Up In Consulting

Elevate your writing and move up in your career

Up In Consulting
  • About
  • Elevate
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • FAQs

Using Time Audits to Improve Your Workflow

  • By Jane
  • November 20, 2019
  • Productivity
  • 0 Comments
Using Time Audits to Improve Your Workflow

Do you ever reach Friday afternoon and wonder what the heck you did all week? Do you find yourself working 60+ hours a week and wondering how some academics manage to get everything done in less than 45 hours? If so, you should do a time audit. This is an exercise I’ve been doing with my clients — and for myself. Here’s how it works: I document what I do for each 30 minute block of time throughout the day, then I check it against what was actually on my schedule (read this post for how I structure my day). If there’s a discrepancy, I write a quick note explaining why and how I felt. It generally takes about two weeks for patterns to emerge, although it could happen faster. 

 

I don’t do time audits because I want to have some self-inflicted “gotcha” moment where I see that I’m not doing what I planned. In my approach, there’s nothing punitive about a time audit. Instead, I do it so that I know what I’m doing all day. That knowledge is essential for making better decisions about how to use you time. 

 

I learned that I can’t do much additional work on a day when I take coaching calls. There are days when I have 4-5 coaching calls that range from 30-45 minutes. Although that’s a significant amount of time on the phone, I was convinced that because it was, on average, only about 3 hours in a day that I should be doing more work. So I scheduled tasks in between calls. My time audit revealed that I really spent that time reading blogs, making tea, or grabbing a snack. When I thought about why I wasn’t doing the work I had scheduled, I realized that I really need that time to decompress from my call. That’s a good thing, because it means I’m refreshed for my next call. 

 

My coaching clients have been doing time audits with great results. Here’s one example. A client — we’ll call her Maria — regularly scheduled writing time after teaching. Her rationale was that since she finished teaching around 3, she should write for about two hours so she could end her workday at a reasonable hour. What Maria’s time audit revealed was that she didn’t actually write during this time, because she was tired from teaching. She ended up procrastinating, then feeling guilty because she wasn’t writing. 

 

What we determined (after some mindset coaching), was that Maria wouldn’t use that time for writing. Instead, she’d do routine administrative tasks – some related to research and some not. Ultimately, she decided to batch small tasks during this time. She used shorter time blocks throughout the week when her energy was higher to work on her writing. With this new approach she got more writing done in a shorter amount of time. 

 

You’ll discover when you do your best work. 

Before a time audit, your work hours might be wildly inconsistent. There may be some weeks where you’re getting twenty-five hours of useful work done, and other weeks where you’re working forty hours straight. Unfortunately, you likely have no idea why there’s so much variation. A time audit will reveal not only what you’re doing, but how you feel as you’re doing it. 

 

You’ll determine when you’ve reached your limit. 

At some point, there will be diminishing returns on your time investment. When you begin to see patterns in your behavior (for instance, when you end up spending thirty minutes zoning out after class instead of firing up your Word document and writing as you had planned), you can adjust accordingly. Once you understand your limits, you’ll be on the path to taking breaks with less guilt. 

 

You’ll learn how to manage your time and your energy. 

It might sound a bit woo-woo to talk about energy management, but hear me out: you can’t always force yourself to work if you don’t have the right mental energy. But don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you just stop working. You can use your low-energy time to respond to email, enter grades, or attend to tasks that are urgent but unimportant.  When you start effectively managing your energy, you’ll find that you procrastinate less, feel better about your work as you’re doing it, and in some cases work faster. 

 

In closing, for a time audit to be truly successful, you must analyze your behavior from a place of compassionate curiously. A time audit is not an opportunity for you to be harsh or punitive towards yourself. Instead, think seriously about what types of adjustments you can make to not only work better but also feel better. 

Share

Related Posts

Simple Productivity Is Open for Enrollment

June 25, 2020

Mastering Basic Productivity Techniques

June 19, 2020

Trash Your To-Do List

November 14, 2019

Four Ways to Align Your Goals with Your Priorities

October 9, 2019

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Social

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

Archives

  • October 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • January 2021
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014

Categories

  • Academic Writing
  • Asking For Help
  • Book Reviews
  • Book Writing
  • Editing
  • From Course Paper To Article
  • general-testimonial
  • Goal setting
  • Impostor Syndrome
  • Journal Articles
  • Monday Motivation
  • Overcoming Barriers
  • Planning
  • Productivity
  • productivity-testimonial
  • Quick Tips
  • Revising
  • Saying No
  • Services
  • Stress
  • Uncategorized
  • Writing Tips

Meta

  • Entries RSS
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Productivity
  • Using Time Audits to Improve Your Workflow

Let’s get writing.

Subscribe to get the latest writing and productivity tips. Like happy mail for your planner.

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn

© 2023 Up In Consulting

  • Home
  • About
  • Elevate
  • Testimonials
  • Blog