I've figured out exactly where all my time goes
geek alert: i've been undertaking data collection to aid working less, living more 😎
👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hi! If you’re new to these parts, the short version is this: I’ve worked for myself for a long time, writing 15 (!) books, largely done from home. It sent me a bit doolally, being alone that much and also working within an industry that hasn’t always treated me kindly. That’s why I started writing How to Build a Life, now delivered to thousands of readers in over 80 countries. I’d been desperate to unpick why I seemingly had a dream career but life in general felt so underwhelming. I figured out that my brain likes writing but my soul needs something else, so at the start of this year - in addition to still writing my novels - I took a job in a high school mixing teaching and pastoral work. In one million ways this makes no sense at all, apart from the fact that working out of the house with teenagers is making me really very happy. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, and knowing all this means you’re all caught up. WELCOME.
(pssst! I just revealed all the details about my summer 2025 book. Please do consider pre-ordering: it’s the single best way to help authors you love!)
When I wrote the other week I mentioned that I’ve been using an app to track how I spend my time. I said:
I was a leaky bucket before, all my time and energy and money and goodwill eeking away, but I couldn’t put my finger on how. I just knew I was empty, spiritually speaking, and energetically. Tracking my time means I have solved the mystery. I’m not a leaky bucket anymore! My holes have been taped up, and I have an abundance of energy to allocate as I see fit.
I thought it would be fun to talk a bit more about this, because it’s been a game-changer for me. And I promise, I’m not doing it to optimize myself in a work way!! It started as data acquisition (I knew taking a job out of the house was about to add 35 hours to my working week, which is… an interesting choice, granted), and is morphing into a way to stay realistic about capping how much I work (because I want to work in sensible, sustainable ways, and make work mean less in the grand scheme of my life.)
It's all a direct result of reading Four Thousand Weeks, of course.
Tracking my time is supposed to help me be more mindful of how long I spend “being productive” in a way that aids freeing up time to actually live, because my brain can lie to me. Data points cannot. If it’s there on the screen in black and white, there’s no arguing with it if e.g. I have worked a fifty-hour week, or somehow pissed away ten hours this month on household admin. First I get the data, then I can alter my choices to better reflect what I say I want.
My rule for logging is a minimum 15-minute slot. Emails are the best example for this: if I am going to open my emails, I mentally commit to answering those emails as quickly as possible, because I have to go through the faff of logging 15-minute email time so it may as well be “worth it”. There is no such thing as “a quick look” to “stay on top of things”. This is an example of leaky-bucket thinking. A quick look at emails means switching on a work part of my brain, and that steals energy from my “but I am supposed to be reading/watching TV/being with my kid” brain. If I am not prepared to not only open emails but also reply to them in this fifteen minutes, I don’t click on them. That is freeing. I am either totally productive with emails, or do not bother at all. Does that make sense? There’s no sort of half-commitment, half-scrolling happening passively and that… is amazing??? I do the thing or don’t, and that intentionality keeps my bucket in tip-top shape.