It seems wrong to mention a Wall Street Journal article on Thursday instead of Wednesday here, but it works in perfectly with this post. In the Monday, April 2, 2012 edition of The Wall Street Journal, H. James Wilson, senior researcher at Babson Executive Education, states that encouraging workers to track what they are doing makes them healthier and more productive. Wilson opens his article with this statement:
"Imagine how much better workers could do their jobs if they knew exactly how they spend their day."
I talk about productivity and tracking time in articles for Writer2Writer here and here. This seems so simple, but there is resistance to it: if I am overwhelmed, how can I waste time writing out what I do each day? The reality is that because you don't have a clear idea of where your time is spent, you really can't see where time is wasted. You keep running in the same circles without finding a way out.
Wilson's article goes on to talk about auto-analytics, which are devices that help users, "gather data about what they do at work, analyze that information and use it to do their job better." Now, this won't work for the average stay-at-home mom or writer, but tracking your time isn't that complicated. I haven't done it for a while, and suddenly I find myself overwhelmed with no idea how to rein in the days that are flying by. So, I plan to go back to my old model--steno notebook and pencil. You can also track your time in a spreadsheet to be green and have less paper flying around. You can view my sample of a list here. If you're interested in reading Wilson's entire article, click here.
How do you keep track of your time? What do you think your biggest time waster is?
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