Tracking Your Time

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Over the last few days, Kelly and I have had the chance to meet with DC and Baltimore wedding pros.  We had the pleasure of speaking on mission statements at the Baltimore NACE meeting and I also had a casual breakfast with some of The Simple Plan DC graduates.  One thing is clear: it is summer and people are BUSY. There are weddings to be planned and executed!

We also commiserated with a lot wedding pros on how we become so busy and why we are so busy.  (Kelly has been reading The 4-hour Workweek which prompted some great conversations.)  There are certainly days where we all work at full speed and full capacity.  These are days that we all know: 8-12 hours of full throttle, high-speed, heavy productivity.  But, there are days that are full “just because” we feel they should be full.  We are filling our days because we feel obligated to do so.

Being Honest With Time

I think tracking your time is EXTREMELY important to determining your costs and understanding your pricing.  We talk at great length about this in our education about profitability.  And, I think you need to know how much time you spend working on each wedding, each project, each product.  (Chic Wedding Geek, Terrica Skaggs, has some great time tracking tools for this.)

Today’s post, however, is about your time in the grand scheme of life. We are programmed to sit at our desks from 9 to 5 because we feel like we should in order to be responsible business owners.  But we aren’t always working during those hours and we are doing ourselves a disservice.  It’s not fair to us, to our business, to our families, to our souls.

Be Honest with Yourself about Time…

In the last few weeks, I’ve been finishing my day reflecting about how I spent my time.  I haven’t tracked my hours.  I haven’t journaled my activities.  (Again, this is a must for determining costs.  This is a personal reflection.)  I simply have ended my day with the questions, “What did I accomplish?  How much time did that take?  How did I fill my day today?” There are days, where I could confidently reply, “I filled my time well.”  Other days, “Wow.  I could have gone to a yoga class rather than the 2 hours I was spinning my wheels on a project that didn’t advance.”  Do you see where I’m going with this?

Do this…

So… I want you to do this for the next couple weeks.  When you finish your day, shut down your computer, stop for a minute and reflect:

What did I accomplish today?

Did I accomplish the work things I wanted to accomplish?

Did I have any time for myself, personally?

Did I spend time with my family?  (Real time.  Not time on a smart phone while your family played around you.)

How much time was I “working” where I wasn’t really working?

Could I have spent that time on myself or my family?

You don’t need to write this down, or track it.  This is only for you to have a better gauge – in your heart – of how you are spending your time.