Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and courtse creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in late September of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: We're calling this the Time Tracking Manifesto, an episode devoted
Speaker 2: to the subject of time tracking and why you might
Speaker 2: want to give it a whirl. I have been tracking
Speaker 2: my time for ten and a half years now. Nobody
Speaker 2: else needs to do that, but I've found it useful
Speaker 2: for me at least. However, you don't need to just
Speaker 2: hear about me doing this, because Sarah also recently decided
Speaker 2: to start tracking her time, at least for a while.
Speaker 2: I know you've not necessarily done this much in the past.
Speaker 2: There maybe you could talk about why not and what
Speaker 2: changed this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I have done it off and on
Speaker 3: in the past, with various levels of success. Sometimes I
Speaker 3: find myself going strong for a few days and then
Speaker 3: give up, and other times I find myself doing really
Speaker 3: well on the morning and then just kind of losing
Speaker 3: steam toward the end of the day and find that
Speaker 3: post work time frame, those golden hours turn into this
Speaker 3: like milledge of nothingness. I usually use paper, so I
Speaker 3: would just do it right in my planner, or i'd
Speaker 3: use a separate notebook. I definitely did get a boost
Speaker 3: in accountability and consistency when I forced myself to blog
Speaker 3: how I spent the time, So I have been successful
Speaker 3: on those occasions where I'm like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: just gonna this is my content for the week. But
Speaker 3: I had not tried an electronic tool until I finally decided,
Speaker 3: you know what, they exist. My phone is with me
Speaker 3: a lot of the time. Let me see if these
Speaker 3: things work. And I downloaded toggle, which is free, just
Speaker 3: because it had by far the highest number of reviews,
Speaker 3: and I actually found it to be quite user friendly
Speaker 3: and easy, and you can even see the time allotment
Speaker 3: on your Apple Watch, which I now have, and I
Speaker 3: don't think I had in past times when I tried
Speaker 3: to use electronic methods, so it actually turned out to
Speaker 3: be a better method for me, and I was able
Speaker 3: to be more consistent, and I'm actually still kind of
Speaker 3: doing it. I'm not sure when my end date is.
Speaker 3: I am not going for ten years, but I'm finding
Speaker 3: it kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I often recommend people try Toggle if they're like, well,
Speaker 2: I want to use an app because I use spreadsheets,
Speaker 2: which is a perfectly fine way to do it as well.
Speaker 2: But if people want a time tracking app, Toggle does
Speaker 2: have the upside being free, at least for the basic version,
Speaker 2: so you know, you can download it and try it,
Speaker 2: and if you decide that, hey, I'm really into this
Speaker 2: electronic time tracking, but there are a few other features
Speaker 2: I'd like to see, Well, then you could go into
Speaker 2: the whole app market for time trackers that might be paid.
Speaker 2: But you know what you were looking for, right, so
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be quite as just guessing as you might
Speaker 2: if you hadn't tried it out. So yeah, I often
Speaker 2: tell people to start with Toggle, So how does it
Speaker 2: actually work? Like, maybe you can tell people how you
Speaker 2: use Toggle to actually track your time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So too bad. We don't have visual aids. I
Speaker 3: could pull up my phone right now it probably says
Speaker 3: podcast recording, But basically it has a running timer and
Speaker 3: you type in what it says what are you doing now?
Speaker 3: And you type in what you're doing now, and then
Speaker 3: when they were going to switch activities, you press stop
Speaker 3: and then you type in what you're doing now, so
Speaker 3: you type in the new thing, And there is definitely
Speaker 3: a learning curve. Like when I started, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: let me be really granular and like now I'm taking
Speaker 3: a shower, and now I'm doing that instead. I've definitely
Speaker 3: found that it's easier to lump categories together. I've also
Speaker 3: found that I like to make my category names really
Speaker 3: short and use emojis. Just makes it more satisfying and
Speaker 3: like quicker, and it is easy to go back and
Speaker 3: fix it, so it's not like if I forgot to
Speaker 3: hit press podcast recording that I couldn't go back in
Speaker 3: time and like it. Maybe it thinks I'm showering for
Speaker 3: three hours, but I could pay you're still in the shower,
Speaker 3: So I do like that. It's kind of like you
Speaker 3: can edit it without it looking like a mess, so
Speaker 3: that's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is not the case necessarily with paper
Speaker 2: if you are crossing things out left and right, or
Speaker 2: though you might not have even put it down in
Speaker 2: the first place. But yeah, I mean, and so it
Speaker 2: sounds like it's pretty easy then, right, Like it's not
Speaker 2: taking a whole lot of time to track your time.
Speaker 3: No, it takes like a second. You just have to
Speaker 3: remember when you're switching activities, which just takes a little
Speaker 3: bit of a learning curve. But I feel like after
Speaker 3: the first few days, when you're annoying yourself by having
Speaker 3: to go back and fix things, you get better at
Speaker 3: it now. One thing I haven't done with it that
Speaker 3: I think I could do a lot more with is
Speaker 3: like the analysis piece. I've looked at what the day
Speaker 3: looks like, just like scrolling through. You can get it
Speaker 3: in like schedule view and you can basically like see
Speaker 3: how many hours were spent doing each thing, which is
Speaker 3: how I was able to quantify various things. But I
Speaker 3: haven't done any kind of like higher level analysis. I
Speaker 3: have a feeling I am not using this app to
Speaker 3: its full extent, and I also have the free versions.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm sure there's a lot more you can
Speaker 3: do with it.
Speaker 2: But it actually is, Especially something like that, it might
Speaker 2: be easier to add things up than it would be if. Now,
Speaker 2: theoretically the upside of a spreadsheet is it could calculate too,
Speaker 2: like how many entries said sleep. But if you ever
Speaker 2: describe things slightly differently that are the same thing in
Speaker 2: a spreadsheet, then obviously you quickly lose that functionality.
Speaker 1: And I sometimes have that.
Speaker 2: Like if I have a bathroom trip in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night, I might put that in or and
Speaker 2: so then it would have sleep and something else in
Speaker 2: the cell instead of just sleep. But I'm not really
Speaker 2: awake for that whole thirty minute block, so I lost
Speaker 2: that functionality quite quickly, so I'm often adding things up manually.
Speaker 1: And the upside of something.
Speaker 2: Like toggle is that could just do it for you, right,
Speaker 2: like everything that said work could say work.
Speaker 3: Yes, although you have the same risk like if you
Speaker 3: enter it differently, it doesn't know if you However, when
Speaker 3: you start typing, it gives you suggestions based on what
Speaker 3: you have before. So maybe that would lower the chances
Speaker 3: that you would put some novel description for something because.
Speaker 2: On a freelance version of your work in there. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: I'm curious, you said you haven't really done a whole
Speaker 2: lot of high level analysis of it. Do you see
Speaker 2: any thing as you're looking at it?
Speaker 3: I've done low level analysis, and I had a couple
Speaker 3: of takeaways. One is that I spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time in the car. I mean I knew that, but
Speaker 3: like when you actually do the drive leaving your house,
Speaker 3: press start, and then like finally arrive at the office
Speaker 3: and go, oh my god, that was eighty five minutes,
Speaker 3: Like really, you can't tell yourself stories that it doesn't
Speaker 3: take that long to drop off both of your kids
Speaker 3: get to work, and that's okay. I'm not saying that's
Speaker 3: like a terrible thing, but it's like, oh, well, let
Speaker 3: me make sure that, like I, I'm attentively doing things
Speaker 3: that I want to be doing within the limitations of
Speaker 3: what you can do behind the wheel, But like chatting
Speaker 3: with my kids, picking music that they like, listening to it,
Speaker 3: listening to my own music, listening to podcasts, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and not seeing that as like, oh, this is just
Speaker 3: quick and transitional, because eighty five minutes is not.
Speaker 2: Eighty five minutes is a lot of time. I mean
Speaker 2: that's leaving at seven thirty five to be at your
Speaker 2: office at nine right, correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. That's eighty five minutes. It's
Speaker 3: usually skewed slightly earlier than that, so it's like leaving
Speaker 3: at seven twenty to get there at whatever, five.
Speaker 1: Minutes, eight forty five exactly. It's not really I don't know.
Speaker 2: Suddenly the math is beyond me at this moment, but
Speaker 2: we're recording. But yeah, yeah, no, I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people sort of have discoveries like that.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that today, of.
Speaker 2: How much time I am going to spend in the
Speaker 2: car today because my Beethoven listening project for today assigned
Speaker 2: me Fidaleo, which is a whole opera. So the question
Speaker 2: is am I in the car for a whole opera today?
Speaker 2: And it's not going to be that far off, right,
Speaker 2: Like I took Sam to school this morning and drove home.
Speaker 2: I will pick him up from cross Country and drive home.
Speaker 2: He's just going to have to listen to Fidelio because
Speaker 2: he's in the car with me. I will drive to
Speaker 2: rehearsal tonight and back home, and I don't think that's
Speaker 2: total two hours for all of it, but it's not
Speaker 2: that far off of it. So in theory, I could
Speaker 2: in fact listen to the whole of Fidaleo in the car,
Speaker 2: which is like, oh my goodness, that is a lot.
Speaker 1: Of time in the car. Like would you think, like, oh,
Speaker 1: on a Monday, I could see a whole opera.
Speaker 2: I mean no, But in fact, all this time does
Speaker 2: add up, and if you're you're listening to it, So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's worth trying, right, I mean, Sarah, you
Speaker 2: would agree with us.
Speaker 3: Oh, one hundred percent. I think. Well, let me share
Speaker 3: my other takeaway, which is that classic Laura van OrCam
Speaker 3: you have more time than you think. I always feel like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, my evenings are so rushed, like there's
Speaker 3: nothing of quality I can put in here. But when
Speaker 3: I actually acknowledge the sheer minutes between, like when I
Speaker 3: get home from work on a clinical day or when
Speaker 3: I finish work on a regular day, a non clinical day,
Speaker 3: and then like when the kids go to bed, like
Speaker 3: there are a lot of minutes and I'm not doing
Speaker 3: the kind of hands on parenting that I used to
Speaker 3: do when they were little. There is homework help, there
Speaker 3: are emotional supports, there are drives sometimes to pick someone up.
Speaker 3: So it's not like I'm doing nothing, but like, there's
Speaker 3: just more time there than I think, and I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have without quantifying it. I really do think we can
Speaker 3: just kind of tell ourselves stories.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it is easy to say like, oh, well, we
Speaker 2: have so much stuff this evening, there is no time whatsoever.
Speaker 2: But certainly, as I have been coming out of that
Speaker 2: intense handholding parenting stage as well, I'm starting to see, yeah,
Speaker 2: like the evenings have a lot of time.
Speaker 1: Like the other day, I got Henry to bed.
Speaker 2: It was about eight forty five, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not planning on going to sleep until like ten
Speaker 2: forty five. There's two hours here. I don't necessarily have
Speaker 2: something I was planning on doing. I hadn't really thought
Speaker 2: it through, but I like two hours.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of time. Like I have two mostly
Speaker 1: kid free hours here.
Speaker 2: I'll make sure the other kids have turned their lights
Speaker 2: off at some point, but they're supposed to be doing
Speaker 2: their own thing, and I have time, and yeah, I
Speaker 2: have to sort it out, like this is leisure time.
Speaker 1: It is a lot of leisure time, and yet if.
Speaker 2: You don't think about it, it's easy to lose it
Speaker 2: to random things.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, we're just throwing.
Speaker 2: Out of here in our time tracking manifesto that you
Speaker 2: might want to consider if to track time, because if
Speaker 2: you want to spend your time better, it really helps
Speaker 2: to know where it is going now, because otherwise, like
Speaker 2: how do you know if you're changing the right thing.
Speaker 2: You may be telling yourself a story that I have
Speaker 2: no time because I'm always cleaning my house, and then
Speaker 2: you track your time and you see that you're spending
Speaker 2: more time in the car than you are cleaning your house.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, well maybe both could go down, But
Speaker 2: let's look at the thing that's occupying the biggest chunk
Speaker 2: of time to see if there's some opportunities there or
Speaker 2: maybe something you haven't thought. It's taking a lot more
Speaker 2: time than you imagine. You just want to be working
Speaker 2: from good data, and really the only way to get
Speaker 2: that data is to actually keep track of your time, because,
Speaker 2: as Sarah said, we tell ourselves a ton of stories,
Speaker 2: and the stories may not be one hundred percent true.
Speaker 2: So we're going to take a quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then we'll be back with more about time tracking.
Speaker 3: All right, we are back, and I'm going to ask
Speaker 3: you a few questions about time tracking. Particularly what do
Speaker 3: people discover? And I will just start with a tiny
Speaker 3: thing for myself, which is that I mentioned discovering I
Speaker 3: had more time in the evenings and yeah, yet I
Speaker 3: discovered that my limiting factor was not time but energy.
Speaker 1: So that was like an.
Speaker 3: Interesting thing that I came up with. But I am interested.
Speaker 3: You have looked at like nine million time logs. Well
Speaker 3: maybe that's a hyperbole, but you've looked at a lot
Speaker 3: of time logs.
Speaker 2: And we're into the four figures for sure, in terms
Speaker 2: of numbers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazing, and I can imagine there are some
Speaker 3: common themes, So tell us, like what are the undercover
Speaker 3: discoveries that people have when they finally shine light on
Speaker 3: how they're using their one hundred and sixty eight hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the first thing people discover is that there
Speaker 2: aree hundred and sixty eight hours in a week. I mean,
Speaker 2: that is something that I will tell you most people
Speaker 2: don't know, and that was great for me for search
Speaker 2: engine purposes. I don't know if it's still the case,
Speaker 2: but for a while, if you typed one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty eight hours into Google, you would get me, which
Speaker 2: is kind of crazy because that's like typing twenty four
Speaker 2: hours in a day and getting Laura Vanderkam like, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't do that, But one hundred and sixty eight is
Speaker 2: so not known. People say twenty four to seven, and
Speaker 2: yet they never multiply it through. The first thing people
Speaker 2: discover is like, oh, yeah, that's what a week looks like.
Speaker 2: That's how many hours are in a week, which is
Speaker 2: helpful in and of itself. I mean, if you've been
Speaker 2: telling yourself, I have no time for anything because I
Speaker 2: have a full time job, and then you realize, okay,
Speaker 2: well I work forty five hours of one hundred and
Speaker 2: sixty eight. There are a few hours left over when
Speaker 2: you subtract, so maybe it's possible to do some other things.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of exciting to discover, but those are
Speaker 1: so what you mentioned. Energy.
Speaker 2: People might see that the limiting factor is not that
Speaker 2: I have zero time. It is that the time I
Speaker 2: do have tends to come when I have very limited energy.
Speaker 2: But then you can decide, well, are there things I
Speaker 2: can do about that? And there might be one is
Speaker 2: you can choose low energy activities.
Speaker 1: Right, maybe there are.
Speaker 2: Things that you can do that don't require a lot
Speaker 2: of energy, but that you still enjoy, but you know,
Speaker 2: if you set an intention, then you are able to
Speaker 2: seize that time. In some cases, if it's lower energy
Speaker 2: and it's not like late at night, if it's for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, you have low energy in the afternoons and
Speaker 2: that's when you have free time for some reason, maybe
Speaker 2: there are things you can do to boost your energy.
Speaker 2: There are certain activities people do, I mean, like getting
Speaker 2: fresh air or exercise that sometimes make people feel like
Speaker 2: they can do more things than if they didn't. Sometimes
Speaker 2: people decide, not in your case, Sarah, but other people
Speaker 2: decide to move where that free time happens. So if
Speaker 2: you've been staying up late and you have little energy
Speaker 2: at night, maybe you could decide to go to bed earlier,
Speaker 2: wake up a little bit earlier, and have some of
Speaker 2: that free time in the morning when you might have
Speaker 2: more energy for other things. So that's something that maybe
Speaker 2: a time log could show. But yeah, in general, not
Speaker 2: having a sense of how much time there is or
Speaker 2: like where the space is, a lot of time is
Speaker 2: just spent unintentionally, we overestimate things we don't want to do.
Speaker 2: So in many cases, people overestimate how many hours they
Speaker 2: are working because let's say maybe some of us love
Speaker 2: our jobs, but not everybody and not every minute, so
Speaker 2: it's easy to overestimate how many hours we are working.
Speaker 2: We overestimate housework often by somewhat ridiculous factors, but that's
Speaker 2: because we don't want to do it, and so we
Speaker 2: decide that emptying the dishwasher takes thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: It does not. So if that's what's in your brain,
Speaker 1: you might want to.
Speaker 3: Time in you know what, So folding laundry takes forever,
Speaker 3: that's been I take to state that like unloading the
Speaker 3: dishwasher is a very brief task, it's like eight minutes
Speaker 3: a lot of times, and folding the laundry takes like
Speaker 3: I can spend thirty minutes folding a giant I mean,
Speaker 3: we do giant loads of laundry. But that's a reason
Speaker 3: to do that while you're listening to a great.
Speaker 2: Podcast or watching that fund If Rgilio is the case
Speaker 2: making an opera, yes, definitely, yes an opera. So if
Speaker 2: you are telling yourself that you are spending a ridiculous
Speaker 2: amount of time on housework, it might be worth timing
Speaker 2: it just to see.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you like it.
Speaker 2: Like I could totally buy that we dislike every minute
Speaker 2: of it, but it may not be as many minutes
Speaker 2: as we think. People tend to underestimate things they do
Speaker 2: want to do, So people underestimate leisure time, and they
Speaker 2: underestimate sleep. We tend to view our shortest night as typical.
Speaker 2: If you ask someone to describe a typical night for you,
Speaker 2: they will never describe a Friday or Saturday night, or
Speaker 2: a holiday night. It'll always be like a Tuesday night,
Speaker 2: and that it tends to be like the Tuesday that
Speaker 2: they actually got up at the time they intended to.
Speaker 2: There was no snoozing, there was no sleeping through alarm,
Speaker 2: and it was when they were doing stuff in the evening.
Speaker 2: They didn't crash on the couch or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So those things do add up over the course of
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty eight hours.
Speaker 1: I but here's some good news.
Speaker 3: I've greatly enjoyed tracking my sleep, by the way, which
Speaker 3: is not like I'm not a sleep tracker person. I
Speaker 3: don't wear like my watch, debat or anything like that,
Speaker 3: but something about like when I if I wake up
Speaker 3: on my own and then I look at it and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, seven and a half hours or like
Speaker 3: on the weekend. I got one night where I got
Speaker 3: eight and a half, and I'm like, wow, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's just been interesting because not something that I really
Speaker 3: quantified before. But I am in that camp of like
Speaker 3: seven seeming like my normal. But really I make up for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is fine.
Speaker 2: I mean, as long as we're not like doing like
Speaker 2: four hours and then twelve hours to come out to
Speaker 2: an average of eight.
Speaker 1: I mean probably between seven and nine.
Speaker 2: Coming out to an average of eight is a little
Speaker 2: bit more reasonable. But yeah, you're definitely not the only
Speaker 2: one to have that experience.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say.
Speaker 2: One positive thing is a lot of working parents, perhaps
Speaker 2: mothers in particular, have been telling themselves a story that
Speaker 2: like I never see my kids, or I don't spend
Speaker 2: nearly enough time with my kids, or some version thereof.
Speaker 2: They track their time for one hundred and sixty eight hours,
Speaker 2: discover again that they're working forty hours, sleeping seven to
Speaker 2: eight hours a night. We've got somewhere like seventy hours
Speaker 2: in here that is not working and is not sleeping,
Speaker 2: and in many cases quite a bit of that time
Speaker 2: is spent with children, especially if they are very young
Speaker 2: and require constant supervision.
Speaker 1: That's starts to.
Speaker 2: Change as kids get a little bit older. But certainly
Speaker 2: when people are saying these sort of things about guilt,
Speaker 2: it's often that they have younger children, and so people
Speaker 2: are often very pleasantly surprised at how much family time
Speaker 2: winds up happening in the course of the week.
Speaker 3: No, that's awesome. Well why have you ended up tracking
Speaker 3: your time for is it ten years now? Eleven? I
Speaker 3: don't even remind me of where we are.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I started in April of twenty fifteen doing it continuously,
Speaker 2: so I guess this is airing At the end of September,
Speaker 2: we were almost ten and a half years. And I
Speaker 2: don't like celebrate my anniversary every year, like woo, you know,
Speaker 2: I made it because it's not hard. It's like saying,
Speaker 2: I'm celebrating my anniversary of brushing my teeth for whatever.
Speaker 2: I've been doing it independently now for probably.
Speaker 1: Three forty two years.
Speaker 2: No, it does because it isn't hard, right, It is
Speaker 2: very easy, and it's somewhat takes the function of journal
Speaker 2: for me, Like I feel that I'm recording my life
Speaker 2: and so I have the memories and not just when
Speaker 2: you keep a journal sometimes it's the memories of what
Speaker 2: you were like angsty about at the time, or only
Speaker 2: the real highlights of something, whereas a time log gets everything.
Speaker 1: And so when I pull.
Speaker 2: Up past logs, I can see what I was doing,
Speaker 2: and I could reconstruct everything in memory, particularly if there
Speaker 2: was anything out of the ordinary on a day, because
Speaker 2: then it's like, oh, yeah, that, and then I remember
Speaker 2: what I was doing before because it's right there on
Speaker 2: the log, And so you just have access to memories
Speaker 2: in a much more convenient way.
Speaker 1: I would say.
Speaker 2: It's also a little bit of accountability for me, and
Speaker 2: not really so much like, oh, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Going to scroll because I'm keeping it on my luck.
Speaker 2: I scroll a lot way more than I probably should.
Speaker 2: But especially if I do share these logs on occasion,
Speaker 2: or even just do my own check in on Monday morning,
Speaker 2: I'm like, was the week interesting? Like did I do
Speaker 2: something that I will remember in the future, Like is
Speaker 2: there anything on this log that makes this week feel cool?
Speaker 1: And often I look back over I'm like, oh, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Did this, and I did this, and wow I fit
Speaker 2: a lot in and it just feels really cool.
Speaker 3: I totally can see that I actually this reminds me
Speaker 3: of the fact I'm reading Die with Zero right now,
Speaker 3: which is a very interesting and possibly polarizing book by
Speaker 3: Bill Perkins. But he actually talks about something about like
Speaker 3: memories being like paying back dividends in life, and how
Speaker 3: like you can have all these experiences and then looking
Speaker 3: back on them almost like compounds the experiences that you've had.
Speaker 3: So timelog is a really interesting way to do that,
Speaker 3: and so I tend to do that through I think
Speaker 3: my blogging. But then also I do have a five
Speaker 3: year journal that I write in. I've well, I've done
Speaker 3: it for five years. I wish I've done it for
Speaker 3: forty five years. But every single day I'm in my
Speaker 3: fifth year and I basically put like a highlight. It's
Speaker 3: a highlight reel, right, but it has some angs in it,
Speaker 3: a low light reel, like what was big in my
Speaker 3: life yesterday? Like that's what I asked myself. I'd usually
Speaker 3: fill it out in the morning, and I love it.
Speaker 3: I love looking through it. It's like the memory dividends,
Speaker 3: but yours is different because it's more objective. It's not
Speaker 3: like what did I feel was important looking back a day,
Speaker 3: It's like, here's everything, and maybe I'll actually find out
Speaker 3: that what I thought was important, this other thing was important.
Speaker 3: So I guess it's really neat that you have like
Speaker 3: all of that data cold together.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean one of the most fun weeks to look
Speaker 2: back on was this one. I think it's actually the
Speaker 2: one I wound up using in the paperback version of
Speaker 2: I Know How She does it, because it's like, there's
Speaker 2: these easter eggs from this week that. I mean, it
Speaker 2: happened to be the It was like the first week
Speaker 2: of November and I started working on this Nato Riimo
Speaker 2: novel that eventually turned it into Juliete School of Possibilities.
Speaker 2: I also put a post on Fast Company, which I
Speaker 2: was writing for at that time, that was the Norwegian
Speaker 2: secret to enjoying a long winter. I just put the
Speaker 2: that I was right it like in the gym or
Speaker 2: something while waiting for my kids, and then I wound
Speaker 2: up being this ridiculously viral post. It's like there's all
Speaker 2: these things I see in there, which is kind of fun.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, that week, who knew. Well,
Speaker 2: We're going to take one more quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then we'll be back with more about time tracking.
Speaker 3: All right, we are back and we are going to
Speaker 3: go through a few FAQs that people tend to ask
Speaker 3: when it comes to time tracking, maybe a little bit
Speaker 3: of a rapid fire section. So Number one, do I
Speaker 3: need to track weekends?
Speaker 1: Yes, Sarah, you should track your weekends.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that you need to be writing
Speaker 2: down every fifteen minutes what you're doing. So if you
Speaker 2: use my spreadsheets, which you can go to my website
Speaker 2: Laura vandercam dot com and get a copy, they come
Speaker 2: in thirty minute versions fifteen minute versions.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying like.
Speaker 2: Every fifteen minutes on the weekend, check in with what
Speaker 2: you are doing. If you are doing interesting things on
Speaker 2: the weekend, some of this will already be planned in
Speaker 2: ahead of time, Like if you know you're going on
Speaker 2: a hot air balloon ride at four pm, like, well,
Speaker 2: you can reconstruct that after the fact and probably like
Speaker 2: your drive too there and all that, you'll be able
Speaker 2: to do that for like seven or eight hours and
Speaker 2: not have to check in every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Right, the memory is there.
Speaker 2: It gets a little bit more complicated if people aren't
Speaker 2: doing anything right, if they're just sort of this mash
Speaker 2: of weird puttering around, half dealing with the kids not
Speaker 2: which is one reason to try to do cool things
Speaker 2: on the weekend, but it is also you can just
Speaker 2: put kids et cetera. Or you can just guess like
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be perfect. You can even leave
Speaker 2: many hours blank and just put in what you remember it.
Speaker 2: I think it's better to try to get through a
Speaker 2: whole week then to stop on.
Speaker 1: The weekends and not even try.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that it really like some people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, it'll be for this weird time pressure.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be. This is not about playing
Speaker 1: gotcha at all. It's just to show yourself, like where
Speaker 1: the time is, what are you doing if there is
Speaker 1: available time that you might like to repurpose?
Speaker 2: That is good to know. So weekends are real days.
Speaker 2: They are just as real as Monday through Friday. I
Speaker 2: highly encourage people, if you are time tracking, to try
Speaker 2: to get through the weekend. Maybe it doesn't work the
Speaker 2: first time, Maybe you lose track the first time, reconstruct
Speaker 2: what you can when you remember, and then maybe try
Speaker 2: it again, try it another weekend and see what you get.
Speaker 1: And I think it will get easier with time.
Speaker 3: The benefit of using an electronic tool, and I'm going
Speaker 3: to go back to toggle one more time. Is like,
Speaker 3: let's say it's Sunday and you have forgotten and you
Speaker 3: know you were puttering and you like left it on
Speaker 3: folding laundry, but you forgot, and it's two hours later
Speaker 3: at least when you notice that, because it does show
Speaker 3: up on the front of your phone. At some point,
Speaker 3: you're going to pick up your phone and you're going
Speaker 3: to see that. You can go, oh, and you don't
Speaker 3: have to like put in five different things, but you
Speaker 3: can just jot like folding laundry, and then you could
Speaker 3: just be like and random pottering and then you move
Speaker 3: on to your next thing. Like it's a nice way
Speaker 3: to avoid letting perfection. Have you throw this out the window?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely agree with that.
Speaker 3: All right, So question number two, I think we get
Speaker 3: this from the lawyers. What if I already track my
Speaker 3: time for work and I just don't feel like doing
Speaker 3: it anywhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get this sometimes every time I talk to
Speaker 2: groups of lawyers, and I've been hired by a number
Speaker 2: of wonderful law firms over the years to come speak
Speaker 2: to their lawyers, and I'm like, I don't have to
Speaker 2: explain the concept of what time tracking is because they
Speaker 2: have been logging their time in six minute increments for years,
Speaker 2: and many people are like, oh no, I do this
Speaker 2: for my work. I can't stand to do this to
Speaker 2: the rest of my life. Okay, I get it, but
Speaker 2: you don't have to do it in six increments. Right.
Speaker 2: You could do thirty minute blocks and only check in
Speaker 2: every couple of hours.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: That would be irresponsible during your work day, but it
Speaker 2: is not in the rest of your life. But it's
Speaker 2: also about treating the rest of your life with the
Speaker 2: same respect and intentionality that you give to your clients
Speaker 2: and to your firm with your legal work. Right, because
Speaker 2: you are saying, I want to see where this other
Speaker 2: time is going.
Speaker 1: I mean, because there is other time like you.
Speaker 2: Treat the Let's say you're billing forty hours a week
Speaker 2: and working fifty in your legal work like, there are
Speaker 2: still sixty other hours in the week, and they don't
Speaker 2: feel as big to you because you're not logging them. Right,
Speaker 2: they don't feel as full and intentional and knowing what's
Speaker 2: going on as you're very intricately calculated legal work does
Speaker 2: because you don't know where the time is going. But
Speaker 2: when you do, then you can start to see that
Speaker 2: there is this time outside of work and maybe you
Speaker 2: can do cool and exciting things with it, even if
Speaker 2: you are billing a significant number of hours.
Speaker 1: So I would suggest trying again. You don't have to
Speaker 1: do it for ten years.
Speaker 2: You have probably been billing your legal work for ten years,
Speaker 2: but you don't have to do that for the rest
Speaker 2: of your time. Just try the time outside of work
Speaker 2: for a week, maybe every couple of months or so.
Speaker 2: Just try it once, see how it goes. But I
Speaker 2: think you will be pleasantly surprised. I've had enough lawyers
Speaker 2: and accountants and other such people do this now and
Speaker 2: have been intrigued or pleasantly surprised at what they see.
Speaker 1: That you've got nothing to lose by just giving it
Speaker 1: a word.
Speaker 3: I like the empowering angle, which is like you're doing
Speaker 3: it for them during work, but do it for you
Speaker 3: the rest of your time. Make sure you're giving your
Speaker 3: own time the same careful attention that you are giving
Speaker 3: your work time. So that's a great spin. So you
Speaker 3: kind of answer this, but is a suggestion to go
Speaker 3: ahead and do it for ten years everyone or forever.
Speaker 2: Just start now, No, don't just one week, Like if
Speaker 2: you're hearing this, why don't you start? You could start
Speaker 2: today my timelog start on Monday morning, but there's no
Speaker 2: requirement that you do that. Or you could start next
Speaker 2: Monday morning if you do want to start on a
Speaker 2: Monday morning, but just give it to try for a
Speaker 2: week if you have never done it. If you think
Speaker 2: it's going to be an atypical week, well welcome to life.
Speaker 2: Every week is atypical in some way or another. I
Speaker 2: think you will still learn a lot even by tracking
Speaker 2: weeks that have things that are out of the ordinary
Speaker 2: in them. However, you don't have to do it for
Speaker 2: ten years. I would say try it once, see how
Speaker 2: it goes. If you find it interesting and think, well
Speaker 2: maybe I would like to see something else, then try
Speaker 2: it again in a couple months. I think every season
Speaker 2: is helpful for people. Or if there is a big
Speaker 2: switch and how you are spending your time, So if
Speaker 2: you move, if you switch jobs, if your kids start
Speaker 2: a different school that starts at an entirely different time,
Speaker 2: or they were doing travel soccer and now or not
Speaker 2: doing travel soccer. There's all sorts of reasons that life
Speaker 2: shifts enough that you might decide it's worth it to
Speaker 2: get a new baseline of how you are spending your time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like every season. I think that's a great,
Speaker 3: great guideline. You can kind of improvise from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but and shure, I just think this.
Speaker 2: If you want to spend your time better, this is
Speaker 2: the first step. So give it a try. Let us
Speaker 2: know how it goes. If you have tracked your time,
Speaker 2: I would love to see your log. You can always
Speaker 2: email it to me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: We'll get ourselves maybe up to the five figures of
Speaker 2: logs eventually. But yeah, I love seeing where people's time goes,
Speaker 2: their schedules and analyzing my own. I don't see any
Speaker 2: reason I would stop this anytime soon. Sarah, You're not
Speaker 2: gonna do this forever, but for now.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing it forever.
Speaker 1: But it's fun.
Speaker 3: It's fun, all right, all right? We have our Q
Speaker 3: and A. This comes from a listener who says, I
Speaker 3: work flexibly, but after studying my timelog, I honestly think
Speaker 3: I need more time to work. What can I do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a surprising discovery some people have.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: If you have to go to an office and you
Speaker 2: are expected to be there at a certain time. For instance,
Speaker 2: let's say your first patient is roomed at eight thirty.
Speaker 2: You are not looking to spend more time at work,
Speaker 2: like you have to be there at certain hours.
Speaker 1: That is fine.
Speaker 2: People who work flexibly, though, have a different thing going on.
Speaker 2: And many people who can work from home a lot
Speaker 2: of the times and set their own hours discover that
Speaker 2: they may not be working forty.
Speaker 1: Hours a week.
Speaker 2: Now that may not be a huge problem, Like if
Speaker 2: your manager is happy, then you don't have to rock
Speaker 2: the boat if you decide if you look at your
Speaker 2: log and find that most weeks you're working thirty to
Speaker 2: thirty two hours, like, if everyone's happy.
Speaker 1: It's okay, right.
Speaker 2: However, if you are feeling like you're a little more
Speaker 2: frazzled during your work hours than is necessary because you
Speaker 2: are trying to get everything done by I don't know,
Speaker 2: three fifteen, so you can go be in the line
Speaker 2: for pickup at school and then you're running people around
Speaker 2: to sports afterwards, and you're like answering emails at the
Speaker 2: same time, Like you might decide that you want to
Speaker 2: rework your schedule to have a little bit more longer
Speaker 2: stretches to work, or at least to have more hours
Speaker 2: of available for concentrated work if that's something you desire.
Speaker 1: So just a couple of things to think first. Just
Speaker 1: because you can doesn't mean you should.
Speaker 2: You could pick up your kids from school three days
Speaker 2: a week and send them to an aftercare program two
Speaker 2: days a week and pick them up at like five
Speaker 2: point fifteen on those days and buy yourself some longer
Speaker 2: days of focused work on those. Somebody else might be
Speaker 2: able to drive kids. So maybe, again, it's not either
Speaker 2: or maybe you do it three days a week and
Speaker 2: two days a week your spouse takes it, or your
Speaker 2: neighbor who also has kids and that could do it.
Speaker 2: You could carpool, or you hire a sitter to do
Speaker 2: the evening runs of activities two days a week and
Speaker 2: see if you can get some extra time with that. Sarah,
Speaker 2: you've had some success with each of you taking a
Speaker 2: morning right.
Speaker 3: Yes, and actually like that. I'm it's exactly and I'm
Speaker 3: using it to work because on Mondays I absolutely could
Speaker 3: drive the kids to school, It's not a problem. But
Speaker 3: then I'm not going to get home and be able
Speaker 3: to start my own work until like eight forty five,
Speaker 3: and I am struggling to give enough time for my
Speaker 3: creative work at as it is, so it's wonderful when
Speaker 3: he's kind of taking over. I can go to a
Speaker 3: pilates in the morning and then they're out of the
Speaker 3: hoss by seven thirty and I can really get a
Speaker 3: nice long morning in. I got a lot done this morning.
Speaker 3: It's Monday as we're recording this, and I would not
Speaker 3: have if I was driving. So just because you can
Speaker 3: doesn't mean you should. And having an awareness of these
Speaker 3: patterns and like really understanding like, Okay, I don't have
Speaker 3: to feel bad if I'm spending eighty five minutes driving
Speaker 3: three days a week, then he can do it two
Speaker 3: days a week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2: This doesn't have to be all on you, even if
Speaker 2: you theoretically have a more flexible job. I would also
Speaker 2: be careful with appointments. This is another like work from
Speaker 2: home temptation. You're like, oh, well, like my favorite hairstylist
Speaker 2: has an appointment at eleven o'clock, I could just take it,
Speaker 2: and you can, but those things can chop up a
Speaker 2: work day pretty easily, So just be careful with that
Speaker 2: if you are trying to work more focused hours. And
Speaker 2: also you might just get in the habit of as
Speaker 2: you were looking forward to any given week, map out
Speaker 2: when your work hours are. And again, people who work
Speaker 2: in an office at set times are like, this is
Speaker 2: the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Like, I have
Speaker 2: to be at work at eight thirty, Therefore my time
Speaker 2: it starts at eight thirty.
Speaker 1: I mean in the office from eight thirty to four
Speaker 1: thirty every day. I get it.
Speaker 2: But for the people who work flexibly, you're just sort
Speaker 2: of generally working. And so look and see when that
Speaker 2: is going to start on any given day. When is
Speaker 2: it going to get chopped up? When are you trying
Speaker 2: to be done by? Are there additional hours after that
Speaker 2: initial stop that you are also planning to work. If
Speaker 2: with all your best intentions looking forward to the week,
Speaker 2: this only adds up to like thirty hours and you
Speaker 2: are trying to work more than that, then something has
Speaker 2: to change. You have to flip something in your schedule.
Speaker 2: You need to get additional driving help or additional childcare
Speaker 2: or something, because you can't just magically manufacture extra time.
Speaker 2: So I think having this little bit of accountability can
Speaker 2: help as well.
Speaker 3: Totally all right, love of the week, We're going to
Speaker 3: go on theme today.
Speaker 2: On theme, I gotta say, looking at old time logs,
Speaker 2: it really is fun to haul up a time I've
Speaker 2: been doing it less this year because I was in
Speaker 2: the habit of looking at the corresponding date from the past.
Speaker 2: So let's say that, okay, this week is that we're recording.
Speaker 2: This starts September twenty two, twenty twenty five. So when
Speaker 2: was the last time that Monday was a September twenty two?
Speaker 2: But this year that doesn't work because it was back
Speaker 2: in like twenty fourteen, so I don't have time logs
Speaker 2: from then. But for the past ten years that has worked.
Speaker 2: It has been a corresponding date. Like starting recently in
Speaker 2: the past three years, I've been able to look at
Speaker 2: a corresponding year and read through that and see what
Speaker 2: was going on.
Speaker 1: So that's been kind of fun.
Speaker 3: And thirty years from now you're going to have to
Speaker 3: go back to multiple.
Speaker 1: I know exactly well it is.
Speaker 2: I hadn't really thought about how date cycle works, like
Speaker 2: with all the leap years and stuff, but it does
Speaker 2: affect like how frequently you get Mondays of each day. Anyway,
Speaker 2: fun stuff, little esoteric. Don't need to get into it,
Speaker 2: but let's just say it is fun to look at
Speaker 2: old time looks.
Speaker 3: Totally well, I'm gonna go on theme as well and
Speaker 3: use my hope in each five year journal, which by
Speaker 3: the way, shines the same light on what you just said,
Speaker 3: because on the left hand side of the page it's
Speaker 3: each year, and I always would write the day of
Speaker 3: the week, so you can see on any given page
Speaker 3: it'll say like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, like its skips
Speaker 3: a day, like I forget, but it's it's very interesting
Speaker 3: to look at, so you're looking at different days of
Speaker 3: the week. It would be kind of interesting to complete
Speaker 3: a five year journal lined up by day of the week,
Speaker 3: so you saw all mondays like, but I don't know,
Speaker 3: there's many.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be the same date, right, it wouldn't be right,
Speaker 1: Like you'd have to be.
Speaker 3: Like Monday, one of the year, Monday number two, Monday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. That's true. It could be that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I love that thing. I've put photos in there,
Speaker 3: I stick random stickers, I have like tickets, I write stuff,
Speaker 3: and it's like it's a really fun artifact. I am
Speaker 3: actually starting to rethink my practice of throwing out my planners,
Speaker 3: but I am absolutely not throwing out my five year journal.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely not you know, that's an archive that one
Speaker 2: put it in the museum. All right, well, this has
Speaker 2: been best of both worlds. This has been our time
Speaker 2: Tracking manifesto. Highly suggest you give time tracking a try.
Speaker 2: And Sarah has.
Speaker 1: Been somewhat reluctant over the past, but now she's been
Speaker 1: doing Togglin has been excelling with that, so yeah, we
Speaker 1: love it. All right.
Speaker 2: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 2: work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2: Please join us next time for more on making work
Speaker 2: and life work together.