Become More Effective by Knowing How You Really Spend Your Time

Do you find that you have been working hard, only to get through half the tasks on your to-do list for that day? Where has the day gone? Does this sound familiar? If you ask people about the pressures of time, they will likely respond that they are working hard but missing deadlines, or that they just can't seem to get everything done. If this sounds like you, then keeping a time inventory could be beneficial.

An inventory of your time shows you where you are spending your day and gives you the knowledge to take back control. An time inventory is similar to a household budget. A household budget is used to examine where you are spending money with the aim of keeping track of expenses and trimming and saving where possible.

By keeping track of your expenditure you can estimate current and future expenses and where best to direct your money. Well it is the same with an inventory of how you spend your day. By keeping an activity log for a few days, you track something much more important than money - your time.

An activity log will highlight how you are spending your day and how you could spend it more effectively. An activity log highlights any timewasters that you may have, and also gives you an objective measure of how much time you are spending on your tasks.

For example, a university professor who was having trouble with meeting deadlines, kept an activity log for 5 days. She was shocked at how much time she spent with students on the phone and email with administration-related tasks.

The activity log showed that she spent 10 hours a week on emails and phones in admin-related tasks. This was much greater than the 2.5 hours that she thought she spent.

While keeping students up-to-date with changes was important, it was clear that this task could be delegated to her secretary, which allowed the professor to focus on the teaching and research she was hired to do.

This simple example of what an activity log can do illustrates that an objective measure of how we spend time is a key step in time management.

An activity log will give you an objective and honest measure of how much time you are spending in meetings, on the phone or surfing the web. Like our university professor, you may be shocked at the results that you receive.

An activity log will highlight opportunities for improving your use of time. Does your time usage reflect your priorities? Is your day being spent on the important functions of key tasks of your work? Are you wasting your day on routine or low priority tasks?

Once you have a clear idea of how you spend your day, then it easier to implement delegation, battle procrastination, manage interruptions, or use other time management tools to supercharge your effectiveness.

There are essentially three ways that you can improve your effectiveness. You can spend more time on your high priority tasks, you can delegate your tasks to somebody else or you can become quicker and more efficient at what you do.

An activity will illustrate what options are available for you to improve your time management and increase your personal effectiveness.