What You Said: How You Track Your Time
- by Jason Fitzpatrick
Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite time tracking tips, tricks, and tools. Now we’re back to highlight the techniques HTG readers use to keep tabs on their time. While more than one of you expressed confusion over the idea of tracking how you spend all your time, many of you were more than happy to share the reasons for and the methods you use to stay on top of your time expenditures. Scott uses a fluid and flexible project management tool: I use kanbanflow.com, with two boards to manage task prioritisation and backlog. One board called ‘Current Work’ has three columns ‘Do Today’, ‘In Progress’ and ‘Done’. The other is called ‘Backlog’, which splits tasks into priority groups – ‘Distractions (NU+NI)’, ‘Goals (NU+I)’, ‘Interruptions (U+NI)’, ‘Interruptions (U+NI)’ and ‘Critical (U+I)’, where U is Urgent and I is Important (and N is Not). At the end of each day, I move things from my Backlog to my ‘Current Work’ board, with the idea to keep complete Goals before they become Critical. That way I can focus on ‘Current Work’ Do Today so I don’t feel overwhelmed and can plan my day. As priorities change or interruptions pop up, it’s just a matter of moving tasks between boards. I have both tabs open in my browser all day – this is probably good for knowledge workers strapped to their desk, not so good for those in meetings all day. In that case, go with the calendar on your phone. While the above description might make it sound really technical, we took the cloud-based app for a spin and found the interface to be very flexible and easy to use. Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer Why Enabling “Do Not Track” Doesn’t Stop You From Being Tracked
