My colleague Evgeniy Bondarenko wrote very well in his article about what timing is and why it should be carried out.
We definitely need a simple and convenient tool that allows us to record our time consumption at any time and anywhere. The most convenient option is an application that will run on a portable device, such as a PDA or mobile phone.
The most important and most difficult thing is to decide on your daily routine. Divide all tasks into 5-10 groups. Here are my things:
Later, I discovered three more groups of tasks that took up a lot of time and that I wanted to control:
This is what my to-do list looks like on my mobile phone screen in the Mobile Timekeeping program.
At first it was a total blast! There are a lot of things to do, but it’s not clear how to group them correctly, even the toilet is a matter! And which group to send him to - “Health” or “Waste of Time” - this is a question that everyone must decide for themselves.
For example, I spent a lot of time thinking about the meaning of life. And if you just think and do nothing, then this is a 100% waste of time! If you want to find the meaning of life, go to the “Meaning of Life, Values” training, achieve a specific result - and then such a lesson can be safely enrolled in the “Major Things” group.
Or, another example - I am creating a website. In the program the item “Main things to do” is marked. Then a friend calls me and spends 23 minutes telling me how he took a girl home yesterday. No offense, dear friend, but these 23 minutes are a “Waste of Time.” We need to move these 23 minutes from the “Major Things” group to the “Waste of Time” group.
The result of changing case groups in the Mobile Timing program
A week later, I was already keeping track of time automatically using Mobile Timing, clearly dividing tasks into groups. At the end of the day, I analyzed the “temporary losses” and carefully planned the next day.
By the way, I should note that it is very important to do one thing at a time and not be distracted by anything. You can’t chat on the phone, write a term paper and answer ICQ at the same time. Listen - this is harmful and does not save time at all!
While working with the program, I noticed that when you keep time, you try to be less distracted by interruptions, because you are too lazy to get into your phone and switch between tasks. And that's great! This disciplines and helps you get things done!
Every time I need to do something, I ask myself which group to classify the matter into and how much time I am willing to spend on it. I take my phone and make a note to start the task.
The program remembers measurements for any number of days, it all depends on the free memory of the phone. You can view the archive of measurements directly on your phone.
Also, the Mobile Timing program can upload archives to a file with a CSV extension, which is perfectly readable through MS Excel.
And here it is an honest picture of my time consumption over the week.
Result of uploading archives to MS Excell
How long will I keep time? This has already become a habit for me, which I don’t want to quit.
How long you will keep the timekeeping is up to you. In any case, it's worth a try. I am sure that you will find many time sinks that you can and should fight.
Timing is disciplined; many times a day you will think about what exactly you plan to do and how much time you will spend.
Change your habits and find time for yourself!
Filippov Alexander, September 2010, email: [email protected]
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Today our guest is Alexander Filippov, the author of the wonderful “Mobile Timing” program.
A time sink (or chronophage) is time that goes unnoticed on incomprehensible matters. Things that are not beneficial. In other words, time wasters are days, months and years wasted. Chronophages accompany us at work and accompany us on vacation. In both cases they ruin everything.
Sofa or bed. I like to lie on the couch and think about nothing. This is a real chronophage, because there is no usefulness. BUT, if I lie down after hard physical work, then this is already rest.
Classmates. Going to Odnoklassniki - finding a contact, arranging a meeting - is useful. Looking at photos and commenting on friends is nonsense and a very big waste of time. By the way, it’s very easy to deceive yourself here - promise that you came in for 5 minutes and forget. Set the Odnoklassniki limit for the day, for example an hour, and stick to it.
Computer games. It is very difficult to find any benefit in this matter. A blatant time sink. Replace playing with reading a book (when you're bored). And if you don’t have enough emotions, play paintball or rollerblade.
Surfing the Internet. A very dangerous and attractive thing. Because instead of 5 minutes you can stay there until the night. My recommendation is to always set a goal for what information you want to find. And don’t turn a single step!
View mail. If you subscribe to the mailing list, it is very difficult to get out of reading your mail. Limit the number of mailings, cancel one every month. It's best to set aside limited time each day to look at your email. If you haven’t had time to read it, close the program anyway. Over time, you will read only the most important messages.
Time in traffic jams, transport. Sitting behind the wheel and being nervous is prohibited - this is a chronophage. There are many educational audiobooks available these days. Cork will become your university. Learn English.
Conclusion. If something doesn’t bring you any benefit or proper rest, it’s a time sink.
Let's call a time sink a bad habit.
It is impossible to give up a habit right away; it can be done gradually.
First, we need to get to know her - measure the time she steals from us, or in other words - time it.
It’s better to use your phone to keep track of time – it’s always at hand. We install a special Mobile Timing program on the phone (it is suitable for all phones that support Java). You can download it on the developer’s website www.forbant.com
Let's start the hunt for the Odnoklassniki chronophage and see how much time it steals from us.
We create two cases in the program “Life” and “Odnoklassniki”. We put a tick in the “Life” case and close the program.
Now, as soon as we log into Odnoklassniki, we need to make a mark in the timekeeping. We open the Mobile Timing program, it is simple - so it opens very quickly. We put a tick in the “Odnoklassniki” case and close the program. The timer will count the time spent on the time sink, even in off mode.
Believe me, by performing this simple action, you already give yourself an account of where and how much time you plan to spend.
This is an important point. Sometimes, when you open the program and see that Odnoklassniki has already stolen 4 hours from Life, you don’t want to surf the Internet.
It is important to know how much time a bad habit takes. If we can measure it, it will be easier for us to control it.
Every day, make a note of the time spent in the Mobile Timing program. And after a while, if you really want to reduce the time sink, you will notice that the time spent on the habit begins to decrease.
Good luck in your fight against time wasters. Find time for yourself!
You already know why timekeeping is useful and why it is necessary. If not, please read the article. I hope it will convince you of the need to control your time so that you spend it only on the most important things in life.
- a great opportunity to spend time accounting. Doing this on your mobile phone is simple and convenient. The program appeared not so long ago, but has already brought benefits to many. You just need to download Mobile Timing, install it on your phone, and you will know exactly where your precious time is being spent.
We’ll talk about the Mobile Timing program and its advantages. Let's start in order.
Because the program is installed on your mobile phone, which is always at hand, wherever you are. The program is specially created for mobile phones, and easily “fits” into any model of any manufacturer. Once you have downloaded and installed the Mobile Timing app, you can add a to-do list to it. If you don’t know how to compose, check out the compilation process. There you will also find examples of to-do lists. Everything is very simple!
As already said - always at hand. This means that you can find out at any time how much time you spend and on what. You just need to open the program and mark the business you are doing - the report is in! Even if it is closed, the Mobile Timing program tirelessly counts the minutes and hours spent on the task you have chosen.
Another convenience is that the program saves time spent archive. You will be able to view the timing archive and compare costs on different days.
And the undeniable convenience of the program is the ability export data to Excel. You will see your time spent in familiar and easy-to-analyze tables. Make charts of your time expenditure - your timekeeping - and you will be surprised how much your expectations and ideas about what you spend your time on diverge from reality.
Add or remove an unnecessary item to to-do list you can at any time. You come up with the names of your cases yourself. To switch from one task to another, just check the box next to the desired item. The program will automatically stop “counting” the previous case and begin counting the time in the newly selected one. The list can be adjusted and selected as you go through your life, your normal day.
In the free version of the program you can add only three cases. In real life, of course, there are more of them. Therefore, it is more convenient to use the extended paid version, and besides, it is quite inexpensive. These expenses are small compared to the ability to manage your time and spend it on the most important things in life.
And now a little video about Mobile timing.
Download the Mobile Timing program available on the developer's website. Save your time! 🙂
How do you spend your time during the day?
The fact is that the feeling of time is subjective. Games, social networks, YouTube videos - it's addictive. And time flies quickly. At the same time, working on the most boring report can last only 20 minutes, but it will seem like an eternity.
We tend to exaggerate the time we spend on useful activities. Conversely, we downplay the harm of time wasters. That is, the error always goes in a harmful direction.
This is where timing comes in handy!
You go around and write down what you do and for how long. All day.
For example:
5 minutes is more than enough.
Even rough timing is extremely useful.
Of course, there are people who keep timekeeping all their lives. But I, for example, don’t do that.
2-3 days is enough to…
Yes, you will get a clear picture of what happened to you, how your time was distributed.
You will see how much time you REALLY spend on:
You will see how much you REALLY work.
In 100% of cases, a person is surprised when looking at these results. Or horrified. This is even better. But now he knows his weak points. It is most important!
At one time I saw that my weak point was phone calls.
I'm an extrovert and a talker. Many extroverts lose track of time when they chat. No wonder I wasted 1-2 hours a day on idle chatter.
It's bad to be like this!
I took the following steps:
There are several options.
You can't manage what you can't measure.
Where to start building your time management? With timing!
Even a ninth grader can handle this.
Have you done the timing? How much time do you spend on social networks, watching TV, etc.?
The series of articles “Time management in simple words” is completed!
Here is a complete list of all articles.
Very often, when sitting down to do some specific task at the computer, we are distracted by various unforeseen little things. Mail, social networks, games and so on. And the task, which in total does not take very much time, is constantly postponed. And now the whole day passes, and you haven’t moved from the dead point. But were you doing something? Where did all the time go? Here's about counting and timing this time, as well as about its effective use and we'll talk today.
The problem of controlling working time is an eternal problem for fans of time management. In a classic office job, we work under the unsightly eye of a boss or director, who constantly demand some kind of reports and results of the work done, and this pushes us to get results.
A freelancer, blogger, or anyone who works at home on a computer does not have such control. The artificial stimulus disappears. Everyone takes responsibility for the time spent at the computer. It is very difficult to concentrate alone when no one is pushing you or “kicking” you. Well, it’s true, you’ll agree.
It seems like you have a clear plan and you know what to do, but you sit down at the computer and start doing something unknown. Communicating on, viewing traffic to your resource, or unplanned viewing of a training or film - all this takes up our precious time. And then the whole day goes by and you seem to be sitting at the computer, but things haven’t moved forward and there are no results. It's a shame, isn't it?
This is postponing the completion of a task until later or constant preparation for completing it. You say: “Now, now. I’ll just check my email or see who liked me on VKontakte. Now, I’ll just finish watching this video on YouTube” and so on. What needs to be done right now stretches out in time for an indefinite period. You seem to understand this with your mind, but there is still no result.
To overcome this and begin to fulfill the tasks set for yourself, you need. How to do this without the participation of third parties? With the help of special programs that should help us with this. They will be the ones who will be able to increase the efficiency of their own work at the computer in a specific period of time.
Watch the video if something is not clear to anyone:
Another timekeeping program that allows us to evaluate our effectiveness at being at the computer is a free program. . It allows you to record all actions with subsequent analysis of their effectiveness.
You launch it on your computer and before starting the task, you write down what you will do. Click Finish. The program begins counting down the action being performed. We finished, started the next thing and again noted what we started doing. So during the day. The program shows the timing of the actions performed.
Monitoring can then be carried out. How much time was spent on what matter? You'll be surprised to see where your time actually goes. You went to have tea in the kitchen, and found yourself two hours later sitting near the TV.
It is very important to do one thing. It is necessary to completely measure your day. See where all your time goes, who or what is absorbing it. Try to lead with this information within a week. This will be an accurate enough slice to understand your weaknesses in wasting useful time.
Everything is recorded day by day in a so-called log and saved on the computer.
You can open a file with a date and compare your activity at one time or another.
The results obtained can be analyzed using statistics available in the program. It can also show your effectiveness.
The program settings are quite standard. The only interesting option is the ability to tweet the end of the completed action.
These are the simple helpers who can very effectively stimulate you to increase your own efficiency. These programs for calculating and timing time will help you use your active time at the computer more efficiently and help you concentrate on one specific task. I hope these tools will help you in your struggle with yourself. That's all. Don't forget to subscribe to blog updates, there is still a lot of interesting things to come.
LazyCure – effective timing. Watch the video:
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