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Why a Time Audit?
Do you own your own time? Six months ago, I didn’t. I spent hours honestly engaged in so many wasteful activities. I value achievement, knowledge and learning above most other things however I spent an average of four hours a day on my phone. Those four hours weren’t reading the news or ebooks. It was a whole lot of mindless scrolling, emailing and texting.
I watched at least 90 minutes of TV a day (not including the toddler tv time) but again, it wasn’t news or documentaries. Although I’d done time audits before I never really cared where my time went outside of my “work hours”. I’d previously only wanted to know where my billable and non-billable time went during the workday. Outside of work, I considered my time my own and it didn’t really matter what I did with it.
How are you using your time? If you’re looking to change your lifestyle (or even a small component of it) I highly suggest you collect some data on how you’re spending your time. I think one reason that you may not even be attempting some goals may be that you “don’t have time”.
I was listening to a live stream the other day and the host stated that she read 5-6 books a week. People seemed almost outraged and began asking her how she has time to read so many books a week. She stated that she simply read instead of watch TV. People then proceeded to ask further if she was a speed reader. Again, she stated that she just read instead of doing other time-consuming activities.
At the end of the day, we find we have more time than we think that we do. I promise you. In all honesty, we are simply not mindful of how we are using our time. There are a number of different ways that we can work to evaluate and reprogram that time. In my life, I will implement a time audit if I feel I am losing track of time, spending too much time working outside of typical work hours or not making progress on goals I have set.
Two types of Time Audits
Personally, I complete two types of Time Audits when I need to find my time.
Retrospectively: Simply stated, you look back at your calendar and see how you used your time vs what you had planned to do.
Live: Track your time as you go through your day...we’re behavior analysts so more than one day of data is ideal.
Retrospective Time Audit
Technically, I complete a retrospective time audit each week during my weekly review. A retrospective time audit is simply reviewing your past week, month, quarter or year. Yes, year. This is a HUGE component of many individuals’ (including my own) yearly reviews. The key to being able to do a retrospective time audit is to document your life. The more detailed the better but as long as you are logging time somewhere for more than just your large events you will have the data you need. Seriously!
Ultimately, the retrospective time audit gives you the opportunity to retrospectively look back on what you did with your time. Did you use your time in a meaningful way? If you’re trying to become healthier, have you been using your time in support of that pursuit? Have you engaged in more physical activity versus sedentary? Have you set aside time for meal prep? Are there time blocks to accomplish your goals?
Helpful tools:
Lifecycle - this app tracks what you do with your life. Mine is set up to talk to other apps on my phone so it logs sleep, yoga, and meditation as well. The bottom line, it reviews where you are going and what you’re doing there. AS long as you keep up on it, you will end up with a clear picture of what you’ve been doing outside of the house.
Planners/Calendar Practice: At the core of the Time Audit is documenting your time. Figure out where you’ll document, do it and stick with it for at least a week or so.
Live Time Audit
This version of a time audit requires a bit more short-term discipline but offers more immediate feedback. Set a level of detail that you want to track. When I want a simplistic picture, I will track my time to the half-hour. Therefore, every half hour, write down what you are doing. Because of our type of employment, I recommend doing this for several consecutive days to a week. The key to a live time audit is to include your time outside of your workday. That is where we lose a lot of time. Typically, I will choose to do a more detailed time audit and track my time to the quarter-hour. I spoke about using the Gym Boss to assist in the time audit here. This will vibrate unobtrusively every 15 minutes and prompts me to record what I am doing at that moment.
Disclaimer: If you’re really attending to your data in the moment, you might see some startling things. Once, I discovered when working on aversive tasks, I’d be off task when my prompt when off then immediately redirect myself back to my task at hand. This repeated throughout the duration of my task. Ok...I took that info and now know that X task is something I can only do for approximately 20-minute intervals.
You can use any tool to complete the live time audit however I have the most success with a paper time log. I use it at work then set it right on the kitchen timer for the rest of the evening (bonus tip...I get up every 15 minutes to record my time which although it makes my spouse annoyed, it pleases my Apple Watch!!). If you’re constantly connected to a computer or calendar planner, you can use this to record your time as well.
Helpful tools:
Rescue Time-this tracks your electronic time, or how you use your time on the computer or phone. Are you actually working or are you hopping around through different websites constantly without actually getting anything done?
GymBoss: This helps to prompt you without disrupting others. I use it more often to log billable time than for time audits but that’s the best part of it...it’s multifunctional!! You can set it to beep or vibrate and set the schedule as detailed as you wish. I’ve also lent them out to technicians to assist them in delivering NCR on a thicker schedule than they can independently remember.
Busy BCBA Time Audit Log (Download Below!): This is the page I use to log my time when I am doing a LIVE time audit. I’ve used this or a similar version throughout my career. LONG ago, when I was working in residential services I had a similar sheet that also included codes to more easily track time. One of those codes 07 - Drive Time still shows up in my paper planner over 10 years later.
What to do with your results:
Do Nothing: You can choose to do nothing other than be more aware of where your time is going. This activity provides feedback to allow you to own your own time. You can no longer claim “ I don’t know where the time is going?”
Make a data-based decision: If you’ve been feeling like you didn’t have enough time in your day/week/month or year, this activity will tell you. You likely know where you’re spending additional time that maybe you could be more mindful of.
When will you commit to doing a Time Audit? Tomorrow? What if you started...now?
Fill out the form below to download The Busy BCBA Time Audit Log to get started NOW!