I Tracked Every Hour of My Day for a Week—Here’s What I Learned
1 min read
Summary
In order to improve productivity and develop self-awareness, the author decided to track every hour of their week, from 7am until 9pm each day, spending a total of 43 hours over the period.
They used a simple Google Sheets spreadsheet to document each hour, highlighting the activity or activities undertaken in each, and did not break this down to the minute, to make it manageable.
Protecting mental energy in the morning is vital for a successful day; checking notifications on phone or email is detrimental and means the rest of the day is much harder.
The author needs an hour to themselves before interacting with anyone else, and to block social media and messaging apps when trying to focus.
They have designated their rest day as Thursday, as this is when they are most vulnerable to distractions, and tends to achieve less.
Surprisingly, they found weekends to be very productive; they have a strict ‘no laptops’ policy’ for weekends to help their brain to reset.
The author has since moved their phone charger away from their work desk to reduce the temptation to check their phone when they are struggling to focus.
