Why I do Time Tracking

http://www.swaroopch.com/blog/why-i-do-time-tracking/

by swaroop • 17 years ago

47 17 17 years ago

davidw• 17 years ago

One of the things I was pleased with in Stuff To Do is that you don't have to monkey around with starting/stopping a timer. You just have a task that you're working on, and when you're doing email/HN/otherwise wasting time, you just set 'time wasting' or whatever as your current task.

torpor2• 17 years ago

This whole article can be summarized in one word: DISCIPLINE.

Reading about how to stop being un-productive is .. well .. unproductive. Not getting shit done? Go do something!

mahmud2• 17 years ago

The hardest part is knowing what you need to do next, versus what you want to do. Speaking as someone who wasted 5 days architecturing some fancy ajax<->CLOS thing instead of implementing the simple admin interface that I now desperately need (was working at a library today which filtered all non web traffic and cut me off of ssh)

kragen• 17 years ago

    Listen 443

swaroop• 17 years ago

The question is how to attain discipline, not whether you need discipline :)

torpor2• 17 years ago

Discipline is a decision. That is all. You decide to goof off. Be responsible for making your decisions, and you will find a way towards better discipline. You could say that discipline is "recognition of having made a decision" ..

mixmax• 17 years ago

There's an amazingly good article on the subject here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/self-discipline/

Tichy• 17 years ago

Also reminds me of the "Pomodoro Technique": http://www.bestbrains.dk/Blog/2009/02/21/CanATomatoChangeYou...

TravisLS• 17 years ago

Why I don't do Time Tracking: I find many creative tasks require a lot of distraction time in order for my brain to process what I'm doing. Many times, it helps to "be productive" for an hour, then go use twitter for 20 minutes. When you come back, the solution is magically there.

Then again, maybe you could track "productive zoning out time" as one of your categories.

roc• 17 years ago

I'm a fan of the 48/12 system for creative work.

A simple timer and a list of 'stuff i did' per work chunk have been getting me all the useful information without becoming a burden or forcing me out of my natural rhythm.

jlees• 17 years ago

Realizing that I am more productive if I wake up early but I just love being a night-owl. A hard problem to solve.

Yeah, this one's stumped me for years, too.

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

Naps.

Why I do Time Tracking

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