blocks getting in the way between you and your goals. Finally, time management means managing yourself. It’s “a process of constantly asking what is more important, and arranging priorities to reflect each choice” (UC Davis Centre for Student Involvement).
You have to face the reality of how you’re spending your time before you know what changes you need to make. You don’t know when you’re going until you know where you’ve been. The Time Log will be your map.
What is a Time Log?
A Time Log is an organized capture of every activity you do in a full day (e.g. 16 hours) or a workday (e.g. 8 hours). It must be kept for about a week and then analyzed to be helpful. Keeping one for only one day may capture anomalies and not habits. But, to be honest, when you own it. If you need to improve your time management, you need to change some practices. Lying to yourself won’t help you accomplish this. It will take a little bit of extra effort upfront to log your time, but the payoff comes later – when you can prioritize effectively and achieve your goals. Maintaining a Time Log is the key to unlocking your ability to change how you manage your time.
How to Keep a Time Log
The best approach is to use a time log template. First, make your time log template sheets. The column headings are up to you. They may be specific to a project or a typical day’s activities. Please print it out to make your notes on it quickly as you go. Alternatively, make entries directly into a spreadsheet on your computer. It will simplify to total the rows and columns when you’re done.
Write down EVERYTHING you do and how long it takes: email, coffee breaks, lunch breaks, time spent on the phone, travel time, time in meetings, surfing the Internet, etc. Do this for a week.
How to Analyze a Time Log
Once you’ve filled out Time Logs for a minimum of a week, analyze the results daily and weekly. Add up totals for the week, and categorize your findings. You will notice trends, depending on your habits:
- Perhaps an excessive amount of time on the Internet
- A large percentage of time in meetings
- A disproportionate amount of time providing phone support to the same person at work
The “”Pareto Principle”” – a.k.a. The 80/20 rule
The 80/20 Rule, the Pareto Principle, was named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Specifically, Pareto discovered that 20 per cent of the people owned 80 per cent of the wealth (as surveyed across several geographical regions). Famed quality control expert Joseph Juran identified that 20 per cent of product defects cause 80 per cent of problems. IT and Customer Support Managers know that 80 per cent of system resources are consumed by 20 per cent of the users in a company.
The 80/20 rule can be applied to business, behaviour, personal life, and beyond. In the case of how you manage your time: Identify and focus on the 20% of effort that gives you 80% of your results – and minimize the rest.