How I Track my Time
Part 2 of 3 in my Year of Time Tracking series
For the last year I’ve been time tracking every minute of every day. In my last post I talked about why I’m doing this, and why I don’t plan on stopping. Now it’s time to get into the nitty gritty stuff:
How exactly do I track my time in a way that is hassle free and long-term sustainable?
My app of choice
I use the free version of Toggl for my time tracking. It’s the first app I tried1 and has been a good enough fit that I haven’t looked further. I have the android app, and keep a tab with the timer open in my web browser. Toggl also has a desktop app, but I found this to be significantly worse than the in-browser version.
At its core Toggl2 is a timer that counts up until stopped or another timer is started. That timer can be categorised in a number of ways, and you can also manually add or edit time entries. I have a timer running all of the time, and start a new timer as I start a new task. I only edit/add infrequently (i.e. if I forgot to start a new timer, or if there’s an error that requires fixing3).
Toggl has two hierarchical levels of categorisation and an optional description field which I use, plus some additional features like custom tags and a billable/non-billable toggle, which I don’t.
The highest level categorisation in Toggl is “Clients” which I use for broad areas/themes (e.g. Expansion/Wellbeing, Connection, Life Admin). Within a client you have different “Projects”, which for me are tasks, events, or activities4 (e.g. Solo Connection, Group Connection, Messages, Yoga). Within some Projects I will include a Description to capture more granular data, e.g. in Reading - the name of the book and in 1:1 or Group Connection - The name of the person, or group/event.
I’ve expanded on the specific Clients and Projects I use at the bottom of this post, for now it’s time to dive into:
Tom’s Top Time Tracking Tips
The first time I tried time tracking I only kept it up for a handful of weeks. Now this was in part because New Zealand went into lockdown due to the global pandemic, so my data was a lot less relevant and a lot more depressing, but it was also because I was getting frustrated at constantly having to make decisions about how to categorise what I was doing.
Rather than quickly starting a new timer, each change involved awkward choices where it felt like there was no right answer. It was exhausting, and soon I gave up.
I knew when setting my system up this time I had to make it much easier to use. So how did I do that?
Tip #1 - Know your categorisation hierarchy
You can only track one thing at a time5 so you will inevitably have to make decisions about what the main/most important/most important to record thing you’re doing is. If you’re reading a book while on the bus, is that Reading time or Public Transport time? The answer to this might be different depending on how you use your time tracking data.
I prioritise tracking Sleep (for data) and Work (for invoicing), which fortunately never conflict with each other6, over Holiday and (overnight) Event time, over everything else.
“Everything else” is still fairly broad7, so when I’m doing two things at once I ask myself “If I wasn’t doing A, would I still be doing B?” e.g. “If I wasn’t reading, would I still be on this bus”. Since the answer is yes, this goes down as Public Transport time, rather than Reading time.
You might have different priorities from me. It’s not that important what your hierarchy is, or even that it’s formalised. What is important is that it makes enough sense to you that it makes in the moment tracking straightforward and hassle free.
Tip #2 - Just because you’re always tracking, doesn’t mean you need to always be tracking
“Sleep for good data, Work for invoicing. That seems reasonable. What’s holiday time thought?” - You, three paragraphs ago (maybe)
Sometimes time tracking is great for encouraging me to be present, but sometimes, mostly at events (camps, festivals, conferences, etc) or on holiday, having to update a timer would pull me out of the moment. So what do I do to stay present?
I track Holiday or Event time! If I’m spending a week at a holiday home with friends whether I’m out for a walk, or eating dinner, or on a pelagic bird tour, it’s all Holiday time (with what the trip is in the Description). At a conference for the weekend? I’m probably just switching between Sleep and Event.
In part this is avoiding a bunch of shades of grey decisions (as these are times where categorisation lines are most likely to be blurred), but mostly it’s because I prioritise being present over slightly more accurate data.
Tip #3 - Not everything needs it’s own category
It’s probably not worth creating a new category for something you’re going to spend 5 minutes a year on, even if none of your other categories even vaguely work. Enter miscellaneous categories! All of my Clients have a Misc [Client] Project for all those awkward edge cases.
Whenever using a miscellaneous Project I’ll write what I’m doing in the Description8. If I end up spending a lot of Misc time on the same thing it’s easy to create a new Project and bulk update all the time entries with that Description.
Which brings us onto…
Tip #4 - Your system should change with you
I absolutely recommend sitting down before you start and thinking about the things you spend the most time on, but your system can and should change as you use it.
Maybe you realise you’re consistently faced with the same awkward decision about tracking something and you create a new category. Maybe you realise (like I did) that the line between Expansion and Wellbeing is too blurry for these to be separate groupings. Maybe you have something new taking up your time, or maybe it’s the opposite and the 10 minutes you spent playing chess that one time can be absorbed back into a broader or miscellaneous category.
Notice where you’re consistently frustrated by your system or your data, and think about what you can do differently.
Tip #5 - Track “Unintentional Time”
Sometimes you’ll start a timer, and 30 minutes (or 3 hours) later realise you haven’t been doing what you set out to do. Rather than trying to remember all the ways you were spending that time, just change the whole block to Unintentional Time (I use black as the colour for this).
I first heard this suggested on Cortex, and not only does it save admin, but it also lets me know how often, and for how long I’m getting distracted from what I’ve intended to do.
Tip #6 - Think about your State Changes
Your life probably isn’t a journey of moving seamlessly from one known thing to another… So plan for that.
I have a category for Practicing Openness, which is Holiday Time’s teina9. Generally I’ll use this when I was about to go Digital Wheelspinning10 and instead choose to step away from my computer and be present: maybe with a book or my guitar, maybe lounging in the sun, maybe listening to a podcast, sometimes a combination of a few things.
This a way of changing my default “I don’t know what to do right now” behaviour to something intentional and mindful rather than staring at a screen.
I also have categories for Physical State Change11, and for Digital State Change12, and when push comes to shove I’ll sometimes just start a blank timer and fill it in later.
Tip #7 - Let go of perfection
If there’s an overarching theme to all of these tips, it’s that your system, no matter how much you plan, will not be perfect. I suggest you aim for good enough instead.
You absolutely should identify points of major frustration and do something about them, but remember the big picture, and that spending 5 minutes figuring out how to categorise a one-off 3 minute task probably isn’t the best use of your time.
Conclusion
I have the same advice for Time Tracking that I do for many other aspects of life. If you’re struggling, if you’re feeling resistance, don’t stubbornly push on and “try harder”13, instead look for the source of that resistance; think about where the friction points are and how you could make your system easier to use.
This is also a good time to check if your Why14 is still relevant to your life, and if your approach is still relevant to your Why. There’s no point working away on something just because a past version of you thought it was a good idea15.
Next time I’ll be sharing the data from my year of time tracking. Until then, let me know in the comments if you have any time tracking top tips of your own!
Ngā Mihi Nui,
Tom
Appendix #1 - My Clients:
Chill
Down time / relaxing, mostly things I don’t want to spend time on, but some intentional time in this space is fine. Within this client I find the distinction between Short Form Video and Long Form Video to be a useful one, and Digital Wheelspinning to be a useful category to capture the process of opening a bunch of tabs scrolling for a bit, and repeating.
Connection
Spending time with people - Holiday, 1:1 Connection, and Group Connection are the largest categories in here, for each of these I’ll have who I’m spending time with, or what the event is in the description. This also includes time spent planning and co-ordinating Connection time.
Expansion / Wellbeing
Learning, growing, flourishing, practicing self care. This big umbrella Client came about because things like Yoga and Reading didn’t fit neatly into just Expansion or just Wellbeing.
General Mahi (work)
Includes paid work16, volunteering, and other work-like tasks that don’t fit into one of my Life/Project Areas. In writing this description I realised I had no clear distinction between Misc-Personal Mahi and General Mahi so combined the two (Tip #4 at work!)
Life Admin
All the ongoing maintenance that comes with being alive. Cooking, Cleaning, laundry, Shopping, replying to Messages etc.
Life/Project Areas
I have three big umbrella areas of my life where I’m doing a some combination of paid and unpaid work, having meetings, and attending events. Each area is set up with slightly different categories depending on my role/s. I find having a distinction between Meeting time and Mahi17 time to be useful.
Non-Personal Admin
This client only has one category18. It’s a place for time spent on admin that is for other people rather than myself. E.g. reviewing a friend’s CV, meetings for a volunteer committee (that’s not in one of my Life/Project Areas), looking after other people’s pets while house-sitting.
Sleep
Does what it says on the tin. I have a Podcast/Nap category for when I put on a podcast with the intention of potentially falling asleep. Sometimes I’ll update the description to “Not Actually Sleeping” if I’m struggling to get to sleep for several hours.19
State Change
As mentioned above this is the time between more clearly defined things. It started out as just State Change before I decided to split into Physical and Digital, mostly to wean myself off starting a State Change timer then continuing to sit at my computer.
Tramping (Hiking)
Split into Hut Time20 and Moving Time. This Client was born in November 2022 when I was spending 16 days solo hiking on Rakiura and didn’t want misleading Connection data from tracking this as Holiday time.
Travel
Moving from place to place. Historically I’ve been somewhat inconsistent about how I track driving to a single event and back (i.e. if I’m just driving to hockey and back is the whole thing Hockey time or do I track Driving separately).
I very quickly gave up on tracking flying time vs airport time, so Flying+ was created, this includes travel to/from the airport, in the same way Long Haul Bus/Train includes travelling to the station/depot.
Unintentional Time
Technically this is a project without a Client. As mentioned above I find it useful to know how much time I spend not doing the thing I intended to do.
Appendix #2 - My Projects
Projects are fairly person-specific. For inspiration though, here’s a list of all 80-something Projects I’ve tracked, grouped by Client:
Chill
Short Form Video
Misc Chill
Digital Wheel Spinning
Long Form Video
Social Media
News
Connection
Holiday
1:1 Connection
Group Connection
Entertainment
Online Connection
Family
Connection Planning / Co-Ordination
2023 Global Travel Planning
Expansion / Wellbeing
Reading
Walk
Meditation
Bath
Guitar
Mnestics
Sudoku
Misc Expansion / Wellbeing
Practicing Openness
Yoga
Te Reo Coursework
Monthly Review
Hockey
Chess
Cycling
Article Reading
Educational Videos
Podcast
Weekly Journal
Physio
DnD Prep
End of Year Reflections
[Te Reo Course] Call
Writing
General Mahi (work)
2023 Global Travel Planning
Client 1
Volunteering
Client 2
General Mahi
Planning
Life Admin
Cooking
AM/PM Routine
Messages
Eating
Misc Life Admin
Shower
Shopping
Packing
Cleaning
Emails
Flat Stuff
Medical
Life/Project Area 1
Attending Longform Events
[Area] General
Attending Local Group
Client 3
Client 4
Organising Local Group
Client 5
Pre/Post Conference Logistics
Client 6
Life/Project Area 2
[Area] Event
[Area] Mahi
[Area] Meetings
Life/Project Area 3
[Area] Event
[Specific Team] Mahi
Misc [Area] Mahi
[Specific Team] Meeting
Non-personal Admin
Misc Non-Personal Admin
Sleep
Sleep
Podcast/nap
State Change
Physical State Change
State Change
Digital State Change
Tramping (Hiking)
Hut Time
Moving Time
Travel
Flying+
Driving Solo
Long Haul Bus/Train
Driving Group
Public Transport
Misc Travel
(No Client)
Uncategorised Time
Like most time tracking apps
Sometimes the sync between mobile version and browser version has issues. This is usually very quick to resolve.
I don’t have a good descriptive word for this grouping, so have referred to them in this post as “things”
Technically toggl lets you add in parallel events after the fact, but doing this while tracking all of your time will ruin your data and is almost certainly not a good idea.
One day I’ll get placed on a paid sleep study and have a really tough decision to make
In a similar way to the universe being fairly large
This also applies in moments of uncertainty. I try to not be too picky about wording and sometimes end up with a wordy description that I edit down later.
Digital Wheelspinning is what I call it when I open a bunch of browser tabs (emails, social media, RSS feed, news websites, etc) in quick succession and basically ask the internet to entertain me. Often multiple times in quick succession. There’s a lot of rapid movement, but I’m not achieving anything other than sinking deeper into a muddy hole.
Standing up and stretching, bathroom and snack time, moving from one thing to another, packing a bag and putting on shoes to head out somewhere
Checking my task management system, thinking about what I’m doing next, any State Change that doesn’t involve moving
I think “Just try harder” is at best meaningless and at worst incredibly harmful advice in most situations
Your purpose, the reason you wanted to do the thing in the first place.
My favourite take on this is from Hank Green, who talks about the idea that past you is dumber than you and also doesn’t exist.
Categorised by client (my actual clients, not the Toggl grouping)
Doing the work
And could maybe be absorbed into General Mahi, though has a slightly different flavour…
Fortunately this doesn’t happen too often
Which technically includes time at campsites too, but NZ has an amazing Hut Network that I’d spend most my overnight hikes at