Getting better at tracking at work, which was the priority. Work to internetting ratio is what I expected but is also not acceptable. Tracking at home is a bit of a mess but I’m getting better - although right now it should be “Internetting” but it’s still tracking “Getting ready” so I’m going to have to fix that later, most of my at home stuff ends up being fixed later which is a pain. But at home tracking is more for curiosity anyway and will probably improve as I’m getting more in the hang of things.
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I’m using the 15 mns increment spreadsheet and it’s easier than I thought to track my time. I’ve made some rules along the way. So for example I read the forums a lot while commuting but I’m just tracking it as commuting because I want to see how much of my life I spend in trains and such.
Some initial findings:
- Tracking what I’m doing at work is already helping with the procrastination at work. I spend a lot of time on internet and having to track it is making me consider other productive tasks instead.
- I don’t spend enough quality time with MG; it’s ridiculous the small percentage of time we spend together. We’re either at work or alternating taking care of the kids or doing chores (for example me cooking while he is fixing a toilet). This is a red flag. We should resume having date nights or do some chores together. I’ll talk to him about it.
- The quality time we have with the kids is not as much as I’d like but it’s consistent. I see some of the time I spend with them as chores (getting them ready, feeding BG, and bathing them) but I could see it as quality time and enjoy it. We could make games of getting dressed or play in the bath.
- The dishwasher is a lifesaver. I’m not spending as much time doing dishes as I used to.
- I should streamline the cooking process / time. I spent 4 hours cooking last Sunday and it was just one casserole and some backed chicken. That is unacceptable. On the other hand, I had to do dinner yesterday and it took only half an hour to make a 2-days meal for the entire family. So it can be done.
- I spend a lot of time doing lundry and sorting kids’ clothes so that need to change. Maybe I should do it once a week and organize their outfits for the whole week. The drier could help with this. I haven’t started using it yet.
- Cleaning the house is a lot. I spent 4h+ doing it on Sunday and it wasn’t even a deep clean. Either find a way to do it faster or hire a cleaning lady. 4 hours a week could be enough and it shouldn’t be that expensive (plus tax reduction).
- I sleep around 8 hours a day except when BG wakes up in the middle of the night. We need to work on that to make sure that she sleeps the whole night (it’s a ratio of 3/5 now). Maybe moving her in the same room as her sister will do the trick.
- I was obsessed about tracking the first days but now I’m more relaxed and don’t spend a lot of time doing it.
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This is what I was thinking of doing!!
I have identified I waste a lot of time in the 3 days I tracked so far. And that I don’t seem to work as much as I think I do - BUT - I feel that while I may seem to work less than in an office the focus on work is there, which equates to an entire day at an office with interruptions and other time wasters.
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So far, I’m spending:
- More time than expected exercising (yay!)
- Less time than I thought reading (boo!)
- More than expected watching TV (meh? Brooklyn 99 has been really good…)
- About the expected percentage focused at work. Bad days are 50/50 and occasional good days are 100% and awesome.
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I’m finding the time tracking using Laura Vanderkam’s spreadsheet interesting, but since a lot of these things don’t take a round fifteen or thirty minutes at a time, I’m not really getting a sense of how long I spend on them. Is there an app I can put on my phone that will allow me to make a custom list and start/stop a stopwatch for each one with a quick touch? Ideally it would also give me statistics per day and/or per week, but I could do that part manually if necessary.
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I’ve used ATracker on my phone before and it works like that (and was visually simple enough for my preferences), but I think it’s paid if you want more than a handful of categories.
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Worth looking into! Thanks!
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I should’ve mentioned that I have Android! I feel like there are even prettier options for iPhone 
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Oh, that’s important, I should have mentioned that I have an iPhone.
So far my time tracking has revealed that if I waste time in the morning I get to work later, which leads to leaving work later, and then I have less evening time at home. This is breaking news that no one could have predicted.
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Thats exactly why I love aTimeLogger. You just push the icon and the timer starts. And then you push stop and it’s logged. I forget to push stop, but that’s a user problem. 
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I’ve been using Toggl, my only complaint is that you can’t automatically log more than one thing at a time (with the free version anyway), although it appears you can have overlapping stuff if you manually log it.
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That looks perfect, thank you!
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I’ve also been using Toggl on my phone and as a Chrome extension. It syncs nicely for the times I lock my computer and walk away then pull it up on my phone to switch tasks.
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How did I not remember Toggl is on my phone? I use it at work on my computer…
@daffodil2001 I laughed pretty hard at that. I have had many similar observations in my own life 
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A similarly shocking discovery: If I stay in bed playing on my phone because I don’t want to get up in the morning, I am significantly less likely to accomplish any tasks I intended to do before leaving for work.
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Today may be a loss for tracking. Per Toggl I’ve been commuting for 9.5 hours, oops.
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You can always edit toggl entries to get rough numbers if you like.
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Oh I know, I’ve been using that function liberally. It doesn’t help me track how much time I’ve been faffing about on the interwebz instead of working if I don’t keep up with it though. My own fault. shrug
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