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Since setting up this personal blog by following an online guide, I had spent several months hesitating to write anything, afraid that I might produce something embarrassingly poor. Yet writing is something that improves only through practice. After leaving the decision to a roll of the dice, I chose to write about my own approach to time management, in the hope that it may be useful to someone else.
1. Why time management is necessary
Everyday life is often unpredictable. No matter how precise a plan may be, it is difficult to account for every random event that might occur. Seen this way, time management can appear entirely unnecessary: if life is full of the unforeseen, why not simply move with the current of time instead of troubling oneself with a plan that looks good but proves useless?
The purpose of time management, however, is to make our lives function better. If it can make living, studying and working more efficient, then using it has value.
Moreover, we find it difficult to judge the passage of time subjectively. Different periods produce different sensations of duration, and as a result some time seems to disappear from life altogether, leaving us with the constant feeling that there is never enough of it. Time-management practices can help us perceive time more clearly.
All our actions are driven by goals. If organising time helps us reach those goals, then it is worth doing.
2. The method I use
After reading the biography of Alexander Lyubishchev, This Strange Life, I adopted his method of time accounting. Most of this article is little more than a rough retelling of the method described in that book. If the ideas above have stirred any interest, the biography itself is well worth reading. At present I use a single .txt file to keep my time records, an approach learned from My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file.
2.1 Recording and counting
After recording your activities for some time and learning how long each task actually takes, you can create a template for an ordinary day, usually one day or one week in advance and according to your goals. For example:
0600 Wake up
0600–0700 Run
0700–0800 Read
…
Writing time as hhmm-hhmm makes it quick to enter. Recording should be as simple and fast as possible: time management is a means of completing tasks, not an end in itself.
After each task, replace the estimated time with the actual time. Describe objectively what you did during that period, using no more words than are needed to preserve the relevant information.
0603 Wake up
0624–0655 Run five kilometres
0730–1045 Read fifty pages of This Strange Life
…
Try to keep the margin of error below five minutes. The medium used for recording time must therefore be something that can be opened and updated quickly, wherever you are.
2.2 Analysis
Once you have collected some data about the time in your life, you need to analyse it. Over a given period—a week or a month, for example—calculate the total time spent and the amount of work completed. Once the time you have actually lived through has been recorded and added up, problems become surprisingly easy to see. You can then review what happened and adjust future plans.
3. Points to keep in mind
3.1 Do not rely on subjective estimates
Before managing your time, you need a realistic understanding of how long things take you. Judgements made from feeling rather than evidence are often wrong, and we then distort the facts around those mistaken judgements, giving ourselves an inaccurate picture.
I had previously tried other methods. My earliest approach was to divide every minute of a day into blocks and fill each block with a task. This naturally caused a great deal of trouble: I tended to underestimate how long every task would take, producing a backlog that was pushed into the following day until the entire plan collapsed. Even after noticing the shortage and adding spare time as a remedy, the same problem remained.
Before scheduling a task, its duration should be estimated from evidence. If you do not yet understand how long it takes, do not plan it rigidly. Record the beginning and end of each attempt several times, observe the trend, and only then include it in your timetable.
3.2 Do not perform tasks merely to satisfy the record
Departures from a plan are entirely normal. A timetable derived from past records is only an inductive conclusion. If a task exceeds the allotted time, there is no need for anxiety; treat it as an ordinary error in the tool. Completing the task should remain the highest priority, not the record itself.
3.3 Distribute energy properly
Our energy changes throughout the day, so tasks of different difficulty should be assigned to suitable periods—for example, creative work in the morning and tedious work in the afternoon. This avoids wasting energy and helps each task remain efficient.
4. A brief summary
- Use time management because it is useful.
- The process is: record → count → review → adjust.
- Give the task being performed the highest priority.