Time track is easy, gratifying, and helpful.

After my first year as an Assistant Professor at WSU, I participated in the faculty success program through the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity. The lesson for one week was tracking our work-related activities in 15 minute intervals to gain better insight into how we spend our time, identify a need to reallocate our time, and identify strategies to become more efficient. 

Fast forward a few years to the COVID-19 pandemic. The transition to working remotely, teaching from a distance, and the reality of having a family in my home 24-7 are forces impacting my work known by many all too well. I found myself feeling as if I was working around the clock, seven days a week, and allocating too much time to some categories and not enough time to others. 

I questioned whether this was perception or reality. Insert time tracking. 

I do my time tracking in Excel. You can download my Time Tracking Template. There are fancier time tracking apps. The file consists of eight spreadsheets, one for each day of the week and then one summary sheet. I created seven categories. Choose categories that work best for you. Each cell is a 15 minute interval from 5:00 am – 5:30 pm, my normal range of working hours. You can alter the hours to meet your needs. Simply put a “1” in the cell for the time window you worked in the column for the category you completed tasks within.

Here’s a bit more information about what I include in some of the categories. For teaching, I include tasks such as grading, lecturing, prepping, and meeting with students. For research, I include writing, analyzing data, reading literature, and meetings centered on research projects. For lab teaching, I include lab meeting, prepping for lab meeting, mentoring lab students, and meeting with lab staff. For miscellaneous work, I include trainings, emails, writing letters of recommendation, and similar work activities. 

I also included a non-work category to understand how much time I actually work relative to how much time I dedicate to the work day. In non-work, I include walking the dog, exercising, making lunch, and so forth. The proportion of time I spend working in each category excludes non-work time, even if it is during the “work day.”

Here’s an example:

The results of this exercise were more powerful than anticipated. I found myself feeling less stress when I realized my perception and reality did not align in places. I also found myself being more efficient. I stick to a category until the time window has passed and bounce around from task-to-task much less. And, importantly, I can see where I need to strategize to be more efficient to reallocate time. 

I thought I would stop time tracking after a month, once I had a “handle on reality.” However, it is easy to do and has many benefits – including gratification – so I decided to continue. 

I hope this is helpful! Make it your own!