Lifehack: Use a Spreadsheet to See Where Time is Going?

We all wonder where our time is going. In this lifehack for lazy people I suggest keeping a spreadsheet to clearly show how your time is being spent each day.

Here is how:

1) Create a table with days as columns and tasks as rows.

2) Create an extra column just after the list of tasks where you can assign a "weight" to a task. I use a scale of -3 to +3. Where -3 is awarded to a task that is very wasteful of your time e.g. mindless web surfing and +3 gets awarded to an important task that helps you towards your goals. Less important gets 2, less again gets 1 .. all the way down to -3.

3) Split your day column into two further columns one for the hours you worked on the task and a second calculated column that will be the result of :
TIME Worked on task X the weight.

4) Record the hours you spend on a task - and be honest - and let the spreadsheet calculate a score for the day. If you work eight hours per day and do nothing but the most important tasks all day that would be a top score of 24(8 hours times weight 3). Knowing this means you can calculate a daily productivity percentage. So if I scored only 12 points for a day then I was only 50% productive.


You can expand on this as much as you want e.g. using pie charts and trending graphs to clearly show where your time is going?

I have found this a great method of tracking where I spend my time and what I must do to improve my productivity.

Good Luck,
Allen