It’s been three weeks with the Time Tormentor Tattletale Tool on my computer. I’m peripherally aware of its omnipresence, sitting quietly in the menu bar measuring every action. As it spits out its reports at the end of each week, I spend time looking at the effects of the changes I am making. So far, I am amazed at how much time I am spending, and how difficult it is to shift entrenched patterns of moving through my days.
I consistently spend 35 – 40 hours per week at the keyboard. Its more than I want, since I have a lot of work that is not at the keyboard, so my total working hours are longer than I am effective. I find my eyes and body getting sore and over tired at this pace. Once I am overtired, it is easy to slip into things like mindless surfing.
Walking with email
With my new-found awareness, I expected to see big changes in the second week. Email was the biggest chunk of time spent, and the biggest eye-opener for me with over 9 hours in week one. Week two, it was a few minutes more. I needed to look deeper at where the time was going.
I use Gmail for most of my email, feeding multiple accounts into one. I have some filters set up to keep newsletters and some group emails out of my inbox. This week I decided to get much more diligent about taking the time to assess if I really wanted the information in the newsletter. If I did, I set up a filter to keep it out of my inbox and labeled as a newsletter I could choose to read if and when I have time. If I no longer found the information in a newsletter relevant, I found out how to unsubscribe and did it. In the past I would just hit delete, but I recognized I was doing that so many times a day, that time was adding up.
I had emails from several forums coming into my inbox. I found myself opening them, often to find many of them simply agreeing with a previous one, or adding another kind of “me too” response. I decided to stop the emails, and only read the forums online where I can see the conversations threaded.
Even though I spent investment time setting up filters, I managed to shave off an hour and 20 minutes off email time this week by making these changes. I expect to save even more time next week now that the filters are in place.
Walking with forums
Forums are like email, there is a mix of things that can be totally unproductive jumbled up with real gems. I certainly don’t want to give them up, but I saw that I needed to change the way I was interacting with them. First, I had to stop reading all the postings and be much more strategic. Now I read the opening post, and only follow the details if it is something I can contribute to or am interested in. I am using the mark as read buttons much more than I ever did.
I’ll have to see how it works to have to choose to go to the forums online instead of having emails come to my inbox. I may discover that I don’t miss some of them. Particularly the ones that have become predictable due to the over participation of a select few people. When I really thought about it, some of the forums feel more like indulging in watching soap operas than offering real value.
Being more intentional brought my time in one forum alone down to an hour the second week an hour and a half the third, from four hours the first week.
Walking with social media
Maybe walking isn’t a good descriptor for social media? It might be more like sliding with social media. The slippery slope is always present. Its really easy to fool myself by listening to all the descriptions of people who are using Facebook and Twitter for business purposes to justify my time there. Like it or not, I don’t do any business there. Maybe someday I will learn how to do that, but right now, it does not happen. I do see value in keeping up with network contacts, so there are reasons to participate.
I was surprised to see four hours and 44 minutes on social media the first week. I thought I was being more mindful in week two, popping over for quick visits when I needed a break from something. I was even more surprised to see it still added up to four hours and 40 minutes the second week. For week three, I worked on reducing the number of those quick trips, and got it down to 3 hours and 56 minutes. Still seems high to me. I’ll have to watch it more closely and think more about the value versus the time.
Walking with creative time
Not all of my creative time is on the computer, but I want to increase the time I spend designing in all forms. I have managed to shift all the time I saved on the tasks I want to reduce into design time. I’m working on setting up to sell our photographic and painted images, and there is a lot of file preparation to do that. I’m looking at ways to get things good enough while we test whether there is even any interest in purchasing our images as prints. In the past I would have immeadiately launched into a plan to make the most perfect product I possibly could. Now I realize there is a balance between perfect and marketable. There is a place called good enough. I think. Its still a bit contrary to my Virgo appreciation of perfection.
Walking and watching
So on it goes. Time in dialogue with choice. Priority in relationship to productivity. What else might need to shift? What else can move aside to make space for the things that make a difference? How do you walk with time?
Subscribe to this blog in a reader
follow me on twitter @cmartell
Yikes. Been struggling with the knowledge that I’m spending way too much time skiing around on the slippery slopes of social media with no purpose, and while fun, it’s in the way of getting on with the business of my life. Your post puts that, and so much else about mindful time management, into black and white. Hooray. Bummer. Hooray.
Send updates on how it’s going (if things go well, I won’t be online to read them quite so quickly
It’s a fascinating process and having a Virgo to document it is priceless.
Wow, how enlightening. I should try this out. I spend a ton of time at my computer (… this makes sense, since it’s my job), but a lot of it is wasted. I’m scared to find out how much!
May I just say that the idea of using that time tool myself is *terrifying*? Props to you for following through on it, Christine!
)
Christine, you’re an inspiration! First, this painting is lovely! Second, I love that you’ve gone into all the gory details here, out on the open, where anyone can see your Time Underpants. It takes guts! I’ve been taking the same approach to measuring time, only coming at it from the opposite direction, and it’s still working out pretty well. Planning how much time I WILL spend, and then timing myself. Sometimes literally setting a stopwatch. Right now, in case you can’t tell, is blog reading time. That way if there’s leftover time and I feel like writing a 10-page email (let’s face it, we all want to), I can do it, knowing I’ve budgeted time for the important stuff, too. Looking forward to seeing how your walk/slide goes as you keep moving & learning!
I have found having 3 different emails has been very useful. One is my primary e-mail for things I really need to keep up on (my kids, their school, my department head, family). The other email I use for “spam”ish sites such as eletters (newsletters), companies I don’t need to keep in touch with such as my cell phone carrier, etc… Finally, I have a third email address for my classes and students. This I check just before classes and the evening before classes. I check my primary email daily (sometimes more often) and the “spamish” email once a week, as long as I have time.
I use LinkedIn strictly for business, although I do keep track of former students through Linked In. Facebook is strictly for close friends and family.
I find it is easier to manage my online time keeping them departmentalized. My biggest time waster is blogs! When I’m bored or procrastinating, I tend to click on igoogle and see what everyone is saying.
@Just don’t cut out your blogging, I enjoy your posts too much!Denise dS:
Talk about The Big Reveal — you are amazing! First to install it, second to look at the results for three weeks in a row, and third to be making changes based on what you see happening. Oh, and then to TALK ABOUT IT! This would be like walking in time with the talk. Or something.
@Leah Creates:
I’d encourage you to try it. Takes some getting used to, in that in order to really get good data, I try to forget it. I do think it is making an impact on my productivity. Its certainly not instant, but things are slowly shifting.
@Michelle Russell:
But I need you to try it! How else will I get guidance on how to be imperfect with it?
Oof. Touché!
)
@Kelly Parkinson: I’ve been thinking a lot about your strategy of putting the time for the important things first. As I start to unblock my time, I want to shift more to that kind of strategic mapping of most important things first instead of responding to the fire of the moment. I’m determined if nothing else.
@Virginia Yonkers:
I so agree, the blogs can be a big time sink. Especially when there is so many interesting threads to follow. Lately I’ve been so consumed with this other stuff, I haven’t paid attention to my blog time. I’m sure that will be another area I’ll have to address.
@Barbara Martin:
Part of it is a knowing that if I want my business to thrive, I have to get a better handle on how I am investing my time. Responding randomly just isn’t working so hot. Even though it is my native artist space!
I’m as terrified as Michelle, I have to admit!
Even reading your posts is almost like watching a horror movie, I can only do it through my fingers in front of my face (I mean that in a good way, you know? 
)
Mad admiration to you for revealing your Time Underpants!
@Eileen:
Maybe you’re just fine the way you are? You’ve managed to have a successful business, an upcoming marriage, and lots of new emerging. It’s possible you could be in perfect balance. And I’m the only one who is time challenged