Diagnosing Your Bad Time Habits

Diagnosing Your Bad Time Habits

Go through a workday as you normally do. Keep a list of things that you do all day, including all the times you leave your desk and take a break. Take note of how many times you are interrupted and how many times you interrupt tasks to do something else, like surf the Internet.

Remember to take note of the following things:

· How much time you spend browsing email

· How much time you spend looking at websites that are not related to your work

· Work related phone calls/texts

· How much time it takes you to make these phone calls

· Non-work related phone calls/texts, yes, even that 5 minute phone call from your spouse asking how your day was

· The time you spend on search engines, instant messengers and social networking sites

· How many breaks you take during the day, even if you are working at home. Any period of time you spend not working can be considered a break. Remember to include your normal coffee and lunch breaks.

· Also note down if you were not able to get lunch or if you ate lunch while working because you had so much time to do. Note down the things you tend to multitask.

· Take note of the errands you had to run during the day.

· Jot down your commute time, if you have any.

Once you have noted down your activities for a couple of days, classify them as productive and non-productive. Now evaluate. Do you spend more time doing productive or non productive things? How many minutes do you spend per activity?

The second step to diagnosing your bad time habits is extending this activity tracker to include everything you do, everyday, even when you have technically left work already. This is important because time management should not just be something that you do at work—but something that you can extend to the rest of your day.

Take general notes about how much time you spend watching TV, working out, with your family and friends or sleeping. It does not have to be as exact and detailed as the log above. It will give you an idea of what you want to spend more time on, besides just work.

To diagnose a pattern, try keeping a light log of what you do every day for three days to a week. You will surprised at what you have been doing and how much time you spend doing other things.

One business owner who tried this out actually realized that he was spending 3 ½ hours of his day smoking cigarettes, his definition of a break. He restricted his breaks to ½ hours and gained 3 hours of productive time, just by noting down this one habit.