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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I questioned whether this was perception or reality. Insert time tracking.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I do my time tracking in Excel. You can download my\u00a0Time Tracking Template<\/a>. There are fancier time tracking apps<\/a>. 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 \u201c1\u201d in the cell for the time window you worked in the column for the category you completed tasks within.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 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 \u201cwork day.\u201d <\/p>\n Here’s an example:<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I thought I would stop time tracking after a month, once I had a \u201chandle on reality.\u201d However, it is easy to do and has many benefits – including gratification – so I decided to continue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I hope this is helpful! Make it your own!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Time track is easy, gratifying, and helpful.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>. 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s3.wp.wsu.edu\/uploads\/sites\/2545\/2020\/12\/TIme-Tracking-Example-Two-396x289.png\"){kind=tracking}
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