Chris Cairns wrote a nice post with tips for time tracking. In the post and the comments, the question of when to track time came up. Like with many things in life, with time management, the key is moderation.

Aristotle is often credited with popularizing the notion of the golden mean as the most desirable state, avoiding too much or too little of anything. I find it amusing how much deference is paid to the ancient philosophers; the golden mean can be too broadly applied and it is not the key to beauty and life as some of the Greeks believed. With those caveats in place, it is true that you will often find error at the extremes.

So it is with time management. Without question, it is foolish to spend all of the time you have here on earth without any reflection about where that time is going and if that's really where you want it to go. I can assure you, unless you are killed instantly by a bus, there will come a point when you look back on all the time that has gone before and you will want nothing more than to have some of it back. Specifically, you will want back the time that you didn't spend on the things you truly value.

On the other hand, slavishly worrying, notating, jotting, clicking or bubbling every 15 minutes of every waking day, 365 days a year like some automaton is just as foolish. Instead, track your time for long enough, regularly enough, and rigorously enough to get a sense of what is working for you and what isn't. Decide to make a few changes to reduce time wasters and increase time on things that are truly important and then continue tracking your time against your new goals until it is clear your changes are taking hold as habits. Once your change has become the new normal, you should stop tracking.

Even if you keep your time tracking down to the target 5 minutes a day or less, it is better to spend this time doing, not tracking. Unless time reporting is important to your job, cut even this small overhead out when you can.

Don't leave your re-aligned time allocation to chance though. Put a note on your calendar for a few weeks out to check up on yourself. When that day comes, track your time for a couple of days. If everything is still on track and you're still happy with the bar you've set for how you're spending your time, then you're done. Just put a note on your calendar to checkup again in a few weeks and get back to living and doing.

If instead you notice that things have slipped, then return to tracking your time. Focus more this time on finding the rituals and routines that can turn your self-conscious behaviors that happen when you are closely watching your time into long lasting habits that are less mindful.

Good luck and stay away from those extremes. Aristotle is watching.

Photo by maha-online