I have been tracking my (on a time tracking spreadsheet excel, like a nerd) since February 2024.
It's interesting! There's a lot of data (maybe?). There's a lot of time. I've done a lot of things with that time.
And yet it's started to feel like a chore. I don't wake up and do my time log like I used to. I don't think I'm learning anything from it at the moment. In fact, it's often making me feel like I have abundant time and non abundant energy or ability or logistical opportunity.
A young colleague of mine said she didn't understand how I possibly did "everything" - meaning having a job and young 4 kids. I told her that my job is only 32 hours a week and there are 24 hours in a day so really my job is basically 1 and a half days a week... barely any time at all.
I do genuinely feel that way.... but I'm not sure it's great for me to be so unaligned from the common perceptions of work/life balance.
I stopped filling out my line a day journal about two months ago, when I decided I didn't want to relive the last 4 years of autumn sickness and newborn times and covid lockdowns.
To quote Spinal Tap... "Too much ****** Perspective"
Anyways there are things I still want to track. I've been tracking my cycles and it's kind of fascinating and somewhat helpful for understanding how I wildly swing from feeling like the coolest human ever to being the most neurotic human ever.
I've been tracking some habits too
I have a goal to do 100 strength work outs this year. The Half Marathon training really dampened my strength training. I'm currently at 69 for the year. I'll have to do 3 strength workouts a week to get to 100, which doesn't seem impossible but does seem improbable. I may also need to look at Strava and see if I missed any workouts on my tracker.
I like seeing how when cardio goes up strength goes down, and knowing that I'm not doing nothing on my non strength days... I'm just not doing strength.
Randomly, without tracking, I started taking vitamins every day. I've been reading Next Level by Stacy Sims and it has some fascinating info on aging and nutrition and I decided I may as well try taking Creatine and Vitamin D and a multivitamin because it probably can hurt and if it helps with energy and brain fog then that's even better.
Have you ever trakced your time or your hobbies? How long did you do it for? Do you feel more limited by time or energy or logistics? Or all three?
Here's the deal: I just started tracking my time last week for the first time ever. I got the idea from a recent Best of Both Worlds episode. I never wanted to track my time before because I know that huge chunks of it go to things that I don't want to be doing, and I thought it would be depressing to see how much of my life that I'm wasting. Now that I'm going to be quitting work in two weeks, I thought that it would be interesting to see how bad it really is, and then once I get adjusted to my new life I can do another session of tracking to see how it's different.
ReplyDeleteI think your reasons for stepping away from tracking are valid and applicable to many other things in life: when it starts to feel like a chore and you're not learning anything, then it's time to take a break.
I used to track my time for work purposes and I think that was enough time tracking for a lifetime. But I have tried tracking habits a couple of times. I'm really bad at it, though.
ReplyDeleteI cannot properly convey how shocking I find your assessment of the amounf of time you devote to your work. One and a half days. That's.... mind boggling. I feel like that perspective opens up so much opportunity, and yet I have never once looked at a daily commitment like that. Wow. I am going to be thinking about that for a long time. I wonder if it can help shift some of my own thinking about time and how much I devote to things?