Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that time tracking doesn't have to be all
Speaker 1: or nothing. If you are not up for tracking all
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight hours in the week, you
Speaker 1: can track just some of your time. This partial tracking
Speaker 1: can still provide insights about the parts of the week
Speaker 1: that you are most curious about or most want to improve.
Speaker 1: I know some people are somewhat interested in time tracking,
Speaker 1: but are also not that enthusiastic about tracking their time
Speaker 1: for an entire week. Perhaps they think it will be tedious.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they think they know how certain things look, which
Speaker 1: may be true. For instance, for work, if you do
Speaker 1: set shifts, set a job, or punch in and out
Speaker 1: at set times. Perhaps people are busy and feel it
Speaker 1: is just one more thing to do. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that time tracking absolutely can't happen. You can track
Speaker 1: just a part of your day, or any part of
Speaker 1: the week that you would like to improve. For instance,
Speaker 1: if your mornings tend to feel rushed and inefficient, you
Speaker 1: could track from the time you wake up until the
Speaker 1: time you get to work. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about where your work time goes, or why you
Speaker 1: feel you are never making progress on your professional priorities.
Speaker 1: You could track just your work time, or maybe you
Speaker 1: feel like your evenings have the potential to be a
Speaker 1: lot better than they are. You could track from the
Speaker 1: time you stop work or the time your kids get
Speaker 1: home from school until the time you go to bed.
Speaker 1: Some people feel disappointed by their weekends. Maybe you feel
Speaker 1: like your weekends are consumed by chores and driving, or
Speaker 1: maybe you feel like you never get time for life
Speaker 1: maintenance tasks on the weekend and so they just stack up.
Speaker 1: Perhaps your weekends are full of adventures for your kids,
Speaker 1: but you're wondering if you could fit in something memorable
Speaker 1: for yourself. Tracking your weekend time could provide insight and
Speaker 1: to where your time is currently going. Practically speaking, if
Speaker 1: you do decide to track just some of your time,
Speaker 1: you can still use a weekly spreadsheet. You simply leave
Speaker 1: the blocks blank for the periods you are not tracking.
Speaker 1: After you track part of your time, you can analyze
Speaker 1: and reflect on it just as you would if you
Speaker 1: had tracked the whole week. You can look for patterns
Speaker 1: time that could be repurposed for something else. Activities you
Speaker 1: could do more efficiently and so forth. Now, to be sure,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of value in tracking your whole
Speaker 1: week and seeing how your whole week fits together. Sometimes
Speaker 1: spending time better is about shifting time from one activity
Speaker 1: to another, so seeing the whole week laid out can
Speaker 1: be valuable. Sometimes good time management really is about looking
Speaker 1: at all the puzzle pieces. Your mornings are going to
Speaker 1: be rough. If you are not going to bed on
Speaker 1: time the night before, maybe you're not going to bet
Speaker 1: on time because you're trying to score some leasure time.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's because evenings feel unfocused until late at night.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's because you don't know exactly when work will
Speaker 1: be done. So we're looking back at the variable of
Speaker 1: quitting time to find out why you can't seem to
Speaker 1: run at six am. But that said, if you know
Speaker 1: you are not going to track all your time, tracking
Speaker 1: some of your time could still offer some insights, and
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe in tracking some of your time, you
Speaker 1: may realize that time tracking isn't so hard after all.
Speaker 1: You might just decide to track a whole week in
Speaker 1: the future. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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