Analyzing How You Spend Your Time

Create an activity log
Taking control of your time so that it supports your key goals is much easier if you understand how you’re currently spending time. You can’t plan and control your future use of time until you gain this understanding.
Create a written record of your time use—an activity log—for an entire week. Be sure to cover three or more typical days in your log. (For example, don’t include days with an atypical amount of travel.).
A good activity log has several characteristics:

1. It shows every activity you engage in as you do it.
2. It records how much time you spent on each activity.
3. It includes even minor things (such as tidying your desk, taking coffee breaks, and so forth).
4. It labels each entry with a specific category—such as “e-mail”, “paperwork”, “Internet”, “phone”, “planning”, “meetings”, “visitors” and “travel.”

Assign a priority to each activity in your log
Once you’ve logged your activities for a day, assign a priority to each based on your critical, enabling, and nice-to-have goals. Remember:

• A priorities involve your critical goals. They represent tasks with high value and primary concern.
• B priorities entail your enabling goals and indirectly support your critical goals. They’re tasks with medium value and a high degree of urgency.
• C priorities may involve your nice-to-have goals and include both urgent and non-urgent tasks with little value.

Analyze your log
Examine your log to find patterns of time use. Ask these questions:

• “What kinds of activities are consuming most of my time?” Paperwork, coffee breaks, returning voice mail messages ?

• “Where are certain kinds of activities clustering?” Do you spend the majority of Monday mornings on responding to e-mail? Do you tend to have lots of unexpected visitors after lunch? Do meetings cluster later in the week ?

Now consider whether you’re using your time in ways that support your goals. Ask:

• “Does this use of time match my most important objectives?” Spending the majority of your day on the phone may be appropriate if you’re in sales, but not if you work in accounts payable.
• “How much of my day is spent on A- and B-priority activities?” Your ultimate goal is to spend most of your day on high-priority activities, with C-priority activities taking up a very small portion of your day.

Using a highlighter, mark C-priority activities in your log to make these time-wasters more obvious. If you see lots of colored ink, you’ll know there’s plenty of room for improvement!


Identify ways to improve your use of time
Are you spending more time than you should on C-priority activities—and not enough time on A- and B-priority activities? If so, look for ways to eliminate or delegate C-priority activities that are wasting your time.
Also seek the causes underlying your mismanagement of time. Ask yourself tough personal questions—and answer them honestly:

Q: “Why am I spending so much time in low-value meetings?”
A: “Because I’m afraid that people won’t think of me as a team player if I don’t attend.”
Q: “Why am I squandering time on unscheduled visitors?”
A: “Because I’d feel rude if I told people I didn’t have time to talk with them.”
Q: “Why do I devote so many hours to e-mail and the Internet?”
A: “Because much of my e-mailing is personal, and I surf the Web to procrastinate.”

Once you understand these underlying causes of your time mismanagement, you can take steps to remove them. For instance:

• Remind yourself that you will be seen as a team player if you attend meetings that are important to your high-priority goals.
• Explain to unscheduled visitors that you’ve got a big deadline you have to meet, and then suggest a time you can get together for lunch to chat. Or, if you tend to get lots of surprise visits in the hours after lunchtime, close your office door during that part of the day.
• Try to cut down on personal e-mailing—for example, by asking friends and family to e-mail you at home instead of at work. If you use the Web to procrastinate, commit to tackling tough projects as soon as you notice you’re putting them off.

As with any behavioral changes, correcting time mismanagement takes time. Change your behaviors gradually, practicing one or two new behaviors each week until they become routine. And if you make a mistake, don’t be too hard on yourself. Just start practicing the new behaviors again.
Certain “time-wasters” are notoriously widespread and will show up in many managers’ activity logs. In the next Core Concept, you’ll learn how to recognize—and combat— them.