Picture the scene: It’s the end of the day, and although you’re exhausted, you feel as if you’ve done nothing all day. "If only I hadn’t wasted so much time" you think. "Tomorrow, I’ll get up earlier and work extra hard!" The next day, you climb into bed, exhausted but unfulfilled. "If only I hadn’t wasted so much time", you think…

There’s nothing quite as de-motivating as feeling you’ve wasted a day doing nothing. It’s easy to get frustrated, and even if you have had a productive day, the habit of beating yourself up can still keep your mood down and hold you back. Unless you keep track of what you’re doing with your time, your account at the end of the day will mainly be based upon how you feel at the time. The solution to this problem is the trusty time log.

What is a time log?

A time-log is a simple tool that lets you keep track how you’re spending your time. This is very helpful when trying to optimise your time, and it also helps to make sure you don’t concentrate on the negative aspects of your day. After a few days and weeks of using a time log, you can then build up an accurate picture of how productive you’re being, as well as when your most productive hours are. For example, you might find you’re much more productive during the first few hours of the day, or directly after you’ve exercised. Using this information you can optimise your daily performance by scheduling tasks for your most productive hours.

How do you keep a time log?

I use a very simple 3-column format for my time logs. The left column is used to note the start time, the large column contains the activity and the small column on the right is used at the end of the day to calculate the length of the session. Although the example picture is from a spreadsheet, I prefer to use a purely paper driven system for ease of use and portability.

Your own personal circumstances will determine when you start keeping track of your time. If you’re self-employed, you might want to start it as soon as you wake yup. If you’re in an office environment, it might be more beneficial to start as soon as you leave your front door. If there’s a particular part of your daily routine that you feel is causing trouble, make sure you capture it on your log for later analysis.

Once you’ve started, every single activity needs to be noted down. This includes tea and coffee breaks, toilet stops and the ubiquitous "just 10 seconds to check my email" task. Most of these are trivial activities, but it’s quite enlightening to see just how long they take when added up. To give an example, the very first time I used this technique I found I was wasting over three hours on "checking email/web surfing".

At the end of the monitored time period, work out how much time was spent on each task by using the recorded information. After a week or two of using this technique, you’ll have a good idea of areas where you need to improve. It’s also not unusual to see a direct improvement within the first few days as a result of tracking your time. Often knowing that your time is being monitored is enough to keep you on-track for a little bit longer and can help you push through to a task’s completion.

Isn’t this all a little excessive?

Keeping a time log is a very small price to pay compared to the improvements that can be gained. If you’re wasting a lot of time during the day, it’s not uncommon to double your productivity within a week or two. And remember, you can stop keeping a record once you’ve made the improvements you wanted. If ever you feel your productivity has slipped, you can start recording again.

What is it?

The “mind dump” is a way of getting a lot of information out of your head and into your organisational system. It’s a simple process that doesn’t take particularly long, although it may take longer if you haven’t done it for a while. It’s a great way of clearing your mind, and it allows you to get a good view of your projects, commitments and tasks.

When do you use it?

A good time to perform a mind dump is at the end of every week, just before your weekly review. Another good time to use it is when you’re feeling overwhelmed with work, or when your brain is swimming with ideas and you can’t concentrate.

How do you do it?

Make sure you have at least twenty minutes of uninterrupted time, sit down and relax. Take a sheet of paper and write down a task you want to do. This can be something simple like making a phone call, to something larger like setting up a blog or starting a business. Absolutely anything goes, so write as much as you can. I generally write down at least a hundred items if I haven’t done it for a while, but you may find you only write down fifty. The important thing is to get as much out of your head as possible.

You can either write every item on a separate sheet of paper, or write them all on to the same sheet. I prefer to write it all on one long list, but you may find separate sheets are easier to process.

How do you process the list?

This all depends on your organisational system, but a rough GTD method is as follows:

Go through each item on the list. If it’s something that will require more than one task to complete, it’s a project so it gets added to a “projects” list. If it’s a single action that will take less than two minutes to complete, do it immediately. If not, add it to the appropriate “to-do” list.

If it’s something you want to do, but don’t know when (such as taking a holiday), write it on your “Someday/maybe” list. As soon as you process each item, cross it off the list or dispose of the sheet it was written on.

What are the benefits?

The main benefit of this technique is that it gives you a clear mind and helps you concentrate. Once you’ve processed the list, you know everything you were thinking of will be taken care of, and your mind can rest at ease.