Time Diary

Time Diary - November 1, 2002

Time Diary (rev. Dick Scoggins February 2002)Time diaries are helpful when:

one is feeling like they are not being as productive as they could be,
one is in transition
one is needing to reassess priorities and changes to their schedule.

The goal of a time diary is to assess how one normally spends their working time. After assessing the actual use of time, the person can then step back and determine if this is the best use of time and then make adjustments. Normally it is good to continue to track use of time until new patterns are instilled.

Suggestions on how to do a time diary:

Use some sort of a daily diary that has at least one-half hour breakdowns of the day. Log your central activity for each half-hour through the day.

At then end of the week look at your activities and gather them into some central headings. Use somewhere between 6 and 9 central headings. For example:

e-mail
personal planning
meeting with direct reporters
meetings with board, peers, etc.
general admin
writing reports

It may take some time to get the general categories which will indicate the major areas that use your time. But properly describing these will be crucial to a good evaluation of time use.

Then figure out how many hours a week you engage in each of these activities.

From here you might want to further evaluate your time in terms of being:

strategic vs. tactical
reactive vs. proactive
tied to vision vs. maintenance

Have some time for reflecting over your final results and make changes in your use of time.

Begin to proactively, at the beginning of the week, block time for those activities you need to engage in but may be often squeezed out of your schedule. Then discipline yourself to use that time as blocked. If the block has to be moved, move it before you put something else in its place.

Continue using the time diary until you are satisfied that you are making the best use of your time.