Today's topic isn't strictly about personal data organization, or even about managing your digital life. But both the methods and the benefits spill over into these areas regularly, so it's definitely worth discussing.
In fact, I thought I'd already brought it up in at least one earlier post, but my search to confirm this yielded no results. Before we get into it, here's my 2025 Consistency Challenge progress report for this week:
- I deleted 273,466 files comprising ~1.2 GB
- I sorted 12,608 files comprising ~226 GB
- Overall progress: 44% (from 43% last week)
These numbers look a bit odd. In short, I deleted a ton of tiny files, and I sorted a much smaller set of enormous files. Sometimes it works out that way.
The Power of a Time Audit
Time is the one resource that every single person on earth has in equal measure on a daily basis. Rich or poor, young or old, busy or bored, it's all the same.
24 hours.
1,440 minutes.
86,400 seconds.
What we do with the time we have makes all the difference. If you're like me, you frequently realize that what you actually do with your time doesn't line up perfectly with what you'd like to do with your time. There are many possible and even legitimate reasons for this, but one of the most common is that we simply don't pay attention. This is where a time audit comes into play.
Now, lest you associate the word "audit" with something unpleasant--like the IRS--remember that the definition is perfectly benign: "a formal examination of an organization's or individual's accounts or financial situation," or "a methodical examination and review."
A time audit simply means doing the same thing for your time that a good accountant would do for your finances. Both are limited resources, and both can be spent only once. Time gets spent no matter what for all of us at the same rate. Arguably, then, auditing your time is even more important than auditing your money.
Performing a Time Audit
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You can audit your time with nothing more than a notepad and pencil. But whether you use those simple tools or something more complex (computer, smartphone, task management app, etc.), the process is simple:
- Whenever you start doing something, however small, make a note of the start time for that task.
- Whenever you complete something or switch tasks without completing what you started, note the end time for what you stopped doing.
If you attempt to multitask (ideally, don't!), make sure you note actual stop/start times for each task whenever you switch contexts. Each individual task should have a checkbox, then its name, and finally one or more pairs of start/stop times.
Also, by "something" I really mean everything. For a comprehensive and realistic view of your time--one that doesn't leave you wondering how all those extra minutes disappeared--you need to capture every activity:
- Bathroom breaks
- Meal preparation
- Personal hygiene
- Unexpected phone calls
- Impromptu chats with coworkers
- ...etc.
You may end up encountering few or none of these things. Or, you might discover you accidentally fell into a 37-minute social media doomscroll session when all you really had to do was pee.
Tracking time like this is simple other than the fact that it's such an uncommon activity that you may forget to do it as you go about your day. Setting a repeating 5-minute timer can help keep you on track.
Remember, auditing your time is not initially meant to change your behavior, although it often does simply because you're paying attention to things you wouldn't normally pay attention to. This goal of this part of the audit is simply to observe and record. Only you will see the results; there's no need to cut corners or ignore little things to make the outcome look better. In fact, doing this negates some of the benefit of performing a time audit in the first place, since it hides some behaviors that you might actually want to change.
At the end of the day, or at least the end of the period of the day you're auditing, finish up with a little analysis:
- Add up the total time spent on each task
- Assign a value to each task based whether you feel, in retrospect, that you should have done it (for example: 1=pointless, 5=critical)
If you do an audit like this even for one day, but especially for a whole week, you'll likely see some areas that need attention:
- Activities you didn't consciously realize you were doing in the first place
- Activities you thought you were spending far less time doing
- Important/regular tasks with drastically underestimated durations, taking 2x-5x longer than you expected
- Far more task-switching than you planned
Look for patterns or triggers, such as certain kinds of tasks that throw off your productivity. Maybe you hate making phone calls and subconsciously distract yourself whenever you have to get through them. Maybe one legitimate task on a smartphone pulls you into a series of unrelated and unimportant other things. (Check out Brick, one sec, or Regain if this sounds familiar.)
Everyone will have different results, and what you do with the information is up to you. But who doesn't want a better picture of where their time is going? I recommend going through this exercise at least once a year.
Continuous Auditing as a Habit
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One of the most valuable aspects of the task management and note-taking process I follow is that it provides regular and detailed insight into where my time goes. What I do is more involved than most, I imagine, but I've practiced and honed it into what is now a streamlined habit requiring very little effort:
- All appointments go on my calendar.
- All tasks go on my to-do list.
- At the end of each day, all appointments and tasks are automatically imported to a simple list in a daily note for quick review and future reference.
The first two points help me to plan ahead, and I'd do them anyway even if I didn't want to keep a record. I've talked about doing this before, most recently during Tasks Month of Tidy '24.
But I make one little modification to my calendar and to-do habit that enables nearly effortless continuous time auditing: if I do anything even remotely important that wasn't on my to-do list, I immediately add it and then mark it complete.
At first, this felt a little like cheating, like I'm just padding my list to make me feel better about getting stuff done. But that's not why I do it. Instead, gives me a really good idea of how I spend my time. Keeping an close eye on my activities means I can't accidentally spend too much time on something unnecessary without realizing it.
Of course, it doesn't keep me from spending time unwisely. It just means I'm much more likely to realize it right away. And because I care about this, this knowledge is an important weapon in my arsenal against wasting time.
One more important note: I don't consider "non-productive" time to be wasted, necessarily. I've never wanted to cram in every bit of work possible to the exclusion of other activities--not even close.
Instead, auditing my time as described here helps to ensure that I have the time to do fun and relaxing activities I really want to do, like reading a book or playing a game with my kids, instead of accidentally spending an hour on social media.
Have you ever performed a time audit? Did it help? Did you make any lasting changes or shifts in your digital (or non-digital) habits? Or do you have any questions for me about my own processes? leave a comment and let me know!
Until next week, happy data-taming!