Send your productivity through the roof!

Want a secret that will make you more productive in an extremely short period of time? Keep a time log on yourself for a week.

Now I didn’t say it was a secret that would shake you to your foundations, but it is something that most people have never done. It’s also extremely powerful to see your entire day, laid before you, in black and white. When you have a concrete log of how you spent your time (the only limited resource there really is) you’ll start to see how those extra trips to the coffee machine and those interruptions from co-workers really eat away at your day.

And how do you keep a time log? Great question, here’s how:

Get a piece of paper and write the time you start and stop doing any activity. It’s really that simple! If you’re like me though, you want to keep better track of your time to really get a good idea of where you’re spending it.

I found a form in the book “The Time Trap” by R. Alec MacKenzie that works perfectly for me, and I’ve created a PDF in the spirit of that form, which you can download for yourself:

TimeLog.pdf (You will need Acrobat Reader for this file).

Here is what a time log looks like when filled out.

Using the time log is extremely easy, but here are some helpful tips to get you off and running more quickly.

1. Write down the time anytime you change what you’re working on. This is the whole key to making a time log work for you. Be brutally honest with yourself, you’re the only person who will see this, so no fibbing.

Why write down the times as you change tasks or are interrupted? If you go back and try to summarize at the end of the day you will forget a substantial amount of what you did and the times will become fuzzy. Trust me on this from my own personal experience. I have at least two time logs I never finished because I stopped tracking the time and I could not remember enough detail to make it worthwhile.

2. Use abbreviations where possible. Alec recommends, and I use, the following: An arrow pointing in is incoming (you receive), an arrow pointing out is outgoing (you initiate). A capital “I” is interruption, “C” is call, “E” is email.

Using this system an incoming call looks like this: “->C Joe Smith, RE: New client” An outgoing call looks like this: “C-> Bob RE: Meeting plans”.

If a person walks up and starts talking to me I would write down “I, Sally RE: Her weekend”

3. Rate the use of your time. I like the 1-4 scale where 1=critical, 2=important 3=routine, and 4=waste of time. Most tasks are 2 or 3; the major item I want to accomplish in a day would rate a 1 and I try to weed out all of the 4s as much as possible.

4. Keep your time log for a minimum of a week. Plan on keeping a time log for a week at least twice a year. This will give you a good snapshot of your time over more than one day. This helps smooth out those really low or really high productivity days and gives you a more accurate picture.

Coming back to your time log twice a year (or even better, quarterly) helps keep you on your toes so you don’t fall back into your old, less productive habits.

How will keeping a time log send your productivity through the roof? Once I had kept a really honest time log on myself for about two weeks I noticed a few things; first, I spent way more time checking and replying to email than I thought I did - upwards of two hours a day! Second, I allowed myself to get interrupted by calls and visitors far more than I thought. Something like 60% of my interruptions were from people wanting to discuss non-business topics and about 80% of my phone calls were sales solicitations from companies offering services I had no intention of using.

I immediately changed my email habits. I now check my email when I get to work, after lunch and before I leave. I might check it one or two more times depending on how many meetings I’ve been in during the day. I also started paying a lot more attention to how much time I was spending in personal conversations. I didn’t want to cut them out and isolate myself from others, but now I make sure I have an exit planned so I can gracefully step out of a conversation after a few minutes.

I also stopped answering my phone unless expecting a call (thank goodness for caller ID!). Since I don’t have a secretary to handle my calls (and in our modern business society many people don’t), I let my voice mail screen my calls. Now instead of reaching for the phone every time it rings I let it go. I check my messages before I leave work and make notes of people I need to call back in the morning.

Just making these three minor changes in how I spend my day made a very noticeable change in my level of productivity.

I’m also a lot more careful about how I spend my time. I try to keep in mind that it’s the only resource that’s really limited and I pay careful attention to what I’m working on and to whom I’m giving time for interruptions and projects.

In the weeks since keeping a daily time log these longer-term changes have really boosted my productivity. One of the biggest gains is that I usually and ready to leave - with major tasks completed - at 5:30pm every day, it’s very seldom I need to stay late; this has the added benefit of making my wife much happier too!

Download: TimeLog.pdf (You will need Acrobat Reader for this file).

Add comment December 12th, 2005