How You Can Keep Track Of Your Time

time management tips

In order to manage time effectively, you need to find out where your time actually gets spent. One useful way of finding out your actual usage of time is to track your time. This is one of the most important part of effective time management. and is is one of the necessary time management techniques that you must implement. The approach here is like planning a schedule, but it works in reverse. Instead of noting down the things that you are planning to do, time logging is a process of writing down the things that you have already done. Doing this is sort of a get- to-know-yourself exercise because this process will highlight many of your habits that you might unknowingly neglect at the moment.

For example, some people realize that every time they plan to do math homework they end up watching TV. Instead of revising for that math test, they play Internet poker. Other people just can't seem to follow their schedule until the week before finals.

Whatever your time habits are, tracking your time will help you adjust and fine-tune your time management practices. Having precise information about your time usage patterns can function as another important point of reference for monitoring yourself. The following are a few ways to track your time. Take a bit of to try this – it will truly help you open your eyes and take control of your time.

1. Time tracking is fairly straightforward. At the end of every hour jot yourself a quick note about how you actually spent your time for that hour. The note needn't be long - one sentence or less should do. If the way you spend your time does not tally with an already planned activity, just enter a comment as to what you really did during that time. This way you will be able to reflect on patterns that emerge in your use of time and make the relevant adjustments to boost your productivity.

2. Some may find it useful to modify the planning page to facilitate tracking time. The modifications are easy enough: have two columns on your paper for each day of the week. In one column, note down the plan you are trying to follow; in the second column, make notes on what you specifically did with your time. The side-by-side comparison is very helpful and is an effective way to figure out where you're not using time in the way you have planned.

3. Another great way to make changes and get results from your time management strategies is to summarize your use of time by time categories such as: sleep, study, work, travel, etc.

Estimate how much time you think you use for the various activities listed and enter these in the "expected" row in your summary sheet. Feel free to add any additional categories that might be helpful. Then log your time for one week on an hour by hour basis. After the week is over, summarize your time by category for each day, add up the values for all seven days of the week, and write the totals in the "actual" row of the summary sheet.

Summarizing how you use your time allows you to know the precise amount of time you really spend in the various areas of your life. It is almost certain that you will see a notable difference between the number of hours you expected to use in certain categories and the actual number of hours you spend.

If you find that you spend more time in one area than you intended, and less in another, the weekly summary of how you use your time clearly indicates which activities to cut down to find the extra time you want for more important areas of your life. Indeed, you will discover that this method of tracking your time will serve you well as one of the most useful time management strategies that you can employ as you put it to use in your daily routine.