Are you looking to take note of your minutes and hours during the day?

Do you want some tips to help you effectively track your time?

Time can sneak up on you when you’re not paying attention.

Just take any one of these scenarios to heart…

You sit down at your desk to write an email to a friend.

You glance to look at the time and…yikes! An entire hour has flown by! How in the world did that happen?

You attend a Tuesday morning work meeting.

You casually check your cellphone display and notice the meeting has run late. You groan with dismay when you realize you’re going to be late to your next appointment…

It’s not uncommon to become completely absorbed in your work.

And in some scenarios, like the ones we’ve described above, you can easily lose all sense of time.

In this post, you’ll find a few practical tips you can use to track your time.

If you find yourself losing track of the minutes and hours more often than not, you may need to take a step back to see exactly how you’re spending your time.

Get Prepared

Select a day to track.

The first thing you’ll want to do is select a day to track.

This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’ll want to make a dedicated effort to track an otherwise routine day. There shouldn’t be anything too unusual in your schedule.

Why are you taking such care to track a typical day?

We want to make sure we are accurately gauging how you spend your time on a regular basis. Out-of-the-ordinary activities and events in your schedule should be avoided as much as possible.

Choose a note-taking system.

The second step in tracking your time is to select a note-taking system. You can use a notebook and pen or use a time tracking app.

It really doesn’t matter which system you use, so long as you enjoy using the system for the duration of the day.

Make a list of tasks.

The next step in tracking your time is to create a standardized list of tasks. This will make it easier for you track your progress throughout the day.

You can create basic tasks such as the following: eating, sleeping, bathing, dressing, exercising, phone, texting, social media, emailing, working, and traveling.

If you don’t want to create a standardized list of tasks in advance, you can track your tasks throughout the day as you perform them.

Have a clock or timer handy.

Lastly, it’s important to make sure you have a reliable clock or timer handy during the day. You can use a wall click, wristwatch, fitness tracker, smart watch, cell phone, tablet, or any other time-telling device.

Take Time Notes

Set your clock or timer to go off at the top of every hour.

The next step in your time-tracking adventures is to set your clock or timer alarm to go off at the top of every hour. When the alarm goes off, you’ll want to quickly note how you spent the past hour.

What if you’re traveling or don’t have immediate access to a clock or timer during the day? No problem! You can simply record your time every couple of hours or when you have a few quiet moments to yourself.

Take notes of tasks and actions performed.

In case you were wondering, you don’t have to strive for 100% accuracy in your time entries. A general estimation of how you spent your time is just fine. Do the best you can.

At this point, you’ll want to mark down your completed tasks and actions, as well as how long they took. For example, you might write entries such as the following:

6:30 A.M. – 7:30 A.M.            Gym

7:30 A.M. – 7:45 A.M.            Travel

7:45 A.M. – 8:30 A.M.            Shower, dress, breakfast

8:30 A.M. – 9:00 A.M.            Travel

9:00 A.M. – 10:00 A.M.          Phone call

or you could write down your entries as follows…

6:30 A.M. – 7:30 A.M.            Work out at gym

7:30 A.M. – 7:45 A.M.            Drive home

7:45 A.M. – 8:30 A.M.            Shower, dress, and breakfast

8:30 A.M. – 9:00 A.M.            Drive to work

9:00 A.M. – 10:00 A.M.          Hold conference call

Interpret Your Findings

Look for patterns & trouble spots.

It’s now time to review your notes. How did you do? Where did you spent the most and least time? Are you surprised at how you passed the time during the day? Why or why not?

Did your tasks or actions fall into any patterns? For example, after breakfast and lunch, did you work for a mere fifteen minutes, only to find yourself using your favorite social media site?

Likewise, which tasks or actions seem to have taken up more time than expected? What other information can you gather from your day?

Use your notes to better manage your time.

Out of all the notes you took during the day, which tasks or actions stand out as sore thumbs? What potential steps can you take to reduce time spent on a particular task or action?

Some possible solutions include learning how to work more efficiently, delegating tasks to someone else, or making a dedicated effort to pay close attention to the passage of time.

How about you? Have you tracked your time throughout the day? What did you find? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!