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I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

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Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#3
Awesome read!

I've been tracking all my time, also at a 15-minute resolution, for the past 24 months.

It seems to make new habits so much easier to adopt. The biggest surprise was how effective pre-tracking my time (aka time-blocking) was at programming myself to do things. Making things concrete and easy to visualize definitely helps in preventing procrastination.

I see that you used Google Sheets for time tracking. Did you consider using any other tools in conjunction, such as Google Calendar or automatic time-trackers such as ActivityWatch, RescueTime, Timing, ManicTime, or Memory? I have managed to automate 80% of my time tracking.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#4

Awesome read! I've been tracking all my time, also at a 15-minute resolution, for the past 24 months. It seems to make new habits so much easier to adopt. The biggest surprise was how effective pre-tracking my time (aka time-blocking) was at programming myself to do things. Making things concrete and easy to visualize definitely helps in preventing procrastination. I see that you used Google Sheets for time tracking.…

How do you deal with project deadlines?

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#5
Everytime these come up, I am reminded how little time we have for extracurricular activities as parents (outside of things you'd do with the kids, e.g. hiking, swimming, etc)

But raising children is an investment in itself and the years where the demand for attention is higher (0-5 especially) are short in comparison to the future time you have for yourself.

I suppose you gain perspective and over those years an ability to optimize for time :)

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#6

Awesome read! I've been tracking all my time, also at a 15-minute resolution, for the past 24 months. It seems to make new habits so much easier to adopt. The biggest surprise was how effective pre-tracking my time (aka time-blocking) was at programming myself to do things. Making things concrete and easy to visualize definitely helps in preventing procrastination. I see that you used Google Sheets for time tracking.…

Thanks for the recommendations! I have been using RescueTime for years, and it's been great to see trends in my use of various apps. At the new year, I analyzed how my Facebook use changed over the years, and it's been great to see it come down so much.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#7

Everytime these come up, I am reminded how little time we have for extracurricular activities as parents (outside of things you'd do with the kids, e.g. hiking, swimming, etc) But raising children is an investment in itself and the years where the demand for attention is higher (0-5 especially) are short in comparison to the future time you have for yourself. I suppose you gain perspective and over those years an abi…

The problem is when you have multiple children spaced over a few years, you get a decade or more of time eaten up.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#8
For a long time I've wanted to create an Android/iOS app called "Sample Me" or something similar, for collecting exactly this kind of data about yourself. You design a survey with whatever data you want to collect, then the app gives you a notification at whatever interval you configure. A couple taps and you have a sample point about your life, which gets appended to a Google Sheet or similar, and maybe some in-app visualization of trends.

I'll probably never actually get to it, but it would be perfect for a thing like this.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#9

Everytime these come up, I am reminded how little time we have for extracurricular activities as parents (outside of things you'd do with the kids, e.g. hiking, swimming, etc) But raising children is an investment in itself and the years where the demand for attention is higher (0-5 especially) are short in comparison to the future time you have for yourself. I suppose you gain perspective and over those years an abi…

> Everytime these come up, I am reminded how little time we have for extracurricular activities as parents

This is interesting, because it's only a problem for non-rich people. Rich people solve this with nannies and babysitters and other home staff to take care of chores and child-rearing so they have more time for work or leisure activities.

It really puts a point on the whole "everyone has 24 hours in a day, but not everyone's 24 hours are equal".

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#10
post #9

Everytime these come up, I am reminded how little time we have for extracurricular activities as parents (outside of things you'd do with the kids, e.g. hiking, swimming, etc) But raising children is an investment in itself and the years where the demand for attention is higher (0-5 especially) are short in comparison to the future time you have for yourself. I suppose you gain perspective and over those years an abi…

> Everytime these come up, I am reminded how little time we have for extracurricular activities as parents This is interesting, because it's only a problem for non-rich people. Rich people solve this with nannies and babysitters and other home staff to take care of chores and child-rearing so they have more time for work or leisure activities. It really puts a point on the whole "everyone has 24 hours in a day, but n…

Isn't paying someone else to raise your children... not raising children? It's like comparing a bank with actual gold in a vault and many expensive physical security measures with someone who owns a futures contract with no delivery.
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