I have “tracked my time” intermittently for a couple years now, but more in the journalistic way. I have my little spreadsheet and jot things down, but I have never worried about exactness or tallying it up or anything.
For some reason, maybe inspired by the recent BOBW episode and the suggestion to try time tracking one week per season, I decided to dial it in this week- and actually try to categorize it.
First observation- it’s pretty hard to determine categories! So much time is multi-category, and even if it’s not, I was indecisive about which categories I wanted to track.
I also zoomed in more than usual (I typically have tracked in 30 minute blocks, but decided to expand to 15 min blocks instead this week). For categorizing, I created a color code key and highlight the cells by category.
Here are the categories I’ve created so far:
Not going to do a full play by play of my days here, though maybe I will someday, but let’s see how my days are looking.
*A couple of caveats, first.
- I generally work a salaried 40 hours, ~8-5 everyday, though it can vary. I do take some short breaks, a lunch hour, or I might eat while working, etc. within that time, and when tracking, I tried to capture those other activities. I consider myself still “at work” if I take a 15 minute break to go to the bathroom and make a cup of tea and let the dog out- but my time log would reflect otherwise. My work schedule is not an area of concern for me, as I work a standard business hour schedule and always meet my work expectations.
- Secondly, when multi-tasking, I tried to list the one I care about “more”. For example, last night I was talking to Ethan while he ate dinner. I was also wiping down the counters and doing a few dishes, but to me, that time was more “Family”, even though it was technically also “Household”.
- The red “Kid Time” block hasn’t been used yet. I decided I’d put “Family Time” for any time I’m actually spending time with one of the kids or the whole family; Kid Time would be something less interactive but kid related, like sitting in the bleachers of a swim meet for 3 hours, for example.
- Deep work= very focused work OR meeting time; Work= any other more casual work, like emails or Teams messaging or just generally more shallow.
Tuesday
| CATEGORY | TIME SPENT | ACTIVITIES? Notes? |
| Deep Work | 4.75 hours | Did time blocking and was SOOOOO productive this day!! (Set my Forest app for 1 hour blocks and just got so much done.) |
| Work | 1.25 hours | Other misc. work |
| Personal Care | 1 hours | -get dressed/ teeth/ contacts -shower, get ready -get ready for bed/ teeth/face |
| Household/Tasks/ Admin | 5.25 hours | This was a lot today!! Definitely abnormal, I think, for a week day…but I had been meaning to clean out my van for weeks and the weather was gorgeous, so I prioritized it today. -dishes/kitchen clean up -30 min on phone to schedule physicals… -total 1.25 hours to clean out my van, wash floor mats, vacuum, etc. (broken up between lunch hour + after work) -making dinner with Ivan (cream of zucchini soup + roasted potatoes (me); steak on grill (him) -some future travel related stuff that took a longer time than anticipated. |
| Kid Time | 0 | None that met my criteria. |
| Exercise | 1.25 hours | *gym for full body strength #1 (0615-0730) |
| Sleep | 6.75 | *A little weird as my time log goes 0500-0500… on Tuesday night I actually “slept in” until 5:45, but 45 min of that time is reflected on Wednesday. |
| Leisure solo | 1 hour | *Really just my morning routine time today… |
| Leisure (with Ivan) | 0 | *Ended up on my laptop doing “household/admin” stuff instead of our usual time together- oh well. |
| Blog stuff | 0 | Sad. |
| Charlie | 1.25 | *Includes walks + a vet appointment (which I took a little time off work for) |
| Personal Misc. or Meals | 0.75 | *I couldn’t decide how to count random bits of time that are just me alone, but sort of “puttering” time, or puttering while eating, perhaps.. Decided to make this Personal Misc. or Meals category to catch any of that misc. stuff. (Note- meals with family wouldn’t be here.) Included here today: -15 min changing clothes + running to gas station for an iced tea -putting a few things away, letting Charlie out in backyard, making myself some eggs -eating breakfast while playing around with an app on phone that wouldn’t sync |
| Family | 0.75 | *Wahhh this is so low!! Makes me sad…. Also made me realize, WOW am I in a different phase of life compared to just a few years ago…. This included: -about 30 minutes eating dinner with Ethan (and Ivan) and chatting at the breakfast bar – ~15 min hearing about Asher’s golf match. That is it!! 😭 The boys weren’t even home until well after 6 pm, and basically touched base and then went off to do their own things (showers, homework, gym (Asher), video games w/ friends eventually (Ethan)… |
| Driving | 0 | Zero! WEIRD. I did run to the gas station and the vet, but it was insignificant- counted the other activities instead. |
Okay, are we having fun yet? Let’s keep going on to Wednesday.
Wednesday
| CATEGORY | TIME SPENT | ACTIVITIES? Notes? |
| Deep Work | 5.75 | |
| Work | 1.25 | |
| Personal Care | 1.25 | *combo of morning teeth/contacts, later shower, then bedtime face/teeth/PJs etc. |
| Household/Tasks/Admin | 0.5 | *MUCH less today! -unloaded dishwasher, reloaded dishwasher, and put laundry away on lunch break -NOT included is some evening “household maintenance” but I was mostly talking to Ethan, so I listed it as family. -made some banana oat cookies and cleaned up (this was very quick!) I also did not cook today, as we had a bunch of leftovers. |
| Kid Time | 0 | |
| Exercise | 0.5 | *home workout/ cardio day: did Heather Robertson’s 12 week program #1 Week #3 Day 2. 30 minutes total, after work |
| Sleep | 6.75 | |
| Leisure Solo | 2.5 | Includes: -a slightly longer morning routine -a ~45 minute phone call w/ a friend -30 minutes sitting outside on the front step after work in the sun with Charlie while half texting people/ checking Facebook. Note: this added up to a lot!! Wow. This is why time tracking is cool. I didn’t really “feel” like I spent 2.5 hours basically just relaxing, but I totally did! |
| Leisure Ivan | 1 | *Watched an episode of The Pitt |
| Blog Stuff | 0.75 | |
| Charlie | 1 | *Included a beautiful “long loop” solo walk w/ Charlie and the most gorgeous sunset! SO LOVING the weather this week!!! |
| Personal Misc. or Meals | 1.5 | This also added up! Includes: -a very quick errand -some puttering around the house -changing clothes, putting a few things away -eating lunch -changing out of workout clothes, texting with a friend -waiting for cookies to be done, updating time log, kind of just more “puttering”. How much of my life do I spend puttering?? 😆 |
| Family | 1.25 | Includes: -chatting with Ethan for 15 minutes while I got Charlie ready for a walk -eating dinner (leftovers) with Ethan (Ivan at work event, Asher at golf dinner) -a 30 min chat with Ethan at 10:45 pm… he was unusually chatty and came to my room (after I was already in bed..) to chat because he will be away the next 2 nights for tennis. It was worth staying up until 11:15! He’s such a good kid. |
| Driving | 0 | *2 days in a row that I literally didn’t drive!! My past self would not believe this time log. 😅 Parents of younger kids, don’t hate me…. |
Here’s a side by side look:
Takeaways??
This has been a very nice week!!!
I feel like I had way more “white space” than I have in recent times (thinking, swim season…).
We had no evening activities or required events to be at (for us, the parents, anyway- the kids had various things). Compared to during soccer and swim season, my commitments are much, MUCH lower right now. And, as I’ve mentioned before, we’re definitely reaping all the benefits of the extra 2 driver thing.
I feel like I’m suddenly getting a taste of empty nest life??! And while that makes me sad, obviously, I can see a lot of good things about that life, too. 😉
Spending my evenings cooking (leisurely) and walking the dog and casually doing some household chores and watching a show with husband or going in the hot tub or reading doesn’t sound bad at all…. compared to racing kids around to a million activities and scrambling to make dinner and clean up and help people with homework and baths and all of that.
Been there, done that, loved it but happy to move on now. 🙂
(*We aren’t fully there yet! We still have 2 more years of Asher in high school, after this year, and I know other seasons are still very busy for us. I’ll still have volunteer and board commitments, games and meets to attend, etc. I’m glad it’s not over yet! But this week has been niiiiiice.)
I apparently have no photo evidence of these days, just overly detailed written records. 😅 Here’s one pic on my camera roll- from a dog walk. 🙂
Tallying up the categories is fun, and insightful! I definitely think worth doing from time to time.
I can’t decide if this is interesting or boring for you all. Let me know if you want to see more days, or if 2 was good enough! Haha.
P.S. I hope this table format works for those of you viewing on a phone. Let me know if it does anything weird. Haven’t tried this before.
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for spreadsheets. They really come in handy.
GRATEFUL KAE 
I personally like seeing how people spend their time, but I’ve never tracked my own. I can totally see where categories would be hard to separate out though! I feel like there is so much of the day when I’m doing some tidying while taking care of kids or a quick admin task.
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Yes, the categories thing is very hard!! When you do it, you realize just how many moments in the day can be counted in more than one way.
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woo!!! that’s an interesting exercise and so time consuming to track 15 min time increment. I tried a couple times but failed. the moment I got to office my day just went by so quickly to track.
my question is through the exercise, did you realize something that you didn’t know before? what did you learn? would it change your behavior in any way?
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I think the biggest takeaway for me is just that I DO have quite a lot of “pleasure time” right now, and also that I am spending a lot of time with Ivan! Different from when kids were little for sure. I think some of that time feels like “oh I don’t have time to do xyz” but really it’s because I spent the whole evening going out for dinner with Ivan + watching a show, for example! ha. Which is not a bad use of time. Just that, if there ARE certain things I need/want to do, there is definitely probably some time that could be shifted around.
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it is so fun to see other people’s lives, thank you for sharing! Read fine on my phone but not great on Feedly app (but so many things don’t read well on Feedly).
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Ok, thanks!! Seems like not a terrible way to do it at least… ha. I’m glad you found it interesting- I was like, ok, either this is gonna be really fascinating or really boring. 😅
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Love the work/deep work break down. That’s one of the reasons I went to laying out my month on a large spread– it is so helpful for me to see how much deep work time is actually possible. I used to assume that all work time could be deep work time, but tracking helped me see that is NOT the case and that knowing what time MIGHT lend itself to deep work can actually help me stay on top of my styuff.
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Yes, I feel like it’s important for me to distinguish between that “work but more interrupted or shallow” versus the “really good work”. It’s impressive how much I can get done in the focused blocks.
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I love these kinds of posts–it’s really fascinating to me to see how people spend their time, especially with kids in a later stage than mine, since I have two middle schoolers and like to see what might be coming next. I also love the idea of breaking out deep work from other work. I was like WOW when I saw your household/admin number the first day, but I guess it all evens out because the second day you had very little of that category.
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Haha yes, I am curious to see what the overall weekly total will be!! I feel like household has spikes and valleys for sure. I also like seeing people’s lives who have kids a bit ahead of me. 🙂
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Sure, keep sharing! It’s always interesting to see how people spend their days. Yes, I would imagine this would have looked VERY different just a couple years ago. People with small children should know that it really does get easier. There’s hope! Of course the other side to that is some days you feel like you hardly see them. I guess it’s getting us ready for the empty nest.
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Yes, I know you feel me on this!! It’s sooooo different from the small kid era. SO DIFFERENT!
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I love this! I’m planning on doing a time tracking week, but I’m taking SHU’s lead and going to use the Toggl app because I think that’ll make things 1000x easier for me. Figuring out how to categorize things is always my downfall! And I feel a little self-conscious about my work hours. I don’t work as much as other people, I feel like, but I get everything I need to get done! I just really FOCUS when I’m doing a working block, I guess? IDK. (I was also the student who always finished my tests first, and then felt self-conscious when everyone else was still hard at work, lol.)
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