Recently I’ve been tracking the time I have spent on a couple of projects.
In doing that, I’ve stumbled upon an unintended but powerful side effect of time tracking.
By tracking my time spent on a specific project I become much more focused on the task at hand.
Why?
If I don’t succumb to any of the usual distractions (e.g. checking email) I don’t have to do the tedious work of figuring out how much of a given time window was really spent on project work.
This resistance to those distractions conserves mental energy ( I don’t have to compute “time wasted” and subtract it from the time window in question) AND makes my time tracking more accurate.
I’m definitely going to look for more opportunities to put this productivity hack into practice.
One more thing:
Here’s another productivity hack that’s great for people who hate to say ‘No’.
3 comments
Just curious, did you use any specific tools to track your time?
Google Spreadsheet!