Ever since I was penalized at my first job for arriving after 8:05 am (which rounded up to 8:15 am), I’ve been vehemently against time tracking.
Which is why I surprised myself by wanting to try a time tracking experiment after digging into Laura Vanderkam’s work and new book Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance.* Laura writes extensively about time tracking (and I’m a big fan of her teachings), so I (somewhat) hesitantly decided I’d try it.
I followed Laura’s Time Makeover Guide and used her Time Tracking Sheet. The sheet displays one weekday per column, broken down into half-hour increments. Every few hours, you write down what you did. The more detail, the better. The best part: You visualize the 168 hours we have in a week.
I wanted to be ruthlessly honest about my time usage and find more space to infuse fun and things to look forward to.
I tracked my time for a month! I learned:
I hated tracking how much time I spent on social media. Despite cutting back significantly the last few years, it was not fun for me to write, “Watched Instagram reels” in a 30-minute block.
Even on days when I didn’t have a lot going on, my life felt much bigger and my weeks expanded when I could visually see the whole week.
There was plenty of time to have more fun!
So, I took this data and made some changes. The thought of recording my social media time is enough of a deterrent for me to do something else I enjoy instead. Overall, I feel less stressed when a day doesn’t go as planned because I know it’s a sliver of the weekly pie. I added local events to my calendar, scheduled more dates and activities during the week, tried new restaurants, and now always have something to look forward to, no matter how small.
As my days started to fill more with the people and things I love most (and I felt busier), I started dreading time tracking because it felt like a chore. I’d reach the evening hours and remember I hadn’t written anything down.
Initially I struggled to decide whether I should stop. But I realized the data I had gathered helped me achieve my goals (honest insight and more fun). I decided there was no harm in stopping for now, knowing I can always start again.
I’ve seen a lot of chatter online lately about our cultural obsession with tracking, optimization, and data. Sleep scores, mileage, heart rate, step count, cardio fitness, calories.
Tracking isn’t inherently bad. But this experiment reminded me that it’s equally as beneficial (sometimes more) to gather information through tracking, use it, make changes, and let the tracking go. No sense of constant optimization in mind.
11 ways to know you’re doing life right on What Work Should Be by Bree Groff
The Last Quiet Thing by Terry Godier
"Am I Optimizing Too Much?" on Deep Questions with Cal Newport (podcast episode) (Cal Newport and Brad Stulberg discuss the optimization paradox)
happy map by Alvin Chang
What’s meaningful is intimate and unpredictable; it eludes easy classification. If we let institutional metrics set our values and drive our lives, we end up chasing what’s easy to count, and not what’s really important.
I’m Alyssa Towns, and this is TIME INTENTIONAL, a newsletter exploring what it means to spend our limited (and precious) time intentionally in honor of Janet, Dale, and John.
Read more about the meaning and memories behind each section of the newsletter!
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