[HN Gopher] I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for th...
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I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year
Author : HuangYuSan
Score : 332 points
Date : 2021-01-03 17:04 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (samplesize.one)
(TXT) w3m dump (samplesize.one)
| WClayFerguson wrote:
| Google/Facebook and companies like the old "Cambridge Analytica"
| who buy their data, or similar data collection agencies, probably
| have this exact level of detail on pretty much everyone who owns
| a phone or computer.
| hawktheslayer wrote:
| Thanks for sharing--I'm reading Atomic Habits and have been
| thinking about tracking like this. It's impressive that you stuck
| with it and inspiring.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Y'know, do whatever works for you, but this kind of relentless
| focus on time management feels like it runs exactly the opposite
| of what I want in my life. Meaning, when I was younger I could
| focus on problems for long chunks of time. As I've gotten older
| and had to deal with work stress, kid stress, life stress, dozens
| of devices all pinging me with notifications, people demanding my
| attention constantly... the truth is I can barely make it 15
| minutes without someone or something interrupting me. I had this
| jerk client for a brief while - he was on monthly retainer, but
| wanted this kind of minute-by-minute granularity of tracking my
| time. It was the kind of thing that finally put me over the edge
| against this kind of relentless optimization because all it was
| doing was _wasting my time_ tracking time rather than actually
| _doing the bloody work_. So hey, if tracking your life in 15
| minute increments gives you what you need, great, but I
| personally am working on how to build long increments of time
| with greater focus.
| baby wrote:
| So the lesson is to offer days/weeks, not hours or minutes, of
| work?
| nyxtom wrote:
| This sounds like a obvious question, but when do you log the
| data? Do you set a timer every 15 minutes? What about the time
| spent logging data every 15 minutes? Any complementary apps?
| nequals1 wrote:
| I try to note start and end times of activities. At work, or
| whenever I'm doing something on my laptop I would fill the
| spreadsheet as soon as I finish or take a break from an
| activity (eg finished reading a paper, going on a coffee break
| now). When I'm doing something more varied I would note
| start/end times via google sheets app on my phone or just
| remember them and fill them once I have access to my laptop.
| Sometimes, I would use data from my fitbit (to see when I
| started/stopped walking) or my search history (to see changes
| between working vs looking at silly things on the internet).
| The categories were broad enough that logging the data is not
| too time-consuming and often they could be added as big time-
| blocks of a single activity.
| rdiddly wrote:
| I just started doing this, but using 30-minute blocks, and fewer
| categories. "Keep it simple." The goal is to make sure certain
| activities receive at least a minimum of attention, and others
| don't exceed a maximum. The rest, you don't need to schedule or
| track. A flexible system. Freedom alongside order. Open prairie
| just outside the city grid. Dreams amid plans.
| veddox wrote:
| > I guess the lesson here is that when it comes to focused work,
| the 8-hour working day is an unattainable target and should not
| be used as a benchmark.
|
| Any thoughts on this?
| fsflover wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465056
| Donckele wrote:
| All activities? anyone know what the limits were?
| kingaillas wrote:
| Fun and interesting read!
|
| I'm doing a vastly scaled down time logging for 2021 - I want to
| understand how I use my time at home after work. I'm using a time
| tracker app, sometimes in conjunction with a pomodoro timer
| (TimeCube Plus, red model with 5/10/20/25 min sides).
|
| Since I'm only tracking my time at home, the categories are:
| gaming, tv/movies, music instrument, foreign language, exercise
| (that I can do indoors, such as weight training or flexibility:
| yoga, stretching), computer (email, my time right now on HN,
| general web surfing... anything not work related), and reading.
|
| I'm not trying to account for house cleaning, sleeping, any
| outdoor activity, cooking, working, etc. I just want to get a
| better idea of how I spend my "free" time at home, and maybe make
| some changes after gathering at least 3 months of data.
| miguelrochefort wrote:
| 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.
| sxg wrote:
| Huge fan of time blocking! It's been a game changer for me.
| Time blocking (pre-planning my daily schedule) eliminates the
| need to figure out what to do next, which I realized was a big
| source of procrastination. If my next steps/actions are
| unclear, it's easier to just take a break or default to doing
| something pseudoproductive (e.g. organizing my calendar, todo
| list) rather than take on a meaningful new project.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| How do you deal with project deadlines?
| karmelapple wrote:
| 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.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Does one of those allow easy input of activity with a single
| button click without required login and cloud use? Also are
| they free?
|
| I tried to find an easy tracking workflow a few years back but
| all the apps had hidden dark patterns so I gave up.
| gingerlime wrote:
| I'd be happy skipping the free part for something that
| preserves my privacy. Off the list GP posted, the first name
| -- ActivityWatch -- seems to hit the mark? open source,
| privacy-first, cross-platform according to the homepage[0].
| Never even heard of it until now, but I might give it a try
| :)
|
| [0] https://activitywatch.net/
| axetheone wrote:
| I've picked up ActivityWatch an year ago precisely due to
| those factors and I'm quite happy with it.
| miguelrochefort wrote:
| ActivityWatch is the one I'm using. It even runs on my
| Android phone.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| My experience with this type of tracking is that it makes me more
| thoughtful about my time. I used Numbers and it cloud-syncs to
| most of my devices, I prefer this over passive trackers.
|
| I did this for a month a while back, one realization I instantly
| had was that a lot of the my attention issues were caused by
| 'micro-interuptions'. For example, spending 8 minutes answering a
| support question on Slack and then going to write code - how do I
| record that? The same is largely true with Twitter or even HN,
| spend 5 minutes browsing instead of doing something with
| intention. Recording [Activity,Start,Stop] was preferable for me,
| the continuous scale made it really easy to track not just what I
| was doing, but the interstitial time when I didn't actively have
| a plan to do something.
|
| Just setting out to record what I am doing helped to limit the
| number of things I was doing and made me be intentional about
| what they were. This post was relatively timely, as I actually
| started doing it again this morning.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| > human function - the boring stuff: eating
|
| I disagree on this one.
|
| Eating can and on good days should be a pleasure. It can also be
| very social. Eating together is an ancient tradition. Breaking
| bread.
|
| It is a common misconception that it takes a lot of time. If you
| are not used to cooking yourself then it will take time to learn
| how (not just how to microwave),and then learn how to adapt it
| for your own taste buds. Then you get used to it and a lot of
| dishes can be made fresh in less than 10 mins.
|
| It also involves going to the store. If going into a sad US
| supermarket with plastic wrapped everything, It is easy to
| understand the reluctance to spend time on it.
|
| Yet a proper market with the flavors, the colors and variety it
| is a different experience.
|
| I often feel happy once I have found a right cut of fish, I cant
| wait to get home, prepare it and eat it.
|
| I am sad that in some countries and in some circles it is seen as
| a "must do/boring", instead of "This is going to be delicious".
|
| For some scarfing down a Granola bar and a protein milkshake is
| what eating has been reduced to.
|
| Granted that would save a lot of time and people are different.
|
| Everyone should spend time satisfying the foundation of Maslow
| pyramid. that a lot of users of this site can take somewhat for
| granted (Not everyone :( )
|
| Having been in the army for a while and at war ( As a means of
| getting out of a bad background) I was made aware of how
| important all the parts of the foundation is.
|
| I swore to myself that I would always remember to be grateful
| when I enter a place that is dry and comfortable, when I have an
| actual bed to rest on, when I have dry clothing and boots in the
| morning, and how miraculous it is to have a say in, and the
| ability to not eat what minimally sustains you. A toilet that
| flushes and is private and a the ability for a shower.
|
| We should all be conscious of the privileged it is to have these
| things available to us and take joy in it. It might not last.
|
| Still even with old rations for 90 days straight the communal
| experience of sharing a meal was present.
|
| Also sex. It is not mentioned in the schedule. That may be for
| puritanical reasons. That is no business of yours buddy, and that
| is fine, but spend a bit evaluating what is included and what is
| not. Most of this logged time in self actualization. Is it also a
| reflection of what the author is proud of / wants to share.
|
| Eating and sex both can be wondrous or a ration pack that should
| have been thrown away 12 years ago. Both low on the pyramid.
| lma21 wrote:
| That's a lot of 'focused work'! I doubt I can log the time I
| spend at work as focused-work... I have a feeling that low-focus
| work would dominate. Does anyone else feel the same?
| lawn wrote:
| I'm always in ave of these posts, of how people are able to log
| activities in these resolutions. I have really large problems
| tracking what I spend my hours at work on, and often resort to
| winging it.
| radley wrote:
| Stay in touch. I'm building an Apple app for that.
| xkeysc0re wrote:
| I am really really grateful I am not this kind of person. Not
| everything needs to be quantified and analyzed. I'm glad OP had
| fun with the exercise but this drive to amass data will only lead
| to human suffering and oppression down the line
| saberience wrote:
| Yeah, I saw the title of this blog post and it immediately
| depressed me. The idea of tracking my time minutely in some
| effort to be more efficient or "productive" seems to be the
| antithesis of being human.
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| > this drive to amass data will only lead to human suffering
| and oppression down the line
|
| On a large scale, science (and economics) is a drive to amass
| data, which has led to vast reductions in human suffering.
|
| Amassing data lets one (and mankind) make decisions not on
| random conjecture or feeling, but on a solid footing, which
| results in better decisions on how to allocate resources. Not
| gathering data where it's possible to do so results in more
| human suffering from making sub-optimal decisions from bad
| inputs.
| hezag wrote:
| > Amassing data lets one (and mankind) make decisions not on
| random conjecture or feeling, but on a solid footing, which
| results in better decisions on how to allocate resources
|
| "Better" is extremely relative. Better for whom?
| ChrisLomont wrote:
| Well, to start, the tens of billions of people in total
| that have been fed over the past century by modern farming.
| The tens of billions total that have been pulled from
| poverty over the last 50 years. The billions right now
| getting vastly better medical care than their ancestors.
|
| What percentage of people would you claim worldwide or over
| the past 100 years are worse off as a result of science and
| economic advances? Care to list why they're worse off in
| total?
| mlady wrote:
| I think there's a sweet spot somewhere. We're tending towards
| too much data now with hourly employees working from home but
| have their screens monitored for constant activity, even if
| it isn't value-producing.
| xkeysc0re wrote:
| Exactly. The positivist drive to quantify and accumulate
| "data points" about everything as though life is just an
| optimization problem is dangerous and only serves
| entrenched forces.
|
| Quantification is a means to control. Some things - in my
| opinion - ought not to be controlled.
| snds wrote:
| I suspect the parent comment is referring to amassing
| personally identifiable information
| const_HNBurner wrote:
| I get this impulse, but I think OPs experiment really does have
| some redeeming qualities. While I certainly wouldn't want to
| bean-count my time _forever_ , I imagine that performing this
| exercise for some period of time would make one more thoughtful
| & intentional about how one spends their time. Sometimes you
| need the data to see that you're spending way more time than
| you'd desire on social media, or not enough time with your
| friends, etc. I equate it to counting calories while dieting;
| doing it forever leads to horrible quality of life (imo), doing
| it for a month or two teaches you how much food you actually
| need and makes you more mindful about your consumption.
|
| EDIT: Also, the point of this sort of exercise isn't merely to
| 'become more productive' - it's to gather data to help achieve
| whatever outcome you find valuable in your life. Maybe it's
| studying more for his exams (certainly different than working
| more at your 9 to 5 bigco job fwiw), maybe it's spending more
| quality time with family, etc. The point is collecting this
| sort of data doesn't necessarily lead solely to optimizing your
| output under capitalism, it can be a tool for better living. I
| think.
| nekopa wrote:
| I don't understand this viewpoint. This type of data is being
| misused already. I think it would be a net positive for
| individuals to get their own data and use it for positive
| outcomes. It shouldn't be shared with the world at large, but
| when I've tracked certain info about myself, it has helped me
| immensely.
| lmarcos wrote:
| I also think that the data itself can be used for positive
| outcomes... The manual tracking though (every 15 min.) is the
| downside.
| [deleted]
| germanka wrote:
| Lots of work btw...
| natdempk wrote:
| This was very cool, I'd be curious to hear more about the
| logistics of logging this. I'm curious how they practically
| logged all of this and made sure not to drop time across
| different activities, busy days, etc. I feel like if I tried to
| do this I would end up losing track of a lot of time.
| [deleted]
| bobbydreamer wrote:
| This person does it differently. He takes pic of everything timed
|
| https://kaielvin.org/tl/t=1585396555000000
| luxurytent wrote:
| 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 :)
| xwdv wrote:
| The problem is when you have multiple children spaced over a
| few years, you get a decade or more of time eaten up.
| lb1lf wrote:
| -My brother-in-law coined the phrase micro-holiday to keep
| himself sane when having kids - a micro-holiday is the time
| you have to yourself during a day. Most often, it occurs in
| the time span between closing the rear door after packing the
| young 'uns in and opening the driver's door after walking
| around your car.
| jedberg wrote:
| > 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".
| luxurytent wrote:
| > It really puts a point on the whole "everyone has 24 hours
| in a day, but not everyone's 24 hours are equal".
|
| Great point. Further driven by the pandemic
| jedberg wrote:
| Funny you mention that. Because of the pandemic, a lot of
| people had to drop their in home help. Only the richest of
| the rich, who had in-home help that lives with them, were
| able to keep using in-home help.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Also people who decided not to worry about the
| consequences of having someone coming in and out of their
| home.
|
| Seems to be lots of them really.
| laumars wrote:
| In the U.K. the government guidelines have been that
| they're still allowed to work. And given the kind of
| contracts many of them are on, if they don't come in they
| don't get paid. So it really puts added pressure on
| everyone to work.
| whatshisface wrote:
| 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.
| skipnup wrote:
| Having a full time nanny would be as you described, in my
| eyes.
|
| But you can have someone clean your flat/house, someone do
| the gardening, someone doing your taxes. Have someone cook
| for you. And thus have more time for your kids and still
| have more free time.
| Balgair wrote:
| Think someone like Alice the live-in-maid from _The Brady
| Bunch_. Yes, she was part of child rearing, but Mike and
| Carol were there too. Granted, it 's a saccharine sitcom
| of total unbelievableness from the 60's.
| jedberg wrote:
| I mean, yes and no I suppose. Is sending your own kids to
| school not educating your children? They still end up
| educated. And with a nanny, they still end up "raised".
| oblio wrote:
| School isn't like a nanny, though.
|
| I'm quite sure that psychology studies show that children
| need to bond with their parents (biological or adoptive).
| I imagine there's a fine line with that outsourcing and
| it's hard to draw, as a thought experiment I'd guess if
| they spend 80% of the time with their nanny, they're not
| going to bond as well with their parents.
| VLM wrote:
| I raised some kids and a unquantified "lot of" time is
| spent teaching them to gradually be independent adults by
| occasionally making sure they're safe while they do their
| own thing.
|
| An excellent analogy is I spent some time in a minor
| leadership position in a boy scout troop and beyond a
| certain age the kids do all the work, the adults are there
| to explain "and that's why the wood lot area is fenced
| off", "and that is the correct archery range safety
| procedure", "and no that is not a safe way to maintain a
| campfire" and so on and so forth. As the actual troop
| leader often said, if the adults are sweating something is
| not being done correctly; the kids should be doing all the
| work and the adults are mere safety advisor guests of the
| kids.
|
| Some kids in some subcultures are able to safely with
| minimal adult supervision, for example, whittle wood sticks
| into smaller theoretically artistic sticks at age 8 whereas
| others STILL cannot responsibly whittle at age 24.
|
| I spent a lot of time as a dad parenting at a laptop on the
| deck occasionally saying "no, there's a buried gas line
| there, dig for fossils over there" and the kids would make
| their own "discoveries" underground.
|
| Its kinda like being in management where some folks (or
| kids) need near hand-over-hand supervision sometimes, yet
| others you just kinda check on every day or so. Ideally by
| the time the kids are adults (16, 18, 21, ..., ?) the
| parents shouldn't be doing much other than occasional
| management checkins and providing of advice.
|
| There's a big difference between leading and enabling the
| kids while knowing exactly what they're doing in a safety
| sense, vs not being involved at all.
|
| For example I know next to nothing about welding (well, I
| know a little but I'm no certified nuclear boiler
| welder...) so I was quite happy to have one of the boy
| scout dads who's all certified up in welding teach that
| badge "in my place". He teaches older apprentices how to
| weld gas pipelines so he's certainly qualified to teach...
| All I really did as his partner was make sure everyone
| stayed hydrated LOL.
|
| For little kids a lot of parenting is you just need a
| parent figure at the park to occasionally say "no" and
| redirect. "Yeah I see the league has a ball game at the
| diamond so you can't play there, but no you're not playing
| baseball in the busiest street in the city get back on the
| grass now"
|
| A better analogy is something like you're claiming if a
| bank hires a security manager who enforces security
| policies then the bank is not providing actual "uniformed
| dude standing at attention" security. Yet some kind of
| manager role may be the most important time/money the bank
| can spend WRT security...
|
| When they're younger toddlers they need a lot of parenting
| until they discover lego or whatever, but that's a rather
| short phase in their lives.
| [deleted]
| alextheparrot wrote:
| Seems to be that the distinction may not be important for
| managerially oriented people. Some parents, of a mindset
| which I was not raised by, seem to see the role of a parent
| to be more in charge of "Coordinating an upbringing". I
| don't think this mindset is wholly bad, though I would
| expect it does have recognizable trade-offs.
| serial_dev wrote:
| There is a line between completely "outsourcing" raising
| your children (how I "stereotypically" imagine royal
| families might do) and getting help with the things that
| take all your energy but doesn't really contribute to your
| relationships with your children.
|
| Washing clothes, buying groceries, cooking every day are
| all things that must be done, but it can be done by another
| person (nanny, au pair, or even grand parents) without
| taking away (much) from your relationship with your
| children.
|
| Just imagine the difference between the mood of a parent
| who cooked, cleaned, washed that day vs the parent who is
| relaxed as all those things were done by outside (paid)
| help. Same person in two totally different mood and energy
| level by the dinner comes. Also keep in mind that these
| things have to be done every single day, so while it might
| be okay to work through this backlog every day for a week,
| I'm sure your mood would change after you've done it for 10
| years (assuming multiple children).
|
| I heard once and I think it's true, that kids don't need 24
| with their parents, they need the 2-3 hours (changing as
| the kids age) with them every day, but after that they get
| bored of daddy or mommy and want to do something with their
| friends or alone.
|
| If you can afford outside help, it _can_ actually make the
| time you spend with your children more delightful, you may
| bond more, and in the end have a better relationship with
| them also in the long term.
|
| It can obviously go wrong, if you look at your children
| when they are 14 and you have no idea who they are because
| they went to the nannies directly, but it doesn't mean it
| can be done right.
| Max_aaa wrote:
| The food is kinda resolved for no-so rich families with
| services like Hello Fresh, and so on. As you are just
| left with the Cooking bit, which is actually a bonding
| experience, as the little ones help with the meal.
|
| And with cleaning, yes, that one is a chore.
| nyxtom wrote:
| Investment indeed! I think it all depends on how you define
| what amounts to a "good day"
|
| Maybe it means you have put in some meaningful work into having
| quality time with your kids, or teaching them something new,
| reading a book to them, or cooking with them and/or your
| spouse.
|
| Side note I can definitely empathize with the lack of time for
| extracurricular. For our family it is generally something we do
| together - which tends to fill multiple "cups". Outside of that
| my spouse and I trade off for time to do these type of things
| for ourselves.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this! I love the technique. I'm going to try
| it out and see for myself.
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| Thank you for the post.
|
| I did something similar -- I logged the activities on the world's
| largest supercomputer (that I have access to) every hour
| throughout the year 2020.
|
| I logged information such as:
|
| -- Who is logged in (the output of w command)
|
| -- What processes are running and the overall system load (top
| and ps aux)
|
| -- What is the state of memory and disk
|
| -- What is the state of job scheduler
|
| I have the data now and very excited about processing it in the
| coming weeks. I plan to anonymize and publish the data and the
| process I employed to collect it.
| appletrotter wrote:
| Not quite the world's largest supercomputer, huh?
| remirk wrote:
| 'The world' is relative. My world is different than yours.
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| I was talking about Summit[1]. Now the second largest.
|
| [1] https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute-
| systems/sum...
| makach wrote:
| this reminds me of the struggle with logging my billable hours as
| a consultant.. Ugh.. But HATS OFF. This data is interesting and
| beautifully presented!
| msapaydin wrote:
| I am using a pomodoro app (productivity challenge timer) and as a
| result track my time. The smartphone also tracks walking and
| running and I have recently started tracking sleep as well. It
| does 80% of the tracking automatically I guess. I also use
| habitica as a complementary tracking tool.
| polote wrote:
| Whoaa, amazing, I've been doing the same during the last 5 years,
| but I use an easier setup, I use an app, so I just have to click
| on buttons at the end of each activity.
|
| > Stay tuned to learn how do different activities influence my
| mood
|
| I only started doing that this year, and I'm pissed off I didn't
| start doing it earlier, as that's where you can start doing
| correlation on your life and your activities.
|
| If some people are interested I have described how I track my
| life here : https://blog.luap.info/how-i-track-my-life.html
| barrucadu wrote:
| How consistent do you manage to be with your mood tracking?
| During the summer of 2019 I was thinking about doing that, but
| never got started. Then autumn of 2019 rolled around and my
| mood shot up dramatically, I didn't realise just how
| dramatically the heat was affecting my mood.
|
| So if I _had_ started when I had the idea, that would have been
| the neutral point, and I 'd have had ~6 months of good days
| after that.
| polote wrote:
| I have two mood tracking points per day, one when waking up
| when when going to sleep. So if it is part of your routine it
| is very easy to do. Then you must well define your scale if
| your want to be consistent over time
| tpoacher wrote:
| Ah, the lengths PhD people will go to to avoid doing their
| thesis... ah, the memories :)
| barrucadu wrote:
| I started tracking my time in 15-minute intervals a little under
| a month ago, and I've also been surprised by how little effort it
| is.
|
| I've not gone for breaking by day up into 15 minute chunks,
| instead I've been timing myself as I do things, and noting down
| the duration rounded it to the nearest 15 minutes when I change
| tasks. I'm also not tracking _everything_ , for example,
| showering. So I have a fair bit of missing time every day, which
| I'm aiming to get down to 2 hours or less a day.
|
| I've already found myself using time more "productively" -
| preferring to do things which are tracked (like reading) over
| things which are not (like mindlessly browsing the internet).
|
| There are a few key metrics I'm keeping an eye on:
|
| - Average daily sleep deficit: `avg(8 - sleep hours)`
|
| - Average daily work deficit: `avg(8 - work hours)` for work days
|
| - Average daily missing time: `avg(24 - all hours)`
|
| - Days since last day off work, not counting weekends
|
| - Percentage of leisure hours: `avg(leisure hours / (all hours -
| sleep hours))`
|
| I'm also watching how I spend my work days, for example, what
| proportion of my time is spent doing active work, or in meetings,
| or doing admin work.
|
| I'll likely expand the things I'm specifically monitoring as I
| get more data.
| nyxtom wrote:
| Do you use an app for this, or do you just use the timer?
| barrucadu wrote:
| I'm manually noting down durations in timedot format
| (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#timedot-format) in a text
| file.
|
| For example, today's entry as of 18:32 is:
| 2021-01-03 leisure:anime
| ....................... leisure:social ..
| sleep 6.5h chores:foodprep .
| chores:regular . leisure:social ......
| leisure:ttrpg:play ..........
|
| Each dot is 15 minutes, so I'm missing a bit of time today.
| Oh well.
|
| I think that having a timer app which lets me start / stop
| timers individually and give them names would be helpful. The
| one I'm currently using, on my phone, just has a single
| stopwatch.
| tracyhenry wrote:
| The font of the entry looks different than normal texts.
| How is that done?
| kzrdude wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc (from FAQ)
| 6equj5 wrote:
| Shameless plug: I wrote a little Python timer for Linux
| that works great with a dropdown terminal like Yakuake:
| https://github.com/krotera/timerBeetle
|
| I often use it for timed tasks, and it's faster than
| reaching for my phone or even opening a browser tab (and,
| unlike a Google or DDG timer, it doesn't keep ringing until
| you re-raise the browser window, find the tab, and silence
| it, which always annoyed me). : p
| lmarcos wrote:
| I wouldn't mind having this kind of data... But manual logging is
| something very painful to do at such intervals. In a parallel
| universe, one where we don't have social media but mini drones
| the size of an orange, I imagine these drones would be floating
| around their owners and logging (locally!) all their activities
| (algorithms determine the best kind of action for every human
| activity (e.g., human sitting down with a book -> reading... The
| drone could even attempt to read the book's title and log it as
| well as metadata)).
| sabellito wrote:
| Super interesting. Definitely a little crazy, but I'm glad you
| found the willpower to finish and share it.
|
| And holy cow, 3:25h per day socialising? How?
| nequals1 wrote:
| The holiday period contributed a lot to that average. I also
| lived with other people for the whole year (uni housing, with
| family and now with flatmates), so meal times would count
| towards socialising. And those coffee breaks and quick chats
| here and there add up to a lot!
| newbie578 wrote:
| Interesting! I personally have used for the last 30 months the
| app called Time Tracker.
|
| Each second of every day is tracked, the timer goes on
| continuously and I just change the current activity.
|
| Looking back at it at the end of the year is surprisingly a
| double-edged sword...
|
| You are hit with a high knowing how much time you spent on work,
| working out, reading, socializing, etc..
|
| But then you get hit with the downside, which is that you see how
| much time you wasted...
|
| When you realize how much time gets spent on gaming, going to the
| store or even changing your clothed (!!!) you start looking at
| your time very differently.
|
| If anyone has any questions or wants to know something I would be
| glad to be of use..
| SwiftyBug wrote:
| How does that work? You open the app before you start every
| activity and labels it? Even mundane ones like changing
| clothes? Do you account for the time you spend logging things
| in this app? How can you keep sanity having to open an app
| every time you start a different activity?
| haberman wrote:
| 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.
| cocoa19 wrote:
| Might be more convenient to use on a smart watch.
| untech wrote:
| I used a combination of Google Forms and IFTTT-scheduled emails
| for that.
| IkmoIkmo wrote:
| I'd love this on an apple watch. Would be especially nice to
| combine with an NFC tag. e.g. when you brush your teeth, just
| hold your watch to the brush which has an NFC tag, then start
| brushing. That activity is now recorded somewhere.
|
| It's really not a big deal to open an app, browse to the
| particular activity, and register it. But somehow in practice
| it is. It's another chore that I never really get around to
| doing consistently. And if you're not tracking data
| consistently, it's very quickly quite useless.
| l-p wrote:
| Track & Graph [1] could work for you, it's FOSS and your full
| DB is easily exportable. You can set reminders and track either
| numbers, durations, or MCQs. I'm using it to track long-term
| post-COVID symptoms, fun stuff.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/SamAmco/track-and-graph
| radley wrote:
| I'm building an Apple app that does this and saves everything
| as a journal.
| radley wrote:
| If anyone is curious:
|
| https://radleymarx.com/work/time-journal
| raunakdag wrote:
| Do you have a waitlist? I want to sign up
| radley wrote:
| Wasn't planning on it. I'd be happy to email you when it
| launches.
|
| Please ping me here: radleymarx at gmail.
| tra3 wrote:
| There's Reporter App [0] on app store. It was designed for a
| very similar purpose.
|
| 0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reporter-app/id779697486
| clockman wrote:
| I do this as well. Mine is to track actuals against my schedule.
| Helps knowing what I should be doing. It's just a habit now. It's
| all on paper though, no digital aspect.
| nyxtom wrote:
| The GitHub-esc point system grid is a great brain hack. Really
| like this system
| l33tbro wrote:
| "Today's society is no longer Foucault's disciplinary world of
| hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has
| long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness
| studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and
| genetic laboratories. Twenty-first-century society is no longer a
| disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society".
|
| - Byung-Chul Han
| 5tefan wrote:
| 1.76 days idle? I'd call that impossible. How can you be busy the
| whole waking time? Sounds like burn out is creeping in.
|
| Idle is my most important state of mind. Daydreaming. Suddenly
| some ideas pop into my mind. It is almost Zen like. Without being
| idle no focussed work. It fuels my work.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Idle in that context is meant for things like waiting in line.
| There is another category for what you describe: chilling (3.49
| days), plus there is certainly idle time folded into other
| activities, like travelling.
| nequals1 wrote:
| exactly this!
| axetheone wrote:
| I also happened to time track my time this year, although in a
| more automatic (and less detailed) way. For that I used
| ActivityWatch on my personal laptop (which I use for all non-work
| related matters) in order to have an automatic way to track my
| time and, at least for me, figure out how much time I'm wasting
| on time wasters like social media, Youtube, Hacker News and so
| on. It was interesting to see the difference between the time I
| think I'm spending and the time I'm actually spending.
| Draiken wrote:
| I am always baffled how sad this extreme focus into productivity
| makes me.
|
| If you discovered you were going to die in a year, would you
| continue to spend all your time being "productive"? I figure
| almost everyone would shift all their focus on doing things that
| "really matter".
|
| Sadly I believe the world managed to make us feel guilty when
| we're not doing something that makes someone else rich (majority
| of jobs).
|
| I'm a pessimist so I'd probably get very sad at some real data
| telling me how many hours I have wasted making someone else
| money.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| >>> If you discovered you were going to die in a year, would
| you continue to spend all your time being "productive"?
|
| Called to mind an Old Zen Koan. Before Enlightenment: chop
| wood, carry water. After Enlightenment: chop wood, carry water
| ;)
|
| If lifecasting were automated, it would form a tremendous data
| set. The historical antecedents are legion: Vannevar Bush's
| Memex. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Chronograph. Gordon Bell's
| MyLifeBits. Yes, even YC's own Justin.tv. Simple daily plain
| text often works best for me. Re-visiting old entries is gold.
| Like inviting your younger self over for a cup of tea ;)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _If you discovered you were going to die in a year, would you
| continue to spend all your time being "productive"? I figure
| almost everyone would shift all their focus on doing things
| that "really matter"._
|
| Nah. I'd ensure that my family is going to be well-cared for,
| that all affairs are in order... and then proceed to blow the
| remaining time on videogames and whatever strikes my fancy.
| With an actual dead line of one year, there's no point in
| starting anything that "really matters" to me.
|
| Now if I knew for certain I'll die in exactly 10 years, I'd
| optimize the shit out of my life. I'd be a god of productivity.
| Or at least I'd try. In reality, knowing that my life is likely
| to actually end in somewhen between 30 to 50 years is already
| giving me this motivation.
|
| Because the problem here isn't the focus on productivity, but
| what you're trying to be productive about. Most of us live
| lives full of things we wouldn't want to do if we could afford
| it. It makes sense to try and optimize them to minimum - to
| make room for the stuff that "really matters".
| sunir wrote:
| I think you have a very narrow understanding of what
| "productive" means. You can produce or make progress towards
| anything that you value. Making other people money is just one
| avenue.
|
| If you had a year to live, you would definitely want to be
| productive. There's a lot that needs to get done to wrap up
| your one single life well, so that your time on earth wasn't
| lost. Just getting your will and testament done, talking to all
| your loved ones, getting your affairs in order for any
| dependents, tying up any loose ends so they aren't inherited,
| cleaning up your house for the estate.
|
| If you know older people, you'll see them doing these kinds of
| activities in their later years. That's still being productive.
| You're still making progress.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| > If you had a year to live, you would definitely want to be
| productive.
|
| No, I'd want to be happy. It's the uniquely American
| Calvinist view that conflates these things.
| MetalGuru wrote:
| Guitar makes me happy. Feeling stimulated and feeling like
| I'm progressing makes me happy. I can be productive in
| guitar. Where's the conflation in this?
| oblio wrote:
| Yeah, agreed. I don't think I know any person that's
| written their will, for example.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _If you had a year to live, you would definitely want to be
| productive._
|
| You'd be surprised.
|
| That's more of rat-race-disease artifact, where a person is
| measured by their "achievements" and "success" (as opposed to
| being intristically worth).
|
| Many people of many peoples would want to either relax, love
| and be with family, or enjoy themselves (and more likely a
| healthy combination of the two).
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| And unless you're completely free of obligations, you'd
| want to maximize the time you spent "relaxing, loving and
| being with family, or enjoying yourself". This requires
| some thought and effort - and that's precisely being
| productivity / optimizing your life.
| nequals1 wrote:
| I probably used productivity too carelessly in my article - I
| meant it more as 'doing things that make me happy/help me
| develop as a person' as opposed to 'doing things that feel nice
| and easy now but I'd rather do them less'. I consider hobbies,
| reading books, going on walks and things like that as
| productive and tried to reduce time I spent mindlessly
| scrolling social media.
|
| I'm also doing my PhD so by trying to increase my at-work
| productivity I'm trying to make sure that I don't waste too
| much of taxpayer's money.
|
| But I agree that optimising productivity too much could be
| anxiety-inducing and I was trying to be mindful of that while
| looking at my data and deciding what to change in my life based
| on it.
| polote wrote:
| Well, the answer is easy. We are all different.
|
| We all have one only life, some people prefer to spend it
| watching football, some being productive, some helping others,
| and some ...
|
| Of course you will also find people who are not happy at the
| life they have, and trying to live the life of others. But you
| will also find people being happy doing things that make other
| people sad.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _Well, the answer is easy. We are all different_
|
| It's so easy it gets skipped over in almost every thread like
| this, it seems, where someone goes off on some expedition of
| personal development and chooses to write about it to share
| with others where inevitably someone comes along to
| pontificate why anyone would even bother.
|
| There's not always going to be some neat, logical nor
| highfalutin reason for an individual making a choice about
| documenting, recording and analyzing parts of their life.
|
| And that's fine. Promise.
| gibrown wrote:
| > If you discovered you were going to die in a year, would you
| continue to spend all your time being "productive"? I figure
| almost everyone would shift all their focus on doing things
| that "really matter".
|
| But if you are going to try and do things that "really matter"
| don't you want to be productive at them?
|
| I've seen a number of folks with ALS who have done amazing
| things with the time they had left, and I am sure they focused
| on their productivity in doing them.
|
| This also isn't a hypothetical for me. I have a damaged spinal
| cord and have spent amazing amounts of time tracking data to
| try and improve my body and my life. Not the same as facing
| death since I am trying to optimize my time to get back to a
| point where my body is stronger and in less pain so I can spend
| more time with my kids and also do the other things I want. It
| is a very tough balance.
| Draiken wrote:
| > But if you are going to try and do things that "really
| matter" don't you want to be productive at them?
|
| I'd definitely try to, hehe.
|
| For me it's more about what we categorize as productive than
| the experiment itself. The experiment is a great way to
| gather data. But the categorization made me really think
| about what people, in general, categorize as "productive".
|
| Maybe sleeping should be way more important than many job
| related things, but by default we assume sleeping is just a
| necessity, many times sacrificing it in favor of the others.
| dtran wrote:
| I think "being productive" vs. "time well spent" and "doing
| things that really matter" is a false dichotomy. It doesn't
| have to be this way. I know that's a statement from a position
| of privilege-- not every has a job where they can feel like
| they are in a flow state while working, but do you have any
| side projects or hobbies where you feel both productive _and_
| feel like it 's time well spent?
|
| Coming to this pretty late, but I've been fascinated with the
| concept of _flow_ recently, which researcher Mihaly
| Csikszentmihaly described as: "The best moments
| in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . .
| . The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is
| stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish
| something difficult and worthwhile"
|
| Again, not everyone is in a position to do this, but I think we
| should de-emphasize number of hours spent in "work mode" albeit
| inefficiently or without great focus or working on things that
| aren't super important and more time seeking deep focus and
| then time completely off to relax, recharge and let ideas
| background process/percolate.
| oblio wrote:
| Your viewpoint still dismisses one of the best categories of
| "time wasting"/"things that really matter": time spent
| socializing with friends and family.
|
| There have been a few studies that were pointing out people
| in Southern Italy live very long and happy lives (I think
| happiness was self-reported), despite living in relative
| poverty compared to developed countries. Sun + healthy diets
| + lots and lots of intense social interactions with family
| and close friends.
| emteycz wrote:
| Personally I consider time with friends and family
| productive time and most definitely time well spent, but
| surely you have noticed that even these moments can stretch
| out into unproductivity - maybe some members of the family
| or friend group want to go home and spend their time on
| their own things, so a little planning is useful even for
| family/friends/relaxation.
|
| Productive usage of my time means I am not doing simple
| things the hard way, that I manage my attention, and that I
| spend time on things that I care about, not that I stop
| caring about my family.
| oblio wrote:
| That's funny of you to say.
|
| Extending my example from above, American dining habits
| are: you stay in the restaurant for about as much time as
| what you need to eat/drink, then you go away (maybe
| gently nudged by staff to get out if you stop ordering
| something after 1 hour or so). Italian dining habits are:
| you go to dinner and you stay there until everyone has
| discussed about everything they wanted to discuss, no
| matter how long that takes.
|
| I imagine for someone from the Italian culture your
| perspective would seem completely alien.
|
| And regarding family members or friend that want to
| leave, surely everyone is mature enough to just get up
| and go when they have to. Why do you need to manage that
| for them?
| emteycz wrote:
| Regarding my family/friends, I was talking about managing
| myself, my own time, not them - in this particular case I
| meant that I could predict when I can be home to do my
| own things, for example.
|
| My perspective never disallowed me from staying at the
| table for hours until everyone was saturated with
| friendly banter. I spent many months in Italy, Croatia,
| Spain, Georgia, Poland and elsewhere doing just that, and
| I consider it time spent productively - relaxation and
| socialization is important to me.
| jader201 wrote:
| > I think happiness was self-reported
|
| Isn't that implied? How else can you measure happiness
| aside from someone telling you they're happy?
|
| Somewhat of a genuine question -- curious if
| studies/surveys use some other way to measure happiness.
| jader201 wrote:
| > + lots and lots of intense social interactions with
| family and close friends.
|
| As an introvert, I find "lots and lots of intense social
| interactions" draining (by definition).
|
| Granted, I do enjoy hanging out with friends and family,
| but often feel drained a bit afterwards.
|
| Of course, I'm not advocating being a loner. I wouldn't
| like that either.
|
| My main point is, I wonder if extroverts -- or those that
| are energized from intense social interactions -- are more
| destined to be happy vs. introverts.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > I wonder if extroverts -- or those that are energized
| from intense social interactions -- are more destined to
| be happy vs. introverts.
|
| Sadly for introverts, that seems to be the case.
|
| Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quiet-
| disadvantag...
| renewiltord wrote:
| The long life thing heavily correlates with the lack of
| quality in record keeping.
| duke_core wrote:
| I can't remember his name, there was a youtuber named Ali Abdal
| (I think?) whose videos are focused around productivity and
| they give me the same feeling that you're talking about in your
| comment. When you're talking about to 'productively' watch tv
| shows while try to get some work done in the background thats
| going a bit too far
| Insanity wrote:
| Yes it's that youtuber (Ali Abdal). He had this video about
| productively watching TV by watching the netflix shows sped
| up 2x or something like that.
|
| Similar for listening to audio books etc. Personally quite
| dislike those kind of ideas as well, takes the joy out of
| recreation.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| I agree with you if productivity is work, but I also consider
| my hobbies productive. Netflix and Reddit and HN and the inane
| parts of the news I consider unproductive. And yet I spend
| probably at least 12 hours per week on those. It's a scrolling
| addiction and (god how hypocritical is it for me to take the
| time to type this here) it's good to avoid.
| Draiken wrote:
| And that's exactly what I'm questioning. Why are Reddit and
| HN labeled as non-productive? Is it because it doesn't do
| anything to us or because we're trained to only label
| "skills" as productive?
|
| I learned more through HN than I did with many books. Reddit
| improved my day through stupid memes that made me laugh more
| times than I can remember.
|
| Yet when I'm browsing those sites, I feel guilty. Even while
| writing this very comment.
|
| That's what saddens me.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Sometimes I get the impression 99% of HN comments are pretty
| much: I like X. I don't know why anyone else likes Y.
|
| All right, yeah, desire vectors are different for different
| people, homie.
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > I knew I was spending quite a lot of it on social media, but
| I wasn't sure how much exactly. I also knew I was working quite
| a lot and wanted to quantify exactly how much (spoiler alert:
| not that much). I hoped that keeping track of what I do would
| help me to identify chunks of time that were being wasted and
| to turn them into quality time.
|
| Tracking time doesn't inherently have to be to optimize for
| "making someone else rich"; she specifically did this with the
| goal of spending more time on things that "really matter".
| Draiken wrote:
| But I never said tracking time inherently does that. I agree
| with you. It's a great way to put things in perspective.
|
| It's just my personal experience that the majority of time we
| label as "productive" is in fact productivity for the sake of
| someone else profiting on top of it. I have nothing against
| the OP or the article.
| DecayingOrganic wrote:
| I'll raise my head above the parapet and admit that I don't
| get it. How about just scheduling things? If you want to
| spend more time on things that matter, just pick a date and
| time, and get going.
|
| That said, perhaps the alluring part was gathering data on
| one's self.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Because Akrasia. I currently am supposed to be doing other
| things but I am spending it on HN.
| dundercoder wrote:
| akrasia akrasia /@'kreIzI@ , @'krasI@ / (also acrasia) >
| noun [mass noun] mainly Philosophy the state of mind in
| which someone acts against their better judgement through
| weakness of will. - ORIGIN early 19th century : from
| Greek, from a- 'without' + kratos 'power, strength'. The
| term is used especially with reference to Aristotle's
| Nicomachean Ethics.
| jader201 wrote:
| So basically procrastination. Not exactly the same, but
| the same sentiment.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| 'renewiltord mentioned Akrasia. That's one big thing.
|
| Another thing is that you may not have enough time to fit
| the things you want with your schedule - and you first need
| to optimize your things in your life. That may involve
| optimizing your productivity at work, to free up time or
| energy for your own things. That also will involve taking a
| look at what you do around and after work. All of us live
| at least partially on autopilot, so bad habits tend to
| sneak up and stay unnoticed. You need to shine a light
| every now and then to identify and eradicate them - and
| then that's more time and/or energy freed up for doing the
| things that matter to you.
|
| Perhaps a less contentious way of saying "focus on
| productivity" is to say "making the wisest use of the 24
| hours one has in a day".
| the_local_host wrote:
| Productivity is a scam. Jeff Bezos doesn't double his own
| productivity; he doubles Amazon's.
| gcc_programmer wrote:
| It's a she ;)
| theli0nheart wrote:
| > _he specifically did this_
|
| You got the wrong pronoun. "One gal's quest to optimise her
| life" is the blog's subtitle.
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| Ah thanks! My bad. Corrected.
| [deleted]
| danesparza wrote:
| Read the article.
|
| The article has a completely different tone than what you are
| assuming from the headline.
|
| ~~~ 4 points per hour for the most productive
| activities (focused work towards uni & self-improvement and
| exercising) 3 points for reading books 2 points
| for reading blogs, listening to podcasts, lower intensity work
| etc 0 points for things that are important but I do
| them anyway (socialising, sleep etc) -4 points for
| procrastination
|
| ~~~~
|
| No mention of making someone else money. But a mention of being
| a procrastinator with life.
| Draiken wrote:
| I did read it :)
|
| My point is that the majority of "productive" things we do
| are geared towards our jobs. And the majority of jobs enrich
| the people at the top at the expense of your expertise and
| time invested. YMMV.
|
| Not sure why so many people assumed I had a bad view on the
| article or the OP. I think what was done was fascinating, but
| it made me sad.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _My point is that the majority of "productive" things we
| do are geared towards our jobs._
|
| There's a confounder here that's relatively specific to
| some types of jobs / industries (like IT): the same skills
| and knowledge that is "geared towards our jobs" is also
| used outside work. In our industry, a lot of people -
| including myself - are hobbyists. They enjoy the same stuff
| they also do for a living. In this setting, your personal
| pursuit for knowledge and fulfillment may look from outside
| as indistinguishable from your job.
| mbeex wrote:
| Another issue here is an extremely narrowed definition of
| productivity. It has cog-like traits, Fordian belt work comes
| to mind. Yes, in this context you can become less productive
| for one reason or another. But all these micro-optimizations
| will also affect the mind in the long run in a much more
| profound way. More than anything its higher forms - even of
| productivity - especially these connected with creativity.
|
| You cannot fight this with a clock watch the same way the vast
| majority of people cannot lose weight by simply dieting. For
| this, you need positive incentives. Not to be misunderstood,
| sometimes you have simply to grit your teeth.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I'm with you. If it took one minute to log each of the previous
| 14, I'd rather have 24 hours of my life back.
|
| It's the same with social media.
|
| Once I realized that spending two hours a day on social media
| meant I was giving up 30 days of my life each year for... what?
| So someone in SV can buy a second boat, or a third house?
|
| I limit my social media to under 15 minutes a day now
| (including HN.) If the social ad tech companies want more than
| that, they can pay me.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| The only thing you can think of doing once you were to ween
| yourself from your vices (like OP and social media) is work?
| Even worse, making someone else rich?
|
| You obviously don't think that, so I don't get why you and
| grandparent are projecting that onto OP.
|
| I want to minimize my wasted time like mindless Redditing so
| that I can maximize my time spent doing things that fulfill
| me. It's just a great tragedy that it's so much easier to
| waste time in unfulfilling ways like spending a day in a
| heroin nod than it is to do the things that maximize my life.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I think if you were going to die in a year you would stop doing
| everything with a payoff more than a few months in the future.
| It's a mistake to think that what "really matters" is whatever
| pays off now instead of later.
|
| When you have longer to live, it makes sense to work now to get
| more of what "really matters" five, ten, and twenty years down
| the line.
| onion2k wrote:
| _If you discovered you were going to die in a year, would you
| continue to spend all your time being "productive"?_
|
| No.
|
| But if I discovered I was going to die in 30 years time, and I
| wanted to make sure my house was paid for, I'd done the things
| I want to do, and there were savings in the bank to make sure
| my partner was safe, then I absolutely would. Most of us are
| closer to that position than being on the verge of imminent
| death.
| maria_weber23 wrote:
| Tracking your time spent has nothing to do with productivity.
| It is simply data you may chose to act on or not.
|
| If this person was out for optimizing income, tye6 would not
| have studied a PhD in the first place, because that's 6 years
| wasted, plus tuition on top of it.
|
| You can your tracking to optimize for whatever variable you
| want to optimize. You could realize that you work too much and
| aim for working less. You could realize that you do social
| media too much and aim to do less of it, etc. It's up to you.
|
| As for not making money. The world is, sadly highly biased
| towards rich people. If you are poor and happy (which is
| totally possible) you are still highly at risk that this state
| won't last. Without money, you are f __*ed in this world. It 's
| just the way it is. If you are dependent on income you are
| dependent on A LOT of things. The best you can generally do for
| your happiness is become income independent as fast as
| possible, which usually means to earn as much as possible as
| early as possible and then live from investments while focusing
| on everything that's not work.
| [deleted]
| javajosh wrote:
| I can be pessimistic, too, but I had a different reaction. The
| OP's post is about measuring a life according to behaviors
| (activities) and with that data the OP is thinking out loud
| about how he wants to change things. This is an artifact that
| describes an analytical mind observing and addressing the daily
| animal/mind hybrid that actually lives in and experiences the
| world.
|
| I tend to agree that "productivity" is an unhealthy obsession
| linked to vain status chasing, and (among many circles) a
| vaguely sinister implication. It is too often used as a
| euphamistic criticism by employers who inevitably want more out
| of the workers. _Produce or die_ is the default law of the
| capitalist jungle, so the "productivity number" is the number
| that a system would use to fire you.
|
| But the OP's situation is quite different. There is no
| misalignment between "the boss" (his current analytical mind)
| and "the worker" (the daily mind/body cyborg beast). The boss
| _really wants the best_ for the worker; the worker _really
| wants to do his best_ for the boss. (And to me it seems like
| the boss has his priorities straight, and is doing right by his
| worker with this analysis and recommendations).
| dnautics wrote:
| Did you read the article? "I work less than I thought I did and
| that's ok"
| Draiken wrote:
| I did. But it also mentions procrastination as a -4 point and
| sleep as a 0.
|
| And my sentiment is also from reading some of the comments
| here. So many people obsessed with productivity.
|
| Some have a clear reason to do so, but I fear many do it
| because of outside pressures, or never even thought about it.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| The scores are relative to each other.
|
| I certainly prefer to sleep than to procrastinate, so this
| matches up with your example.
|
| And, I certainly prefer to do almost any task than
| procrastinate. Procrastination (by which I understand:
| wasted effort thinking about being productive without
| actually doing anything) makes me feel grim. I would have
| valued that time more doing almost anything else.
|
| If sleeping helps me to avoid procrastination, then this
| scoring system still encourages sufficient sleep to do
| that.
| hobofan wrote:
| I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with that
| scoring.
|
| Sleeping is basically neutral (maybe it should give 0.5
| points instead or something small that doesn't dilute the
| rest of the scoring system).
|
| I'd also score procrastination negatively even if you are
| not obsessed with productivity. Procrastination can easily
| cause negative feelings (and for me is probably one of the
| biggest sources for them) and can be viewed as a separate
| thing as dedicated downtime.
| Draiken wrote:
| Oh, neither do I.
|
| What made me sad is that I'd likely have a very similar
| scoring if I did this myself.
|
| For example, I wish I didn't score sleep as a waste of
| time, when it's likely more important than many of the
| things regularly deemed important by society.
| m000 wrote:
| This sentence is exactly the problem. Everything is focused
| around work and productivity. So much, that you have to pat
| yourself on the back when find out your work throughput was
| less than what you thought it was.
|
| Why do we read about "I work less than I thought I did and
| that's ok" and not e.g. "I spent more time with my family
| than I thought I did, and that's great"?
| dnautics wrote:
| same article says "I spent more time reading than I thought
| I did, and it's great"
| guessmyname wrote:
| Great article.
|
| I have been doing the same for the last two years or so. I use
| Qbserve [1], a native (privacy-focused) time tracker for macOS
| developed by a couple living in Chile. The application keeps all
| the information on my computer in an SQLite database, making it
| very easy to analyze. I regularly reference it during my
| quarterly performance reviews to justify ups-and-downs in my
| results.
|
| I will use this article as inspiration for writing a blog post
| sometime.
|
| Coincidentally, I also saw a Reddit post last night [2] with the
| original poster's data analysis of all their expenses recorded
| through 2020. I bookmarked it because I collected similar
| information during the previous three years to write another blog
| post. Unfortunately, I am still unsure how to write such an
| article without revealing too much personal information.
|
| [1] https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/kp3fcn/a/
| saberience wrote:
| This comment depresses me so much. You track your own time
| obsessively and use it as a reference in performance reviews?
|
| This sounds like a dystopian hell out of Big Brother.
| guessmyname wrote:
| > _This comment depresses me so much. You track your own time
| obsessively and use it as a reference in performance
| reviews?_
|
| To each their own.
|
| I genuinely find the data I track useful to reflect on what I
| spend my time on and whatnot, especially when I want to
| answer questions like: Did I get enough time off from work _
| --and programming, in general--_ last quarter? Did I use the
| X program enough to justify a license renewal? How much time
| did I spend on meetings versus actual programming? Did I get
| enough sleep last week? Am I having lunch at regular times?
| How much time am I spending on professional growth? Etc.
|
| And for the sake of clarification, I started tracking my own
| time long before I got my current job, so clearly, I do not
| do it specifically for my performance reviews. I simply
| happen to find the data analysis useful to support some
| things I say, and also, as some people say _"the more data
| you have, the more accurate the prediction"_.
| gbrindisi wrote:
| I am curious, can you share the reddit post?
| pmyteh wrote:
| My usual plug for TagTime[0], which handles this in a slightly
| different (and in my view better) way: it stochastically tracks
| your time by randomly sampling times to ask you what you're doing
| _right now_. Fair in expectation, timeless (no slacking off
| because you 've just filled in the timesheet), accurately
| captures (on average) the cost of all the short phone calls and
| context switches.
|
| It's by the Beeminder people, but works on its own. A hacky pile
| of perl scripts. I've run it continuously for 8 years now.
|
| [0]: https://github.com/tagtime/TagTime
| tra3 wrote:
| I tried running it a couple of years ago, no luck. I can't
| recall what the problem was. Is it actually functional?
| pmyteh wrote:
| It's fully functional, though not straightforward. Needs a
| bit of setup, and doesn't handle multiple machines
| particularly well.
|
| That's the perl version I linked. There's a similarly
| functional android version, I think.
| zufallsheld wrote:
| Does anyone know of a similar tool for windows?
| smitop wrote:
| Here's a list of implementations:
| http://doc.beeminder.com/tagtime (I also wrote a web
| implementation: https://ttw.smitop.com/)
| gibrown wrote:
| I used tagtime for a while a decade or so ago. I agree that the
| stochastic tracking is a lot better since you can't game it. I
| may try it again, so thanks for the reminder.
|
| I've been a paid subscriber to http://rescuetime.com/ for
| almost a decade now. Passive tracking and analysis. But it is
| not much of a nudge to really focus on things. Thanks for the
| reminder.
|
| I need to write up my Elasticsearch setup for indexing my
| health/rehab tracking data, but the code is here:
| https://github.com/gibrown/es-health-tracker and some of the
| older tracking I wrote about here:
| https://greg.blog/2018/06/15/relearning-to-walk-at-forty/
| matsemann wrote:
| I think it would be nice to try for a month, to see where time is
| spent. Maybe finding some surprises or things to tweak to move
| time around to what I really want.
|
| At least when I was a poor newly graduated boy suddenly having a
| salary but not much left at the end of the month, tracking
| everything for one month made it clear where the money went. So
| instead of acting on feelings I could act on data.
| tus88 wrote:
| Where are all the lawyer jokes?
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