March 17, 2025

Do YOU track your time?

A fellow list member asks:

I log my hours purely to keep track of where I’m spending my time - not planning for anyone to see them. Have you ever tried doing that? e.g. to see if you’ve overspending time on a given activity (across either professional or personal)

Yes, I did track my hours for a while when I first went solo in 2006, but eventually found that it wasn’t useful and stopped.

These days, I’ll sometimes track my time for a week or two with the group during 10DSC to see if there are any surprises, but there usually aren’t.

Here’s the thing...

Tracking your time is a form of taking a measurement.

The purpose of taking a measurement is to make a decision.

If you’re not planning on making a decision based on something you’re measuring - time or otherwise - you can stop measuring it.

Yours,

—J