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I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

690 points by HuangYuSan 6y ago

renewiltord 6y ago
Thanks for sharing this! I love the technique. I'm going to try it out and see for myself.
lmarcos 6y ago
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)).
clockman 6y ago
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.
veddox 6y ago
> 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 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465056
5tefan 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    exactly this!
sabellito 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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!
  - sabellito 6y ago
    Ah that makes sense, thanks for clarifying!
kingaillas 6y ago
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.
axetheone 6y ago
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.
ThinkBeat 6y ago
> 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.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Also sex. It is not mentioned in the schedule. Under socialising?
tpoacher 6y ago
Ah, the lengths PhD people will go to to avoid doing their thesis... ah, the memories :)
l33tbro 6y ago
"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
- syndacks 6y ago
  We still very much live in a Foucauldian world: - we're constantly surveilled (school, jobs, gov't) and mostly we willingly submit to this - r.e. "21st century is no longer a disciplinary society", yes it is, see my point above. we (they?) just succeeded in making the discipline less overt, more complicit. we don't need jails anymore we just need smartphones (see Social Dilemma) - that list is not one of an "achievement society", rather, one of a consumption society lubricated by surveillance (masquerading as individualism, success etc) Oui very much live in a Foucauldian world!
  - l33tbro 6y ago
    You've missed the point - which is often the problem with posting quotes. I agree that we still live in a Foucauldian world and that many of those factors remain. But what Han is getting at (and his broader thesis in 'The Burnout Society') is that a new series of societal dynamics have propogated from the modern citizen's raison d'etre of serving one's own aspiration, rather than that of the collective. In Han's view, we live in a society where the Other is disappearing. This, in turn, creates all kinds of mental artifacts that hinder our overall experience and well-being.
    - syndacks 6y ago
      Hey br0, appreciate the thoughtful response. > a new series of societal dynamics have propogated from the modern citizen's raison d'etre of serving one's own aspiration, rather than that of the collective. Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying in my points (if you exclude the 'discipline' part of them). Not sure I agree with Han's lack of The Other...see American politics, European politics but hey I guess I have to read the Burnout Society (thanks for rec) and debate ole Han, not you.
TrackerFF 6y ago
I'm not sure how much alcohol you drink - could be one beer / glass of wine / drink, or it could be multiple units - but for your health, I'd recommend that you take a 3 day break between intake. Drinking for 3-7 consecutive days, is not good for your liver, even in smaller quantities.
- istorical 6y ago
  where is the threshold of # of drinks in a day where daily drinking begins to adversely affect liver? I thought a glass of wine a day was considered neutral or positive, so how many glasses of wine is unehealthy for 3-7 consecutive days?
  - eightails 6y ago
    I was somewhat curious too, and from a brief search found a 2004 paper that calculated roughly 1 standard drink/day for women and 2 for men as the limit before you start increasing risk of adverse effects. I haven't looked at the full text though. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091743503003256 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00917...
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  - dionidium 6y ago
    You can find lots of articles online that dismiss the impacts of regularly drinking small amounts, but I think it's worth considering that the science on this is incomplete and more recent studies seem to be less optimistic about this. See, for example: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323252#Even-light-drinking-heightens-death-risk https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323252#Even-light-... Or: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-...
- deleted 6y ago
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- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
jjice 6y ago
I always liked logging my actions to see what's really going on. I think the most common one I do every few months is tracking my diet for a few days to see what bad habits I've picked up and where I need to improve. The first time I did it I realized by protein intake was way too low and that's why I wasn't seeing improvements in working out. It also enlightens me into how sodium filled so much of the food I'm eating is and helps me plan around those. Same goes with tracking time spent on "human function" as the author described it. While I intentionally try not to be super anal about how much time I spent on certain activities, I think it's almost like a game to make the boring stuff as efficient as possible. As I've added more steps to my daily routines, I've also found ways to keep my time spent reasonable and make certain things asynchronous. Perfect simple example is doing the dishes during idle cooking time. My roommates don't do this and it boggles me. Also, making those boring moments more exciting is always a plus. Music or a podcast in the shower and kitchen goes a long way, at least for me.
bpcpdx 6y ago
Had to do this as a job site. Something to do with accounting. It was terrible, it felt like I had to justify being there in 15 min intervals. Thank god I was only there for a few days.
heikkilevanto 6y ago
So, how long did you spend on all that logging, and could you not have used the time for something more productive or less stressful?
rkagerer 6y ago
This looks fun. As a consultant I've gotten used to tracking my time when I'm "on the clock", and it's not nearly as onerous as you might think, once you get in the habit. It's cool that he used it as a technique to "keep himself honest" about how he spends his time, and effect positive change (even gaming himself to skew his activities in the direction he desires). Not everyone needs or wants this degree of personal metrics. But after reading about this, I admit having some device that tracked this automatically (and actually worked) would be more valuable to me than toys like pedometers. I wonder if that's getting close to plausible? Some you can already infer from various sensors / devices (e.g. sleeping, walking, talking on the phone, even whether the call is with friends/coworkers/clients). More might be learnable through AI (maybe analyzing audio / video feeds in a privacy-preserving manner)?
- judge2020 6y ago
  > I wonder if that's getting close to plausible? Apple's screen time is on Macs (starting with Catalina) which is probably enough for most people.
giantg2 6y ago
Bodily function = masturbation? It had to be asked lol
altrunox 6y ago
Well, that is impressive, this year I decided to track some daily data, but much more simple than this. It's pretty much a Yes/No activity X in that day, besides my weight, which is the exact number. I'm also using Google Sheet and I'm quite curious if I will be able to keep doing it until the end of the year.
davchana 6y ago
I too did this in 2016, for about 3-4 months. Mine was a single excel sheet, 30 minutes each. S for Sleeping, W for Work, D Drive, F Food eating & cooking, N for Bathing Cleaning etc, F for Fun, W for Time Waste. Simple conditional formatting. Last column counted the Ws Fs Ns & all. Next Sheet had some bar charts. My job was in Excel, so it was easy to log data. I used to use an A6 size simple printout to mark things. It was fun while it lasted, but I thought it was too much work. Now, as I learnt Google Apps Script, can use a simple HTML app, with GAS to easily log the hours or time slots.
chris_wot 6y ago
Makes me wonder how many days he had cumulatively recording this data...
wingerlang 6y ago
If you spend most of your time on a computer you could use “Timing 2”. I’ve got down to the second tracking of exactly what I did during my last job for around two years. Easy to sort by work-vs-fun. If I had used it on my personal laptop I’d have near 90% coverage of my life. Then tracking the rest would require less manual effort. Probably could semi-automate that too by building an app that polls you every 15m with a few quick-add entries. I can’t imagine doing this manually in a spreadsheet.
sneak 6y ago
It's terrifying to me that people are willing to store such insanely personal data unencrypted with organizations who, by law, are not permitted to keep it private.
amirmaleki 6y ago
I just did this on paper for like 2 years. I like the sense of logging it, it just steer me in the right direction. And I'm fascinated how doing that digitally helps getting wonderful insights!
WeekSpeller 6y ago
Most of the procrastination is on Wednesday. Do you work on weekends and take a day off on Wednesdays?
justinlloyd 6y ago
An interesting self experiment in monitoring what you do. My own experiments in this regard gather around more visual capture of data rather than manually recording the data. I use a piece of software to capture an image of the desktop (and which application is in focus) on all of the computers I use (laptops, workstation, kitchen computer) every few seconds. And I have number of 4K cameras setup in my office -- 12 split between office and server closet -- and two Kinects, and in my workshop, six more cameras, hooked up to a microcomputer that captures an image from each camera at a regular interval and stores it on the server. I haven't done anything interesting with the data yet, beyond running basic "is someone in the office and should I capture that" detection. I've got a few years of data captured at this point. Most of it boring, that consists of me staring thoughtfully at video screen, slouch in my chair playing a game, or napping on the floor.
kliments 6y ago
As someone who loves data and its interpretation, I enjoyed your colorful graphs a lot! Pretty cool to see life analyzed through data points.
AlekseyKozin 6y ago
I enjoyed reading your article. And myself what to start track some parameter. I'm thinking of "lines added into git", and make from them a little game eg draw a chart on a fridge.
vietvu 6y ago
I tried to do this but every 2 hours, or using wakatime for IDE. But even that seems too much and I dropped after about 3 months. 15 minutes? The author must be really disciplined, also the logging process must be short and efficient.
- deleted 6y ago
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Jasp3r 6y ago
The fact that you logged 395 days in a year invalidates your entire dataset.
HeavyStorm 6y ago
Interesting. He was breaking his concentration every 15 minutes. Can only imagine how much he got done the whole year...
sacman08 6y ago
Three things I always ask myself about any task: What am I doing that should not be done at all? What am I doing that someone else could do? What can only be done by me? Then do only things I can do.
OJFord 6y ago
Should 'travel' really be a category? Won't 'time spent in buses/cars/planes etc', unless driving them, always also be time spent 'idle', 'procrastinating', 'culture>books', or one of the others? This sort of thing is what always stops me or is the problem I hit in categorising anything. Labels/tags are the usual solution, but that doesn't really work in this case, since you can't then say how you spent your time using a 365 days per 360 degree pie chart or whatever.
- AriseAndPass 6y ago
  She did actually use tags, not mutually exclusive categories: > Another cool feature of the way I was logging my data was that I could log more than one activity into a single time slot (walking and listening to a podcast is a classic). This means that the total time spent on all activities sums up to more than 365 days - you can see this as 'extra days' on the plot above. Turns out that this year, I had 395 surplus hours or 16.5 surplus days. I hope I didn't spend them on human function.
bilekas 6y ago
Only 5.3 days procrastinating ??? I would call this fake news, but then again, you did just create an activity tracker so.. I'm jealous.
mike_mg 6y ago
My wife has made tool for doing this on your IPhone. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/take-control/id1499424011 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/take-control/id1499424011 + it is completely free, no ads, no nothing paid, not snooping your data + you don't have to unlock your phone - you can just type what you are doing inside the notification itself / choose from list of your usual activities
- platetone 6y ago
  cool name i've never seen before... currently struggling to come with a new baby girl name. might bring this one up. :)
- kashura 6y ago
  That smiley after "currently" makes me really uneasy...
  - mike_mg 6y ago
    Thanks! Removed. What I meant by that is "maybe we will add donate button in the future"
alexcostariha 6y ago
There was such a Russian scientist, biologist - Lyubishchev A.A. 1890-1972 y. He counted his personal time since the age of 25 years and all the rest life. About his system wrote russian writer Daniil Granin "A strange life".
chaoticmass 6y ago
I am reminded of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shields_(diarist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shields_(diarist) Robert Shields was best known for writing a diary of 37.5 million words, which chronicled every five minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997.
Too 6y ago
Any details on why reading blogs give +2 points while procrastination gives -4. Maybe it's just me but reading blogs is one of my biggest source of procrastination.
hawktheslayer 6y ago
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.
miguelrochefort 6y ago
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.
- Lightbody 6y ago
  Shameless plug for those interested in time blocking: my startup, reclaim.ai, offers Google Calendar time blocking for recurring events (Habits) and todos (Tasks), as well as some other calendar power features. What's extra cool is we manage the free/busy time based on how much your schedule fills up, providing a bit more flexibility over static time blocking.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  How do you deal with project deadlines?
- karmelapple 6y ago
  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.
- sxg 6y ago
  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.
- 6y ago
luxurytent 6y ago
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 6y ago
  The problem is when you have multiple children spaced over a few years, you get a decade or more of time eaten up.
  - lb1lf 6y ago
    -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 6y ago
  > 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".
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    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.
haberman 6y ago
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.
- radley 6y ago
  I'm building an Apple app that does this and saves everything as a journal.
  - raunakdag 6y ago
    Do you have a waitlist? I want to sign up
    - radley 6y ago
      Wasn't planning on it. I'd be happy to email you when it launches. Please ping me here: radleymarx at gmail.
  - radley 6y ago
    If anyone is curious: https://radleymarx.com/work/time-journal https://radleymarx.com/work/time-journal
- IkmoIkmo 6y ago
  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.
matsemann 6y ago
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.
alextheparrot 6y ago
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.
lawn 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Stay in touch. I'm building an Apple app for that.
natdempk 6y ago
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.
msapaydin 6y ago
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.
newbie578 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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?
  - newbie578 6y ago
    The app is open in the background constantly, and you already have predefined the activities so you just press on it and that's it, it literally takes a second. As for the sanity of it, it just becomes a habit like any other, e.g. you check for your keys when leaving your house, you just also check on the app the correct activity.
nyxtom 6y ago
The GitHub-esc point system grid is a great brain hack. Really like this system
pmyteh 6y ago
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 https://github.com/tagtime/TagTime
- tra3 6y ago
  I tried running it a couple of years ago, no luck. I can't recall what the problem was. Is it actually functional?
  - pmyteh 6y ago
    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.
    - wngr 6y ago
      Yeah, the Android app is also quite dated, but functional.
- zufallsheld 6y ago
  Does anyone know of a similar tool for windows?
  - smitop 6y ago
    Here's a list of implementations: http://doc.beeminder.com/tagtime http://doc.beeminder.com/tagtime (I also wrote a web implementation: https://ttw.smitop.com/ https://ttw.smitop.com/)
- gibrown 6y ago
nyxtom 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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 6y ago
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.
Donckele 6y ago
All activities? anyone know what the limits were?
xkeysc0re 6y ago
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
- const_HNBurner 6y ago
  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.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  > 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.
  - mlady 6y ago
    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.
ketanmaheshwari 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Not quite the world's largest supercomputer, huh?
  - remirk 6y ago
    'The world' is relative. My world is different than yours.
    - ketanmaheshwari 6y ago
      I was talking about Summit[1]. Now the second largest. [1] https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute-systems/summit https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute-systems/sum...
      - appletrotter 6y ago
        I only meant to joke. Very cool that you get to work with such a machine!
makach 6y ago
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!
polote 6y ago
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 https://blog.luap.info/how-i-track-my-life.html
- barrucadu 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    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
barrucadu 6y ago
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 6y ago
  Do you use an app for this, or do you just use the timer?
  - barrucadu 6y ago
    I'm manually noting down durations in timedot format (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#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.
    - 6equj5 6y ago
Draiken 6y ago
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.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  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.
- maria_weber23 6y ago
  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.
- dtran 6y ago
  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.
guessmyname 6y ago
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/ https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/kp3fcn/a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/kp3fcn/a/
- gbrindisi 6y ago
  I am curious, can you share the reddit post?
- saberience 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    > 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”.
tus88 6y ago
Where are all the lawyer jokes?
germanka 6y ago
Lots of work btw...
deleted 6y ago
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WClayFerguson 6y ago
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.
poulsbohemian 6y ago
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.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  I always find it humorous how many on HN bemoan things like Scrum and PMs and project plans and micromanagement...yet posts like these are so popular.
- baby 6y ago
  So the lesson is to offer days/weeks, not hours or minutes, of work?
lma21 6y ago
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?
bobbydreamer 6y ago
This person does it differently. He takes pic of everything timed https://kaielvin.org/tl/t=1585396555000000 https://kaielvin.org/tl/t=1585396555000000
- yolo4554 6y ago
  Interesting...I want to point out that this person is recording everything (NSFW) and also has 'theories' about consciousness that remind me of something from a spun-out acid trip. I don't mean to be rude to anyone, but I definitely think that anyone interested in tracking everything in this sort of fashion should seriously consider their motivations. Why do you want this data? How do you separate public/private data? Knowledge is power and with power comes great responsibility and all that.
- lurker619 6y ago
  Really neat timeline. What type of software is this running?

690 points by HuangYuSan 6y ago

Thanks for sharing this! I love the technique. I'm going to try it out and see for myself.

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)).

clockman 6y ago

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.

veddox 6y ago

> 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 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465056

5tefan 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago
  exactly this!

sabellito 6y ago

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 6y ago
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!
- sabellito 6y ago
  Ah that makes sense, thanks for clarifying!

kingaillas 6y ago

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.

axetheone 6y ago

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.

ThinkBeat 6y ago

> 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.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Also sex. It is not mentioned in the schedule. Under socialising?

tpoacher 6y ago

Ah, the lengths PhD people will go to to avoid doing their thesis... ah, the memories :)

l33tbro 6y ago

"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

syndacks 6y ago
We still very much live in a Foucauldian world: - we're constantly surveilled (school, jobs, gov't) and mostly we willingly submit to this - r.e. "21st century is no longer a disciplinary society", yes it is, see my point above. we (they?) just succeeded in making the discipline less overt, more complicit. we don't need jails anymore we just need smartphones (see Social Dilemma) - that list is not one of an "achievement society", rather, one of a consumption society lubricated by surveillance (masquerading as individualism, success etc) Oui very much live in a Foucauldian world!
- l33tbro 6y ago
  You've missed the point - which is often the problem with posting quotes. I agree that we still live in a Foucauldian world and that many of those factors remain. But what Han is getting at (and his broader thesis in 'The Burnout Society') is that a new series of societal dynamics have propogated from the modern citizen's raison d'etre of serving one's own aspiration, rather than that of the collective. In Han's view, we live in a society where the Other is disappearing. This, in turn, creates all kinds of mental artifacts that hinder our overall experience and well-being.
  - syndacks 6y ago
    Hey br0, appreciate the thoughtful response. > a new series of societal dynamics have propogated from the modern citizen's raison d'etre of serving one's own aspiration, rather than that of the collective. Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying in my points (if you exclude the 'discipline' part of them). Not sure I agree with Han's lack of The Other...see American politics, European politics but hey I guess I have to read the Burnout Society (thanks for rec) and debate ole Han, not you.

TrackerFF 6y ago

I'm not sure how much alcohol you drink - could be one beer / glass of wine / drink, or it could be multiple units - but for your health, I'd recommend that you take a 3 day break between intake. Drinking for 3-7 consecutive days, is not good for your liver, even in smaller quantities.

istorical 6y ago
where is the threshold of # of drinks in a day where daily drinking begins to adversely affect liver? I thought a glass of wine a day was considered neutral or positive, so how many glasses of wine is unehealthy for 3-7 consecutive days?
- eightails 6y ago
  I was somewhat curious too, and from a brief search found a 2004 paper that calculated roughly 1 standard drink/day for women and 2 for men as the limit before you start increasing risk of adverse effects. I haven't looked at the full text though. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091743503003256 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00917...
- deleted 6y ago
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- dionidium 6y ago
  You can find lots of articles online that dismiss the impacts of regularly drinking small amounts, but I think it's worth considering that the science on this is incomplete and more recent studies seem to be less optimistic about this. See, for example: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323252#Even-light-drinking-heightens-death-risk https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323252#Even-light-... Or: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-facts https://www.vox.com/2018/4/24/17242720/alcohol-health-risks-...
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2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

jjice 6y ago

I always liked logging my actions to see what's really going on. I think the most common one I do every few months is tracking my diet for a few days to see what bad habits I've picked up and where I need to improve. The first time I did it I realized by protein intake was way too low and that's why I wasn't seeing improvements in working out. It also enlightens me into how sodium filled so much of the food I'm eating is and helps me plan around those. Same goes with tracking time spent on "human function" as the author described it. While I intentionally try not to be super anal about how much time I spent on certain activities, I think it's almost like a game to make the boring stuff as efficient as possible. As I've added more steps to my daily routines, I've also found ways to keep my time spent reasonable and make certain things asynchronous. Perfect simple example is doing the dishes during idle cooking time. My roommates don't do this and it boggles me. Also, making those boring moments more exciting is always a plus. Music or a podcast in the shower and kitchen goes a long way, at least for me.

bpcpdx 6y ago

Had to do this as a job site. Something to do with accounting. It was terrible, it felt like I had to justify being there in 15 min intervals. Thank god I was only there for a few days.

heikkilevanto 6y ago

So, how long did you spend on all that logging, and could you not have used the time for something more productive or less stressful?

rkagerer 6y ago

This looks fun. As a consultant I've gotten used to tracking my time when I'm "on the clock", and it's not nearly as onerous as you might think, once you get in the habit. It's cool that he used it as a technique to "keep himself honest" about how he spends his time, and effect positive change (even gaming himself to skew his activities in the direction he desires). Not everyone needs or wants this degree of personal metrics. But after reading about this, I admit having some device that tracked this automatically (and actually worked) would be more valuable to me than toys like pedometers. I wonder if that's getting close to plausible? Some you can already infer from various sensors / devices (e.g. sleeping, walking, talking on the phone, even whether the call is with friends/coworkers/clients). More might be learnable through AI (maybe analyzing audio / video feeds in a privacy-preserving manner)?

judge2020 6y ago
> I wonder if that's getting close to plausible? Apple's screen time is on Macs (starting with Catalina) which is probably enough for most people.

giantg2 6y ago

Bodily function = masturbation? It had to be asked lol

altrunox 6y ago

Well, that is impressive, this year I decided to track some daily data, but much more simple than this. It's pretty much a Yes/No activity X in that day, besides my weight, which is the exact number. I'm also using Google Sheet and I'm quite curious if I will be able to keep doing it until the end of the year.

davchana 6y ago

I too did this in 2016, for about 3-4 months. Mine was a single excel sheet, 30 minutes each. S for Sleeping, W for Work, D Drive, F Food eating & cooking, N for Bathing Cleaning etc, F for Fun, W for Time Waste. Simple conditional formatting. Last column counted the Ws Fs Ns & all. Next Sheet had some bar charts. My job was in Excel, so it was easy to log data. I used to use an A6 size simple printout to mark things. It was fun while it lasted, but I thought it was too much work. Now, as I learnt Google Apps Script, can use a simple HTML app, with GAS to easily log the hours or time slots.

chris_wot 6y ago

Makes me wonder how many days he had cumulatively recording this data...

wingerlang 6y ago

If you spend most of your time on a computer you could use “Timing 2”. I’ve got down to the second tracking of exactly what I did during my last job for around two years. Easy to sort by work-vs-fun. If I had used it on my personal laptop I’d have near 90% coverage of my life. Then tracking the rest would require less manual effort. Probably could semi-automate that too by building an app that polls you every 15m with a few quick-add entries. I can’t imagine doing this manually in a spreadsheet.

sneak 6y ago

It's terrifying to me that people are willing to store such insanely personal data unencrypted with organizations who, by law, are not permitted to keep it private.

amirmaleki 6y ago

I just did this on paper for like 2 years. I like the sense of logging it, it just steer me in the right direction. And I'm fascinated how doing that digitally helps getting wonderful insights!

WeekSpeller 6y ago

Most of the procrastination is on Wednesday. Do you work on weekends and take a day off on Wednesdays?

justinlloyd 6y ago

An interesting self experiment in monitoring what you do. My own experiments in this regard gather around more visual capture of data rather than manually recording the data. I use a piece of software to capture an image of the desktop (and which application is in focus) on all of the computers I use (laptops, workstation, kitchen computer) every few seconds. And I have number of 4K cameras setup in my office -- 12 split between office and server closet -- and two Kinects, and in my workshop, six more cameras, hooked up to a microcomputer that captures an image from each camera at a regular interval and stores it on the server. I haven't done anything interesting with the data yet, beyond running basic "is someone in the office and should I capture that" detection. I've got a few years of data captured at this point. Most of it boring, that consists of me staring thoughtfully at video screen, slouch in my chair playing a game, or napping on the floor.

kliments 6y ago

As someone who loves data and its interpretation, I enjoyed your colorful graphs a lot! Pretty cool to see life analyzed through data points.

AlekseyKozin 6y ago

I enjoyed reading your article. And myself what to start track some parameter. I'm thinking of "lines added into git", and make from them a little game eg draw a chart on a fridge.

vietvu 6y ago

I tried to do this but every 2 hours, or using wakatime for IDE. But even that seems too much and I dropped after about 3 months. 15 minutes? The author must be really disciplined, also the logging process must be short and efficient.

deleted 6y ago
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Jasp3r 6y ago

The fact that you logged 395 days in a year invalidates your entire dataset.

HeavyStorm 6y ago

Interesting. He was breaking his concentration every 15 minutes. Can only imagine how much he got done the whole year...

sacman08 6y ago

Three things I always ask myself about any task: What am I doing that should not be done at all? What am I doing that someone else could do? What can only be done by me? Then do only things I can do.

OJFord 6y ago

Should 'travel' really be a category? Won't 'time spent in buses/cars/planes etc', unless driving them, always also be time spent 'idle', 'procrastinating', 'culture>books', or one of the others? This sort of thing is what always stops me or is the problem I hit in categorising anything. Labels/tags are the usual solution, but that doesn't really work in this case, since you can't then say how you spent your time using a 365 days per 360 degree pie chart or whatever.

AriseAndPass 6y ago
She did actually use tags, not mutually exclusive categories: > Another cool feature of the way I was logging my data was that I could log more than one activity into a single time slot (walking and listening to a podcast is a classic). This means that the total time spent on all activities sums up to more than 365 days - you can see this as 'extra days' on the plot above. Turns out that this year, I had 395 surplus hours or 16.5 surplus days. I hope I didn't spend them on human function.

bilekas 6y ago

Only 5.3 days procrastinating ??? I would call this fake news, but then again, you did just create an activity tracker so.. I'm jealous.

mike_mg 6y ago

My wife has made tool for doing this on your IPhone. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/take-control/id1499424011 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/take-control/id1499424011 + it is completely free, no ads, no nothing paid, not snooping your data + you don't have to unlock your phone - you can just type what you are doing inside the notification itself / choose from list of your usual activities

platetone 6y ago
cool name i've never seen before... currently struggling to come with a new baby girl name. might bring this one up. :)
kashura 6y ago
That smiley after "currently" makes me really uneasy...
- mike_mg 6y ago
  Thanks! Removed. What I meant by that is "maybe we will add donate button in the future"

alexcostariha 6y ago

There was such a Russian scientist, biologist - Lyubishchev A.A. 1890-1972 y. He counted his personal time since the age of 25 years and all the rest life. About his system wrote russian writer Daniil Granin "A strange life".

chaoticmass 6y ago

I am reminded of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shields_(diarist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shields_(diarist) Robert Shields was best known for writing a diary of 37.5 million words, which chronicled every five minutes of his life from 1972 until a stroke disabled him in 1997.

Too 6y ago

Any details on why reading blogs give +2 points while procrastination gives -4. Maybe it's just me but reading blogs is one of my biggest source of procrastination.

hawktheslayer 6y ago

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.

miguelrochefort 6y ago

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.

Lightbody 6y ago
Shameless plug for those interested in time blocking: my startup, reclaim.ai, offers Google Calendar time blocking for recurring events (Habits) and todos (Tasks), as well as some other calendar power features. What's extra cool is we manage the free/busy time based on how much your schedule fills up, providing a bit more flexibility over static time blocking.
rorykoehler 6y ago
How do you deal with project deadlines?
karmelapple 6y ago
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.
sxg 6y ago
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.
6y ago

luxurytent 6y ago

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 6y ago
The problem is when you have multiple children spaced over a few years, you get a decade or more of time eaten up.
- lb1lf 6y ago
  -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 6y ago
> 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".
- whatshisface 6y ago
  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.

haberman 6y ago

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.

radley 6y ago
I'm building an Apple app that does this and saves everything as a journal.
- raunakdag 6y ago
  Do you have a waitlist? I want to sign up
  - radley 6y ago
    Wasn't planning on it. I'd be happy to email you when it launches. Please ping me here: radleymarx at gmail.
- radley 6y ago
  If anyone is curious: https://radleymarx.com/work/time-journal https://radleymarx.com/work/time-journal
IkmoIkmo 6y ago
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.

matsemann 6y ago

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.

alextheparrot 6y ago

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.

lawn 6y ago

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 6y ago
Stay in touch. I'm building an Apple app for that.

natdempk 6y ago

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.

msapaydin 6y ago

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.

newbie578 6y ago

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 6y ago
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?
- newbie578 6y ago
  The app is open in the background constantly, and you already have predefined the activities so you just press on it and that's it, it literally takes a second. As for the sanity of it, it just becomes a habit like any other, e.g. you check for your keys when leaving your house, you just also check on the app the correct activity.

nyxtom 6y ago

The GitHub-esc point system grid is a great brain hack. Really like this system

pmyteh 6y ago

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 https://github.com/tagtime/TagTime

tra3 6y ago
I tried running it a couple of years ago, no luck. I can't recall what the problem was. Is it actually functional?
- pmyteh 6y ago
  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.
  - wngr 6y ago
    Yeah, the Android app is also quite dated, but functional.
zufallsheld 6y ago
Does anyone know of a similar tool for windows?
- smitop 6y ago
  Here's a list of implementations: http://doc.beeminder.com/tagtime http://doc.beeminder.com/tagtime (I also wrote a web implementation: https://ttw.smitop.com/ https://ttw.smitop.com/)
gibrown 6y ago

nyxtom 6y ago

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 6y ago
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 6y ago

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.

Donckele 6y ago

All activities? anyone know what the limits were?

xkeysc0re 6y ago

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

const_HNBurner 6y ago
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.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
> 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.
- mlady 6y ago
  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.

ketanmaheshwari 6y ago

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 6y ago
Not quite the world's largest supercomputer, huh?
- remirk 6y ago
  'The world' is relative. My world is different than yours.
  - ketanmaheshwari 6y ago
    I was talking about Summit[1]. Now the second largest. [1] https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute-systems/summit https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute-systems/sum...
    - appletrotter 6y ago
      I only meant to joke. Very cool that you get to work with such a machine!

makach 6y ago

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!

polote 6y ago

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 https://blog.luap.info/how-i-track-my-life.html

barrucadu 6y ago
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 6y ago
  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

barrucadu 6y ago

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 6y ago
Do you use an app for this, or do you just use the timer?
- barrucadu 6y ago
  I'm manually noting down durations in timedot format (https://hledger.org/hledger.html#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.
  - 6equj5 6y ago

Draiken 6y ago

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.

renewiltord 6y ago
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.
maria_weber23 6y ago
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.
dtran 6y ago
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.

guessmyname 6y ago

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/ https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/ [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/kp3fcn/a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/kp3fcn/a/

gbrindisi 6y ago
I am curious, can you share the reddit post?
saberience 6y ago
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 6y ago
  > 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”.

tus88 6y ago

Where are all the lawyer jokes?

germanka 6y ago

Lots of work btw...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

WClayFerguson 6y ago

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.

poulsbohemian 6y ago

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.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
I always find it humorous how many on HN bemoan things like Scrum and PMs and project plans and micromanagement...yet posts like these are so popular.
baby 6y ago
So the lesson is to offer days/weeks, not hours or minutes, of work?

lma21 6y ago

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?

bobbydreamer 6y ago

This person does it differently. He takes pic of everything timed https://kaielvin.org/tl/t=1585396555000000 https://kaielvin.org/tl/t=1585396555000000

yolo4554 6y ago
Interesting...I want to point out that this person is recording everything (NSFW) and also has 'theories' about consciousness that remind me of something from a spun-out acid trip. I don't mean to be rude to anyone, but I definitely think that anyone interested in tracking everything in this sort of fashion should seriously consider their motivations. Why do you want this data? How do you separate public/private data? Knowledge is power and with power comes great responsibility and all that.
lurker619 6y ago
Really neat timeline. What type of software is this running?