Time Audit: Personal Experience

Anton Belonovich
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

I have practiced time audit for two weeks. And I would like to share the results.

What is time audit?

It’s an exercise to understand what do you spend time on and use this knowledge to improve your life.

Every half an hour you stop and write down what did you do. You do this for a week or two, and then you reflect on the data.

My approach to time audit

Thanks to MTDV.io, a community of software engineers who want to grow, I’ve got the time audit template. It has fields for current activity and additional data: focus, joy, motivation, and level of energy. Fields are ranged from 1 to 10.

Discoveries

Here is what my two weeks look like:

A filled template for my first week
My second week

I have become more responsible and focused during the exercise. I knew I need to fill my activities out and it forced me to do things that I consider right.

The exercise was easier than I thought. I set alarms for the first couple of days, but then it became natural to stop and fill out the data.

I was surprised about some of the discoveries. But even for the obvious ones, I was curious to know the level of motivation and joy.

Things I like

  • Learning
  • Deep work
  • Visiting relatives
  • Do things together with my wife: plan a week, choosing wallpapers, drive and talk
  • Reading a good book
  • Scrum dailies and retrospectives with teams at work
  • Activities that were planned good
  • Ask colleagues about their problems and listen
  • Housework
  • Help people I like
  • Listen to music
  • Watching movies with my family
  • Take a shower
  • Harvesting cedar cones (a long story)
  • Pay bills
  • Chat with strangers
  • Meetings with agenda and collaboration at work
  • Watching technical and inspirational presentations, like TED or QCon
  • Rest between deep work sessions. But not for too long, half an hour is enough
  • Chat with people who is agree with me
  • Fishing. I was surprised, but fishing got the highest score although it was 5 AM :)

I should do more of these or try to leverage these to avoid things that I don’t like. For example, turn worthless meetings into useful ones by creating the agenda and fostering collaboration.

I also can identify activities I like but which could be harmful or give less value. For example, I would prefer learning over housework. Or avoid chatting with people who agree with me in favor of those who disagree.

Things I don’t like

  • Commute to work
  • Read media or watch cartoons (basically procrastinate). Does not bring much joy and focus is low
  • Interruptions at work
  • Daily planning session at morning
  • Meditation
  • Worthless meetings at work
  • When people tell me what to do. This got the lowest score of 2 in joy and motivation
  • Talking to my boss
  • Activities that were planned poorly
  • Playing World Of Warcraft. I actually thought that I like it
  • Water cooler conversations about random stuff
  • Installing Windows :)

I see those as potential improvements. I need to avoid repetitive unhealthy situations it or deal with them otherwise. For example, I don’t enjoy meditation much so I may read about it more or find another way to practice it.

Average numbers

  • Focus — 7.9
  • Joy — 7.3
  • Motivation — 7.5
  • Energy — 8.2

Most of the time I do things I like. Motivation and joy affect energy: when I do cool things, I get more energy.

Activities breakdown by category

I loved to imagine myself to be a very busy person until I got the data. Almost a quarter of my time I have chilled. It is important to rest, but I could take more time to learn or to work deeper. When procrastination whispers that I need to rest, I can show it the data and tell it to shut up :)

I could also take this extra time from household activities which I can delegate.

Family events are just right. I do not want to reduce their amount or have more.

Meetings at work are natural because I am a manager.

I should learn more and work deep instead of rest or household.

And I don’t read Twitter much — hooray!

Is my life planned?

Around 20% of my activities are unplanned events or interruptions. 50% is interrupted by me, like procrastination. Other 50% are external events. It seems I am a pretty predictable person.

Upper — unplanned 30-minute sessions, lower — external interruptions of total unplanned sessions

Rhythm of life

I do not like to get up. I get up at a different time and this is worth changing. My energy is quite low during the first hour. But then it raises and stays high until lunch.

After lunch, the energy depends on activity. For example, deep work can keep energy high until the end of a workday.

Then there is a couple of hours of relatively low energy. Better use it to rest.

After rest, the energy is high again in case I focus on interesting things. If I read Twitter or watching cartoons, the energy level gets lower.

I prefer to go to sleep before 1:00 AM.

Conclusion

You’d better know what your life looks like before you change it.

Without the real data, you may be biased about what it is. Time audit can help to gather the data and get new insights into your daily activities.

Anton Belonovich

Written by

Web-developement team/product/project manager and Scrum Master

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade