ME ME ME i type it in my notes talking about “i’ll write it down later” then forget to type it in my notes on the phone i use to procrastinate with icb
I love time tracking! Prob the best time I've done it is when we adopted two cats. It was so hard to work at home, I felt like I was being interrupted the whole day by these new kittens wanting attention. When I time tracked I was able to see their rhythms, too! Time tracking's also been really great for learning about my health issues. I learned when I ate sugar at breakfast, the whole afternoon would be a wash 'cause I'd have massive headaches.
I just got two new kittens, and I feel the same - feeding, poop-scooping and just hanging out with them is taking up so much of my day! 😂I think I'll start tracking my time on Monday and see if I can get more efficient!
Try to start your day with veggies and/or eggs… check out the lady “glucose goddess”… sugar is the worst but you can eat it at the end of a meal if you must.
this is actually more or less how I've been using my planning system! I have a "plan what I want to happen this week/how I want this week to happen" planner in my jibun techo and then in my hobonichi cousin I do more on-the-fly planning mixed with time tracking. when I hit a thirty-minute "block" I decide what that next thirty minutes is going to look like (working, cleaning, doing a care block of shower/brush teeth/etc., writing, journaling) and do that until either the task is done or I'm done doing the task. (I promise there's a difference lol) at that point, I note the time I stopped doing the task, pick my next thing, and do the same! I do struggle with time-blindness so this has been super helpful in getting me to figure out that oh, vacuuming really isn't that bad and it literally doesn't even take up a full thirty-minute block in my planner when I do it. I can even reasonably do it between tasks and not bother noting it beyond just "this was the day I vacuumed" so I know when it happened last. It's a neat system for me, although next year I'm definitely getting the hobonichi avec to make the dual-book system be actually wieldy.
Just found you yesterday and my time management is nonexistent. Pretty embarrassing with so much to do. Last week I missed 2 doctor appts, my therapist, and one for mom. Can’t do that! Tracking my time will be a good place to start. ADHD is a bear! Jan in Oklahoma
I used to do this for years to track what I did as a pc repair person, and I usually included my off-time as well to keep the habit going consistently. I feel like it helped me a lot with keeping motivated. I still suck at using a planner to “plan my time”, but I do ok with having lists of “must do” and “should do” as long as no more than 2 “must do” items a day.
I know you said you didn’t want to show us your apple calendar because it was trashed, but it would be really helpful if we could see how you actually input your time tracking digitally. I go back and try to backfill my planner at the end of the day or even throughout the day to see what I did at what times to keep up with some time tracking but I am super inspired by this and would love to try this. I could really use some guidance on how to track down to the micro using the phone. Thanks so much!
I love this and I'm most definitely gonna start tracking my time. I've been feeling guilty about the time I spent on my phone scrolling away while there are a thousand of more urgent things to do. I don't allow myself to play games or go out with friends because of my endless academic to-do list, but I recently realized I could've been doing everything if I just cut down my social media time and start being more productive. This seems like the perfect first step towards improvement and something I would enjoy to do. Subscribed.
Only 1.5 min in and I really really appreciate you explicitly saying that it's easier to track digitally. It makes me feel like I can trust you to be thorough and honest for the rest of the video. Blessssssssssssss.
I think it's weird to talk about chronic procrastination without mentioning the fact that a lot of people who have it just have ADHD, whether it's diagnosed or not. I didn't know I had it until literally 2 months ago and now I'm trying to fix what I thought was normal. I'm actually scared of schedules because of trauma and constantly disappointing everyone in my life. I dropped out of uni cuz I didn't even notice that procrastination was one of the main issues that caused me not to study on time for exams (and also lose interest in the field I used to study).
This is such a valuable point! I think chronic procrastination can come from a lot of mental illnesses, diagnosed and undiagnosed, as well as environmental factors and stressors. For me, I def feel like it comes from a combination of all those. I’ve made other vids on my channel about mental health & planning to talk a little more about this :)
I don't have ADHD but I have CPTSD and I'm on the spectrum of autism. I am a chronic procrastinator but for different reasons than those of ADHD, the bad result stays the same though.
"scared of schedules... disappointing everyone" I hear this and "but I shouldn't _need_ an alarm" from folks who never had a corporate job. Calendars, schedules, and timelines change constantly, so instead of being "written in stone" they're written in tools that notify everyone of the inevitable changes so they can adapt. You can't distinguish NT from NNT when everyone is a cyborg, and those tools are freely available, in your hand, wherever you go, for the first time in human history. First step is to acknowledge how many presumed neurotypical people need them, and that it isn't some kind of cheat that means you're broken.
Honestly the 2.5 hours on social media sounds so low to me :( I don’t even want to check what mine looks like. Definitely a wake up call to do this for myself.
This was really enlightening! I use an app on my PC called timebro to track everything I do when I’m sitting at my desk, but sometimes the time it takes to get there and ready for work is very, very much longer than it should be! I was diagnosed with ADHD late last year, and medications do not help with transitioning between activities or time blindness! You’ve pushed me to download a free time tracking app for my phone (I got the free version of clockify), and starting right now I’m using it to see where all the rest of my time goes! By the way, I like your pencil-and-notebook approach but I find digital tools a lot easier to consistently keep updated and with notifications, a lot harder to ignore 😅
Get out of my brain! 😬 I just did this, too! Exact same colors. My schedule shifted and i needed to know how much time is available for admin versus the old. And it confirmed that my old schedule had too much open time. The new one keeps me busy without getting "too much free time" boring.
I was using ATracker on my phone to track my time, because you can just tap a button on your Lock Screen to start tracking as new activity, so it minimises time and effort spent on the tracking. Also, all the categorisation and colour-coding is done once, on setting the activity buttons up. However, the difficulty with time tracking in this way is getting the accuracy, because it’s so easy to _forget_ to track a block of time and to leave a timer running. Maybe it would work better to do it in my calendar, manually, like you - it’s more visual and I can instantly see where I’ve left a gap and fill it in as I go along, before I forget what I was doing. I might try doing a couple of weeks the way you did it. After all, I’m already using the calendar regularly, both for my appointments and time-blocking.
It was nice to see some confirmation of the usefulness of tracking. I track my spending money. When I needed to reduce my weight, I also began by tracking my consumption of calories/kilojoules over a month: You may think you know what you eat. You might be right, but there might also be a couple of surprises leading to the result of just a minor adjustment of eating habits, instead of the big diet plan. I am going to try tracking my time also. Should be very interesting.
This video randomly popped on my home screen now (probably god knew I needed to hear this) but boy this is so effective and helpful. I really needed to understand this. My manager keeps saying I love working with data, and I am data-driven, but now I understand what she means. Thank you for bringing this to our lives. Sometimes I wonder how easily we underestimate the simplest things in life that could be actually effective for someone else
I can relate to using social media to distract yourself from work 😅 I'd love to see in the future how you implemented changes or how your week was modified by this insight! I definitely want to try tracking a couple of weeks too although I'm not gonna lie, I'm kinda scared of what the results could be lol I'm sure I'll feel called out with all the things I say I want to do in the week and then end up not doing... but I guess it would help with being more realistic and accurate when planning 🤔
Thank you for this very informative : Going to bed late and getting up is hard, we seem to have this creep where we are fine for a few months then suddenly we putting the snooze button on binge watching things on net-flicks and the curse of the smartphone is another issue entirely. (I had to remove all games and social media from my phone, even youtube as I would just waste 3-4 hours a day not including dead space in the day I couldn't actually work out what I was doing. I actually now have 3 programs I set to watch on YT now, I try to get up at 6am to leave at 7.30 to walk & Gymn, then depending on clients I either plan/write/study/Journal in a Cafe (not at home) have a meeting then see clients until 5.30pm
I've done this several time in spare cousin pages etc. And the results are usually unpleasant 😂😂😂😂 I mostly do it to see where I can carve out extra time and usually find I can't unless I can somehow clone myself. I highly recommend it though from time to time as you have suggested. I like how you did a few weeks to find a sort of average too! Doing it every 6 months or so seems like a good time for me as sometimes things change enough for me to squeeze a bit in here and there. I would say though, definitely reduce social media scrolling, but don't cut out the little moments of relaxation altogether. Sometimes you need to actively spend time relaxing and it isn't lazy if the rest of the time you are busy and industrious! Half an hour in bed here and there isn't the end of the world if you are recharging or simply thinking. We all definitely need to work out how to lose years of our life on negative social media though (youtube is always positive for me!!❤). Thanks for another lovely video!
It sounds fun, so I decided to try it!! The hardest part for me is putting all my activities in certain categories or exactly track everything since my ADHD brain often switches between tasks or do multitasking
I recommend it for a month maximum, because it can become tiring, time-blocking can also become exhausting after a few months, even if you're flexible with it, 1:15 yes that! EXACTLY THAT! even just looking at what I was most likely going to do during the week, tired me
I find the categories especially valuable. I time track once a year (I really struggle with time blindness so it helps me as an activity to do), but I've never put it into categories!
I so need to do this for a few weeks - just to get an better idea of where the time goes. I am in week two of trying some low key time tracking/flow method for my 9 to 5 because I really struggle estimating how long routine work tasks actually take me. I am pretty sure I too will be horrified by my "phone time" - games/scrolling/general spacing out. Loved this video!
Hi, I really enjoyed this break down and your analysis of "surprise" time spent as well as your goals to shift it. Here's my question? Have you been able to shift your time to align better with your goals (ie less social media, more space to enjoy time and be mindful). Wondering if it's worth it to take it a step further and think about WHY those chunks are being "time sucked" by those particular activities and how the habits can shift while still filling what your brain/body craves. For instance, time spent scrolling social media - perhaps disassociation from doing work, but maybe also just your brain needing a blank landing spot for a second before going to back into work-mode or shifting tasks. What else could be more beneficial (and not go off the rails time-wise) in those in-between moments but still give your brain a break? Same for staying in bed in the morning-maybe it's the body needing to ease into the day, or craves a quiet moment with your partner. You could A) mindset shift, just let it be and not feel guilty and make it part of "the plan" and then it becomes a lovely planned bit of your day-to-day or B) take those quiet moments in another space with a book or journal and leave the phone behind. I don't have any solutions or any opinion of right or wrong way to shift one's schedule and feel better about it. Honestly, I relate to ALL OF THIS, and just sort of working through the thoughts and ideas that came up while I watched the video and wondering if you've run into any of this and how you're feeling about your shift in hour consumption 3 months later. Thanks for making great videos! I find them very inspiring and motivating. Excuse me while I go jot this all down on my own time tracker haha.
Thanks, this really helped me, I have take control of my time and this was very inspiring. I am going to try time tracking now that I watched this video!!
I don’t know how to explain it but listening to you explain this just smoothed out a lot of my anxiety. Ahahha maybe it’s seeing people being organized
I do not really track my free time, but I do track how many hours I work on. my thesis or studying. This weekend I spent time playing Balders gate 3 with my husband. Plus a makeshift birthday for a friend, who did not want a 40th birthday. In Denmark you pay for your own birthday part dinner. Strange custom to this American.
Chronic Procrastinator Tracks Her Time! In this brave journey, follow along as a chronic procrastinator takes on the challenge of tracking her time to overcome procrastination and boost productivity. Embrace time awareness, setting goals, and holding yourself accountable. Don't miss this empowering transformation - it's time to conquer procrastination and create a life of purpose, accomplishment, and personal growth!
I love this video! I have done this in the past, but not for years. I think it would be very useful to do it again but what is stopping me is my full time job. I don’t want a written record of how much time I’m “working” that I’m not really working, haha. 😅 I do have a question for you though! I also spend a lot of time on social media, but a lot of my instagram time is posting/sharing content, not just mindlessly scrolling. And I do also feel like connecting with others is part of this “job” of being a UA-camr/content creator. Thoughts on how to break the two apart?
Love the video and the info, kinda turned off by your constant descending to "vocal fry" voice register in your voiceover. I think you are artificially holding a lower voice tone than your natural one, and that can't be good for your vocal cords, you should check that! Kudos for the great content
This reminds me of what happens when you create a budget for your money (planning) but then not actually tracking how it’s spent in real life (time tracking/audit)
color coding made me realize you can actually get stuff done in less time than expected i wanted to study 6+ hours every day like every study influencer literally but it made me very anxious so i decided to study whenever I felt like it and procrastinate whenever I want IF I track every block. I`ve been doing it about a month right now and it changed my life. Surprisingly I averaged at 25 - 30 hours a week of studying a week (less then I originally planned but I was focused and motivated). Made me feel so much better and less stressed. Had more time to cook and workout. Actually didn`t miss a deadline. My grades even went up. 10/10 experience.
As a person who is neuro divergent, I really appreciate this. I will give this a go. I bought myself a makselife planner at the beginning of this year and have yet to start using it. Partly bc I am recovering from breast cancer and partly due to a lack of executive function (ADHD). Now I have plenty of empty pages to go back to track how I am spending my time 😂😂 New sub!
I'm autistic and it's been a serious life saver. Don't give up if it doesn't make sense at first, believe in yourself and you'll find what works for you!!
I am so relieved to see someone who is also procrastinating during workday. Because I do it too, to similar extent, but often feel guilt or shame about it, even at times when there is not that much work. And also the comments section - not one single comment about it, nobody is shaming or accusing of time theft and I am so glad! Anyways, great video, very relatable.
I procrastinate at work as well, some days it feels like I get the work done in my last 30 minutes in the office. So, you are not alone… and I‘m still searching for the secret of the people who work consistent on their work day.
2 hours a day on social media seems like really good to me. My highest recorded screen time was like 12 hours. But I also just put on UA-cam and have it run in the background while I work or clean so I don’t always take screen time at face value. I’m definitely going to try this time tracking because I admit I do spend an obscene amount of time scrolling
This has inspired me to try some side by side time tracking. I rock dailies and I always put my daily schedule in my planner, but I’m gonna split it and try comparing my planned day versus my actual day to see HOW badly I’m not staying on task! Or how often I multitask versus truly focus.
In the 70s before there were so many nail colours to choose, I coloured my nails each a different clour with khaki pens (similar to highlighters). Once the nail dried a would just use a clear nail polish. I would also use the glitter in the clear nail polish.🎉
I’m scared to do this 😂 but I really appreciate this video, and definitely need to get a grip on reality and map out how I’m using/wasting my time. Thank you as always, Rachelle!!! 💖✨
So this was the result of your time tracking but how did you actually track your time? Was there an app? Did you actually stop what you were doing to notate how much time you spent on it? It seems like a good idea but I have no idea how you actually kept track of your time
I guess my thought would just be: why is social media time “mindless” or not valuable? And I don’t mean that critically! I genuinely mean: just because something isn’t “productive” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value to your mental health. Obviously where you can identify time that you’re feeling stressed/need some more time for routines then yes that trade off is healthy, but I always want to gently push back on this idea that something has to be “immediately productive” to actually be beneficial to you. You can build/be part of online communities that help you support and foster interests, passively stay in touch with friends, and just decompress and enjoy laughs with “scrolling” and none of that is intrinsically “mindless”; it’s just a passive way to engage that gives your brain time to rest and reboot!
Very interesting! I also think that tracking (time, money, food... ) is something everyone should do, even just for a couple of weeks from time to time. It gives us awareness. ❤ P.s. I'm curious, is there a reason you call him "long term partner" and not just "partner"?
Hi Rachelle, your video was truly uplifting and relatable! It feels like you've uncovered a treasure map to better time management. Your openness certainly resonates and the courage to face the 'scrolling black holes' is inspiring. Love the content you produce.
This is such a comprehensive video, Thank you! I'm ashamed to admit that I tried doing this and failed miserably. My life is incredibly disorganized when it comes to managing time, which affected even my relationship with my wife for a while due to basically overworking and overstudying. Right now, I'm learning web development, working from home, and being an amateur powerlifting. I wonder how can I even start doing something like this to be more time-conscious and available socially. I would really appreciate your tips.
I would love to do this but just the thought of tracking it all and having to write things down that much gives me anxiety. Do you know of any apps that you can just click and assign times to things as you go and then it calculates everything for you? I do have my phone track my internet use and displays the average every Sunday and that’s helpful. Many thanks for sharing. ❤
There is an app called Timelines. You can customise it to whatever categories you want, make sub notes and colour code. You just have to remember to stop/start as you change tasks!
I see you recognize your social media time as potentially an opportunity for you to dissociate and then you attribute it to because you don't want to work. Is it possible that if you built in strategic moments of personal time that were intentional and helped you relax or transition to the next activity, that might be something that you appreciate more but still gives you that break? I'm coming at this for manura diversion perspective because it sounds like you have a lot of demands on your executive function skills and social media can be a way to relax from that and give that a rest. So if you're not a fan of your time there, it's still might be something for you too. More consciously incorporate as we aren't machines that can be 100% productive at all the time. (Also, as a note machines are really productive like 60% of the time because they break down and need maintenance and need updates and often experience hiccups and their performance. Just think of any printer. But yeah the point stands)
This is really cool! I’m a PhD student with freelance work and I always feel like I’m doing nothing somehow. Two questions: how did you track this? Eg did you set timers throughout the day or…? And second, do you think the act of tracking affected how you used your time at all? In the sense of the observers paradox?
Tracking stuff is tedious, it consumes spoons (energy, focus, executive function, allotted hours of tolerable-pain-levels per day, etc.) but it WORKS. It works with time, it works with money, it works with food, it works with physical activity. And doing any of these things will lead to slightly more informed intuition/gut feelings for each time you do it, so even if you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants in general (= value your freedom and autonomy highly), said flying will just get BETTER over time (= more congruent with your goals and values) if you take a deep breath and buckle down for a [pick a category]-tracking EXPERIMENT once in a while. Even 3 days at a time will help a bit. A week, better. A month, fantastic! (Framing these as "experiments" helps me personally to resist them less.)
I had to pause the video to comment on your commitment to getting out of bed immediately: It might sound like a great idea, but pay attention to how your body reacts. Some bodies just really need that chill after-alarm time to truly wake up. Sure, jumping right into social media might not be the best strategy here, but laying in bed after the alarm until you're ready to get up just might save you a lot of coffee and fuzzy-brain bumbling around. Took me some time to figure this out, but now that I've learned to recognize the feeling of my brain coming fully online, I get up pretty much ready for whatever and my life is a lot less miserable than it was when I was shaming myself for snoozing.
I’ve tracked my time before using Toggl. You’ve inspired me to do a new little self time study! Also, I recently picked up an undated Common Planner from your recommendation. Love it so far!
I'll do that for the next couple of weeks. I recently graduated, and since, my life is a mess with job hunting and all 😂 i think it would be cool to get back to a sort of structure!
I watched this a few months after it was posted BUT I would love to see a follow up and how you used what you learned, the changes you made or didn't make, etc. Thanks Rachelle!
Commenting before I even watch the full video, because I'm so excited to see another person talking about this! I'm in grad school, and have plenty of work, but struggle to get it all done because of the flexible schedule. Started time tracking in my Jibun Techo this year, and I love it, even though it sometimes feels overkill :p
This makes me think of how productive I used to be in a forced public school schedule and my planner. Now I make my own schedule and it’s messy and unproductive .
I track my time in reference to chronic illness. I keep track of things that take a lot of mental effort, physical effort (errands/cleaning), when I leave the house, and time spent in bed to track how much my illness is affecting functioning. I also track rest/hobby time, and sleep. I apply zero judgement or morality but I try to notice when I’m spending a lot of hours in a row on one category so that I can shift to another kind of activity. It keeps my illness from flaring too much when I don’t spend too much time in one area (for me I’ve noticed about 2 hours is when I should shift). Just brings a general awareness and it’s been good so far.
i would procrastinate tracking my time 💀 "i'll write it down later"
Nooooo 🥲🥲
Don't give me ideas
@@ya__basic lol accurate 😅
ME ME ME i type it in my notes talking about “i’ll write it down later” then forget to type it in my notes on the phone i use to procrastinate with icb
100% this is what happens to me every time I try to do anything like this
I confess it's terrifying to think about it, but the last time I time tracked it made me realize how little actual time I have.
It really is the MOST precious resource
I love time tracking! Prob the best time I've done it is when we adopted two cats. It was so hard to work at home, I felt like I was being interrupted the whole day by these new kittens wanting attention. When I time tracked I was able to see their rhythms, too! Time tracking's also been really great for learning about my health issues. I learned when I ate sugar at breakfast, the whole afternoon would be a wash 'cause I'd have massive headaches.
I just got two new kittens, and I feel the same - feeding, poop-scooping and just hanging out with them is taking up so much of my day! 😂I think I'll start tracking my time on Monday and see if I can get more efficient!
Try to start your day with veggies and/or eggs… check out the lady “glucose goddess”… sugar is the worst but you can eat it at the end of a meal if you must.
this is actually more or less how I've been using my planning system! I have a "plan what I want to happen this week/how I want this week to happen" planner in my jibun techo and then in my hobonichi cousin I do more on-the-fly planning mixed with time tracking. when I hit a thirty-minute "block" I decide what that next thirty minutes is going to look like (working, cleaning, doing a care block of shower/brush teeth/etc., writing, journaling) and do that until either the task is done or I'm done doing the task. (I promise there's a difference lol) at that point, I note the time I stopped doing the task, pick my next thing, and do the same! I do struggle with time-blindness so this has been super helpful in getting me to figure out that oh, vacuuming really isn't that bad and it literally doesn't even take up a full thirty-minute block in my planner when I do it. I can even reasonably do it between tasks and not bother noting it beyond just "this was the day I vacuumed" so I know when it happened last. It's a neat system for me, although next year I'm definitely getting the hobonichi avec to make the dual-book system be actually wieldy.
Just found you yesterday and my time management is nonexistent. Pretty embarrassing with so much to do. Last week I missed 2 doctor appts, my therapist, and one for mom. Can’t do that!
Tracking my time will be a good place to start. ADHD is a bear!
Jan in Oklahoma
I used to do this for years to track what I did as a pc repair person, and I usually included my off-time as well to keep the habit going consistently. I feel like it helped me a lot with keeping motivated. I still suck at using a planner to “plan my time”, but I do ok with having lists of “must do” and “should do” as long as no more than 2 “must do” items a day.
I've been time-tracking using a color-coding system, too. Tracking my procrastination time has been really alarming lol
i procrastinate so much, i'mma for sure even procrastinate tracking it...
I know you said you didn’t want to show us your apple calendar because it was trashed, but it would be really helpful if we could see how you actually input your time tracking digitally. I go back and try to backfill my planner at the end of the day or even throughout the day to see what I did at what times to keep up with some time tracking but I am super inspired by this and would love to try this. I could really use some guidance on how to track down to the micro using the phone. Thanks so much!
I love this and I'm most definitely gonna start tracking my time. I've been feeling guilty about the time I spent on my phone scrolling away while there are a thousand of more urgent things to do. I don't allow myself to play games or go out with friends because of my endless academic to-do list, but I recently realized I could've been doing everything if I just cut down my social media time and start being more productive. This seems like the perfect first step towards improvement and something I would enjoy to do. Subscribed.
Only 1.5 min in and I really really appreciate you explicitly saying that it's easier to track digitally. It makes me feel like I can trust you to be thorough and honest for the rest of the video. Blessssssssssssss.
😂I read the title and thought this is a brilliant idea I have to watch this video and then I put it on my watch later list😆
Make sure to track watching it when you track your time lol 😭
I think it's weird to talk about chronic procrastination without mentioning the fact that a lot of people who have it just have ADHD, whether it's diagnosed or not. I didn't know I had it until literally 2 months ago and now I'm trying to fix what I thought was normal. I'm actually scared of schedules because of trauma and constantly disappointing everyone in my life. I dropped out of uni cuz I didn't even notice that procrastination was one of the main issues that caused me not to study on time for exams (and also lose interest in the field I used to study).
This is such a valuable point! I think chronic procrastination can come from a lot of mental illnesses, diagnosed and undiagnosed, as well as environmental factors and stressors. For me, I def feel like it comes from a combination of all those. I’ve made other vids on my channel about mental health & planning to talk a little more about this :)
I don't have ADHD but I have CPTSD and I'm on the spectrum of autism. I am a chronic procrastinator but for different reasons than those of ADHD, the bad result stays the same though.
"scared of schedules... disappointing everyone" I hear this and "but I shouldn't _need_ an alarm" from folks who never had a corporate job. Calendars, schedules, and timelines change constantly, so instead of being "written in stone" they're written in tools that notify everyone of the inevitable changes so they can adapt. You can't distinguish NT from NNT when everyone is a cyborg, and those tools are freely available, in your hand, wherever you go, for the first time in human history. First step is to acknowledge how many presumed neurotypical people need them, and that it isn't some kind of cheat that means you're broken.
Honestly the 2.5 hours on social media sounds so low to me :( I don’t even want to check what mine looks like. Definitely a wake up call to do this for myself.
This was really enlightening! I use an app on my PC called timebro to track everything I do when I’m sitting at my desk, but sometimes the time it takes to get there and ready for work is very, very much longer than it should be! I was diagnosed with ADHD late last year, and medications do not help with transitioning between activities or time blindness! You’ve pushed me to download a free time tracking app for my phone (I got the free version of clockify), and starting right now I’m using it to see where all the rest of my time goes!
By the way, I like your pencil-and-notebook approach but I find digital tools a lot easier to consistently keep updated and with notifications, a lot harder to ignore 😅
Get out of my brain! 😬 I just did this, too! Exact same colors. My schedule shifted and i needed to know how much time is available for admin versus the old. And it confirmed that my old schedule had too much open time. The new one keeps me busy without getting "too much free time" boring.
EXACT SAME COLOR. We are synced 👯♀️
I was using ATracker on my phone to track my time, because you can just tap a button on your Lock Screen to start tracking as new activity, so it minimises time and effort spent on the tracking. Also, all the categorisation and colour-coding is done once, on setting the activity buttons up.
However, the difficulty with time tracking in this way is getting the accuracy, because it’s so easy to _forget_ to track a block of time and to leave a timer running. Maybe it would work better to do it in my calendar, manually, like you - it’s more visual and I can instantly see where I’ve left a gap and fill it in as I go along, before I forget what I was doing. I might try doing a couple of weeks the way you did it. After all, I’m already using the calendar regularly, both for my appointments and time-blocking.
It was nice to see some confirmation of the usefulness of tracking. I track my spending money. When I needed to reduce my weight, I also began by tracking my consumption of calories/kilojoules over a month: You may think you know what you eat. You might be right, but there might also be a couple of surprises leading to the result of just a minor adjustment of eating habits, instead of the big diet plan.
I am going to try tracking my time also. Should be very interesting.
This video randomly popped on my home screen now (probably god knew I needed to hear this) but boy this is so effective and helpful. I really needed to understand this. My manager keeps saying I love working with data, and I am data-driven, but now I understand what she means. Thank you for bringing this to our lives. Sometimes I wonder how easily we underestimate the simplest things in life that could be actually effective for someone else
I can relate to using social media to distract yourself from work 😅 I'd love to see in the future how you implemented changes or how your week was modified by this insight!
I definitely want to try tracking a couple of weeks too although I'm not gonna lie, I'm kinda scared of what the results could be lol I'm sure I'll feel called out with all the things I say I want to do in the week and then end up not doing... but I guess it would help with being more realistic and accurate when planning 🤔
Thank you for this very informative : Going to bed late and getting up is hard, we seem to have this creep where we are fine for a few months then suddenly we putting the snooze button on binge watching things on net-flicks and the curse of the smartphone is another issue entirely. (I had to remove all games and social media from my phone, even youtube as I would just waste 3-4 hours a day not including dead space in the day I couldn't actually work out what I was doing. I actually now have 3 programs I set to watch on YT now, I try to get up at 6am to leave at 7.30 to walk & Gymn, then depending on clients I either plan/write/study/Journal in a Cafe (not at home) have a meeting then see clients until 5.30pm
I've done this several time in spare cousin pages etc. And the results are usually unpleasant 😂😂😂😂 I mostly do it to see where I can carve out extra time and usually find I can't unless I can somehow clone myself. I highly recommend it though from time to time as you have suggested. I like how you did a few weeks to find a sort of average too! Doing it every 6 months or so seems like a good time for me as sometimes things change enough for me to squeeze a bit in here and there. I would say though, definitely reduce social media scrolling, but don't cut out the little moments of relaxation altogether. Sometimes you need to actively spend time relaxing and it isn't lazy if the rest of the time you are busy and industrious! Half an hour in bed here and there isn't the end of the world if you are recharging or simply thinking. We all definitely need to work out how to lose years of our life on negative social media though (youtube is always positive for me!!❤). Thanks for another lovely video!
It sounds fun, so I decided to try it!! The hardest part for me is putting all my activities in certain categories or exactly track everything since my ADHD brain often switches between tasks or do multitasking
I was procrastinating watching this video
🫡
I recommend it for a month maximum, because it can become tiring, time-blocking can also become exhausting after a few months, even if you're flexible with it, 1:15 yes that! EXACTLY THAT! even just looking at what I was most likely going to do during the week, tired me
Ohhhh yes I so agree!
The title grabbed me because this is something I've ben thinking of doing! I'm going to start tomorrow!
I find the categories especially valuable. I time track once a year (I really struggle with time blindness so it helps me as an activity to do), but I've never put it into categories!
Once a year is a great schedule to do this on!
The eras tour nails love themm
i actually wanna try this, im so bad at even planning stuff so maybe this will help me learn to plan
I so need to do this for a few weeks - just to get an better idea of where the time goes. I am in week two of trying some low key time tracking/flow method for my 9 to 5 because I really struggle estimating how long routine work tasks actually take me. I am pretty sure I too will be horrified by my "phone time" - games/scrolling/general spacing out. Loved this video!
Hi, I really enjoyed this break down and your analysis of "surprise" time spent as well as your goals to shift it. Here's my question? Have you been able to shift your time to align better with your goals (ie less social media, more space to enjoy time and be mindful). Wondering if it's worth it to take it a step further and think about WHY those chunks are being "time sucked" by those particular activities and how the habits can shift while still filling what your brain/body craves. For instance, time spent scrolling social media - perhaps disassociation from doing work, but maybe also just your brain needing a blank landing spot for a second before going to back into work-mode or shifting tasks. What else could be more beneficial (and not go off the rails time-wise) in those in-between moments but still give your brain a break? Same for staying in bed in the morning-maybe it's the body needing to ease into the day, or craves a quiet moment with your partner. You could A) mindset shift, just let it be and not feel guilty and make it part of "the plan" and then it becomes a lovely planned bit of your day-to-day or B) take those quiet moments in another space with a book or journal and leave the phone behind. I don't have any solutions or any opinion of right or wrong way to shift one's schedule and feel better about it. Honestly, I relate to ALL OF THIS, and just sort of working through the thoughts and ideas that came up while I watched the video and wondering if you've run into any of this and how you're feeling about your shift in hour consumption 3 months later. Thanks for making great videos! I find them very inspiring and motivating. Excuse me while I go jot this all down on my own time tracker haha.
Thanks, this really helped me, I have take control of my time and this was very inspiring. I am going to try time tracking now that I watched this video!!
Currently procrastinating on a deadline, will do this instead
You do not need to track time, you need time limited tasks approunch. Choose imporatenat tasks noty like Did i do yoga today? What to buy? and so on.
I don’t know how to explain it but listening to you explain this just smoothed out a lot of my anxiety. Ahahha maybe it’s seeing people being organized
are you swiftie? your nail polish looks like the colors of a taylor album collection. very cutee! ✨
love the video and LOVE your TS eras nails ;)
Outlook in notebook. Nice :)
Imma just put this on „watch later“...
I'll stop procrastinating tomorrow 🥲😭
Best wishes from India 🇮🇳 ❤.
Hi! Nice swiftie nails ❤❤❤❤ greetings from Argentina ❤
I'm very afraid of how my planner would look like if I did that. And it wouldn't be accurate at all. I'm actually "working" right now lol
I do not really track my free time, but I do track how many hours I work on. my thesis or studying. This weekend I spent time playing Balders gate 3 with my husband. Plus a makeshift birthday for a friend, who did not want a 40th birthday. In Denmark you pay for your own birthday part dinner. Strange custom to this American.
What about cooking / meal prep? Do you cook at all?
Nope! I don’t do almost any of the cooking or meal prep in my household.
😍😍😍 never been so early
*added to watch later
*saves this to Watch Later*
Chronic Procrastinator Tracks Her Time! In this brave journey, follow along as a chronic procrastinator takes on the challenge of tracking her time to overcome procrastination and boost productivity. Embrace time awareness, setting goals, and holding yourself accountable. Don't miss this empowering transformation - it's time to conquer procrastination and create a life of purpose, accomplishment, and personal growth!
Tracking my time on youtube and IG.
I love this video! I have done this in the past, but not for years. I think it would be very useful to do it again but what is stopping me is my full time job. I don’t want a written record of how much time I’m “working” that I’m not really working, haha. 😅 I do have a question for you though! I also spend a lot of time on social media, but a lot of my instagram time is posting/sharing content, not just mindlessly scrolling. And I do also feel like connecting with others is part of this “job” of being a UA-camr/content creator. Thoughts on how to break the two apart?
I’ll watch this later…
How would you reliably track your time if you're a procrastinator?
This is the worst thing a procrastinator can try girl, its impossible
This was great! I'm glad you shared this! I'm going to do this now 😂 bye 👋🏻
Love the video and the info, kinda turned off by your constant descending to "vocal fry" voice register in your voiceover. I think you are artificially holding a lower voice tone than your natural one, and that can't be good for your vocal cords, you should check that! Kudos for the great content
Hi! I just found you👏👏👏👏. Can you do a video on your digital calendar? I’m using Apple too and I think it would help a lot of us 😊. Thank you.
You are talking so much about Tim to strangers, he should really put a ring on it.
In the olden days, this was called Time and Motion.
How did you use your calendar to track your activities?
The eras nails? ❤
Yes!! ✨💜🧣🕊🐍
What colors Pes do you use?
Does anyone recommend any free apps to do this? Something with colour coding feature would be helpful as well as something that has the stats
Those who are chronic procrastinater mostly are in depression what I have seen
New sub :) , like your video
Thanks for the sub!
I've time tracked for years and I hve to say it hasn't helped me at all 😂
offtopic, but I love your nails!
THANK YOU i did them myself 🤗
How many times can she say “my long term partner” or “my live-in partner”? We get it- ur in a relationship! 😂😂😂😂
It’s unclear, she may have a live in partner.
I dunno... might be a long term partner but that's just me speculating
It's a whole mood that you tracked "feeling sad" in your calendar. I can relate
Sometimes it really just be like that
Cuddling 🥺
And literally a mood :D
This reminds me of what happens when you create a budget for your money (planning) but then not actually tracking how it’s spent in real life (time tracking/audit)
Using a budgeting app is a great idea! Thanks for the inspiration!
A great book that addresses this very issue is “Your Money Or Your Life”. A quick easy read that will improve your attitude towards money. Cheers.
D: omg
Lmao i always track after I spending but never plan when to spend it, so far so good
@@gwarlow does it ( or do you) suggest a way to track it? On paper??
What I got out of this video:
1. Time tracking exists and I need to do it!
2. Your channel exists and I need to check it out.
Great video.
Thank you and welcome to the channel!
color coding made me realize you can actually get stuff done in less time than expected
i wanted to study 6+ hours every day like every study influencer literally but it made me very anxious so i decided to study whenever I felt like it and procrastinate whenever I want IF I track every block.
I`ve been doing it about a month right now and it changed my life. Surprisingly I averaged at 25 - 30 hours a week of studying a week (less then I originally planned but I was focused and motivated).
Made me feel so much better and less stressed. Had more time to cook and workout. Actually didn`t miss a deadline. My grades even went up. 10/10 experience.
this is amazing! I am jealous because if I did this with work, I wouldn't keep a job haha. Studying can be much more fun though :)
As a person who is neuro divergent, I really appreciate this. I will give this a go. I bought myself a makselife planner at the beginning of this year and have yet to start using it. Partly bc I am recovering from breast cancer and partly due to a lack of executive function (ADHD). Now I have plenty of empty pages to go back to track how I am spending my time 😂😂 New sub!
I'm autistic and it's been a serious life saver. Don't give up if it doesn't make sense at first, believe in yourself and you'll find what works for you!!
I am so relieved to see someone who is also procrastinating during workday. Because I do it too, to similar extent, but often feel guilt or shame about it, even at times when there is not that much work. And also the comments section - not one single comment about it, nobody is shaming or accusing of time theft and I am so glad! Anyways, great video, very relatable.
I procrastinate at work as well, some days it feels like I get the work done in my last 30 minutes in the office. So, you are not alone… and I‘m still searching for the secret of the people who work consistent on their work day.
2 hours a day on social media seems like really good to me. My highest recorded screen time was like 12 hours. But I also just put on UA-cam and have it run in the background while I work or clean so I don’t always take screen time at face value. I’m definitely going to try this time tracking because I admit I do spend an obscene amount of time scrolling
This has inspired me to try some side by side time tracking. I rock dailies and I always put my daily schedule in my planner, but I’m gonna split it and try comparing my planned day versus my actual day to see HOW badly I’m not staying on task! Or how often I multitask versus truly focus.
love the Taylor Swift album colors on your nails!! and this video inspires me to do my own time tracking as well!
Love for the TS nails warms my little heart lol. I hope you do try it!!!
Omg thank you for explaining. I thought it looked so random haha
In the 70s before there were so many nail colours to choose, I coloured my nails each a different clour with khaki pens (similar to highlighters). Once the nail dried a would just use a clear nail polish. I would also use the glitter in the clear nail polish.🎉
"Live in partner"
I’m scared to do this 😂 but I really appreciate this video, and definitely need to get a grip on reality and map out how I’m using/wasting my time. Thank you as always, Rachelle!!! 💖✨
So this was the result of your time tracking but how did you actually track your time? Was there an app? Did you actually stop what you were doing to notate how much time you spent on it? It seems like a good idea but I have no idea how you actually kept track of your time
Such a powerful exercise! I've being time tracking and is eye-opening how much time I waste, haha. But it's a good starting point to change things.
I guess my thought would just be: why is social media time “mindless” or not valuable? And I don’t mean that critically! I genuinely mean: just because something isn’t “productive” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value to your mental health. Obviously where you can identify time that you’re feeling stressed/need some more time for routines then yes that trade off is healthy, but I always want to gently push back on this idea that something has to be “immediately productive” to actually be beneficial to you. You can build/be part of online communities that help you support and foster interests, passively stay in touch with friends, and just decompress and enjoy laughs with “scrolling” and none of that is intrinsically “mindless”; it’s just a passive way to engage that gives your brain time to rest and reboot!
Good video, but I wish you talked more about how you actually tracked your time, and how you kept yourself mindful and accountable to do so.
Very interesting! I also think that tracking (time, money, food... ) is something everyone should do, even just for a couple of weeks from time to time. It gives us awareness. ❤
P.s. I'm curious, is there a reason you call him "long term partner" and not just "partner"?
Also curious. Seeing some of the entries as dates has me wondering if they're in a polyamorous relationship.
Hi Rachelle, your video was truly uplifting and relatable! It feels like you've uncovered a treasure map to better time management. Your openness certainly resonates and the courage to face the 'scrolling black holes' is inspiring. Love the content you produce.
Thank you so much!
This is such a comprehensive video, Thank you!
I'm ashamed to admit that I tried doing this and failed miserably. My life is incredibly disorganized when it comes to managing time, which affected even my relationship with my wife for a while due to basically overworking and overstudying.
Right now, I'm learning web development, working from home, and being an amateur powerlifting. I wonder how can I even start doing something like this to be more time-conscious and available socially.
I would really appreciate your tips.
Me too. I’m having the exact same problem 😢
I would love to do this but just the thought of tracking it all and having to write things down that much gives me anxiety. Do you know of any apps that you can just click and assign times to things as you go and then it calculates everything for you? I do have my phone track my internet use and displays the average every Sunday and that’s helpful. Many thanks for sharing. ❤
i'd love an app like this too! i've been looking for it for so long
@@takimi_nada a person below mentioned it being similar to setting a budget/tracking $… that I have an app for… such a good idea.
There is an app called Timelines. You can customise it to whatever categories you want, make sub notes and colour code. You just have to remember to stop/start as you change tasks!
@@munmelenfrance6710 many thanks!!
You can use an hour regristration app. What sels employed people use to send bills to their clients
I am gonna try something like this. Rather than having a to-do list I am going to make a list of the things I actually did after the day ends :)
I see you recognize your social media time as potentially an opportunity for you to dissociate and then you attribute it to because you don't want to work. Is it possible that if you built in strategic moments of personal time that were intentional and helped you relax or transition to the next activity, that might be something that you appreciate more but still gives you that break?
I'm coming at this for manura diversion perspective because it sounds like you have a lot of demands on your executive function skills and social media can be a way to relax from that and give that a rest. So if you're not a fan of your time there, it's still might be something for you too. More consciously incorporate as we aren't machines that can be 100% productive at all the time. (Also, as a note machines are really productive like 60% of the time because they break down and need maintenance and need updates and often experience hiccups and their performance. Just think of any printer. But yeah the point stands)
This is really cool! I’m a PhD student with freelance work and I always feel like I’m doing nothing somehow. Two questions: how did you track this? Eg did you set timers throughout the day or…? And second, do you think the act of tracking affected how you used your time at all? In the sense of the observers paradox?
up!
Upp
Tracking stuff is tedious, it consumes spoons (energy, focus, executive function, allotted hours of tolerable-pain-levels per day, etc.) but it WORKS. It works with time, it works with money, it works with food, it works with physical activity. And doing any of these things will lead to slightly more informed intuition/gut feelings for each time you do it, so even if you prefer to fly by the seat of your pants in general (= value your freedom and autonomy highly), said flying will just get BETTER over time (= more congruent with your goals and values) if you take a deep breath and buckle down for a [pick a category]-tracking EXPERIMENT once in a while. Even 3 days at a time will help a bit. A week, better. A month, fantastic!
(Framing these as "experiments" helps me personally to resist them less.)
I had to pause the video to comment on your commitment to getting out of bed immediately: It might sound like a great idea, but pay attention to how your body reacts. Some bodies just really need that chill after-alarm time to truly wake up. Sure, jumping right into social media might not be the best strategy here, but laying in bed after the alarm until you're ready to get up just might save you a lot of coffee and fuzzy-brain bumbling around. Took me some time to figure this out, but now that I've learned to recognize the feeling of my brain coming fully online, I get up pretty much ready for whatever and my life is a lot less miserable than it was when I was shaming myself for snoozing.
This is a great point 🩵 thank you for sharing!!
I’ve tracked my time before using Toggl. You’ve inspired me to do a new little self time study! Also, I recently picked up an undated Common Planner from your recommendation. Love it so far!
The very thought of picking up a notebook and time tracking makes me wanna do it later.
I'll do that for the next couple of weeks. I recently graduated, and since, my life is a mess with job hunting and all 😂 i think it would be cool to get back to a sort of structure!
I watched this a few months after it was posted BUT I would love to see a follow up and how you used what you learned, the changes you made or didn't make, etc. Thanks Rachelle!
Commenting before I even watch the full video, because I'm so excited to see another person talking about this! I'm in grad school, and have plenty of work, but struggle to get it all done because of the flexible schedule. Started time tracking in my Jibun Techo this year, and I love it, even though it sometimes feels overkill :p
This makes me think of how productive I used to be in a forced public school schedule and my planner. Now I make my own schedule and it’s messy and unproductive .
I use my week spreads to track how I’m spending my time this year and it’s been so nice to see it all, and interpret the data from my spreads.
I track my time in reference to chronic illness. I keep track of things that take a lot of mental effort, physical effort (errands/cleaning), when I leave the house, and time spent in bed to track how much my illness is affecting functioning. I also track rest/hobby time, and sleep.
I apply zero judgement or morality but I try to notice when I’m spending a lot of hours in a row on one category so that I can shift to another kind of activity. It keeps my illness from flaring too much when I don’t spend too much time in one area (for me I’ve noticed about 2 hours is when I should shift). Just brings a general awareness and it’s been good so far.
That's genius.
Did you seperate browsing social media for inspiration from just mindless scrolling?