I Recorded Dates As ‘Monday’ And ‘Friday’

2 years tracking my time… without recording the month or year.

 

1. “Monday – Completed A,B,C”

2. “Monday – Did X,Y,Z”

 

Which Monday? February or July? 2016 or 2017? Hong Kong or Honduras?

 

I didn’t realize that in addition to writing a thought, recording a memory, or tracking my activity, the time of writing would matter so much.

 

‘Monday’ is a good marker for planning the next 7 days, but not a full month or year.

 

‘Monday’ allows you to review how you spent last week, but it’s useless for summing activity hours over the past years.

 

Finally, I began tracking my time Month-Day, and only after years… Day-Month-Year in computer-readable format.

 

I wish I’d started sooner.

 

Too Close To The Action

 

You’re always close to your own story, too close to see how the individual mornings add up over years into trends, lessons, and the story of your life.

 

Whether you’re optimizing your time-use…

 

• How many hours do I work every day?

• What time do I wake up?

• Am I sleeping more or less than last year?

 

… or remembering where you went bungee jumping, good notes and data will help you piece your story together.

 

Old-fashioned, but still an upgrade, I now record my activities, times, durations, and dates in a spreadsheet. This helps me know myself and change my habits.

 

 

Over time, these records become data.

 

This graph shows how I split my day between high, medium and low-value activities and sleep.

 

 

My B-Task ‘Daily Routine’ completely dominates my mornings.

• Can I shorten it?

 

Look how the low-value ‘C’ tasks grow throughout the day.

• I could plan my afternoons better.

 

I won’t stop tracking my time, and I hope you will start.

 

At first, it will feel like too much effort, but soon you will feel uneasy when you don’t know what you did and when you did it, like a piece of your life is forgotten forever.