Tracking your activity on time sheets is a fantastic way to assess how you are spending your time, what your habits are and where you can improve your day-to-day activities. The Advanced Time & Activity Audit Sheet is a powerful way to track your time by providing additional check boxes that bring key insights to the quality of your day.
Example of the Advanced Time & Activity Audit Sheet
Instructions:
Making entries is easy. Either remind yourself to note down your current activity every 12-15 minutes or do so every hour or so as long as you can get a roughly accurate detailing of activities. The check boxes don’t need to be filled in simultaneously, you can do these later in the day as well or when you are ready to do a review.
The checkboxes from left to right:
Planned:
Check if you planned the activity ahead of time.
Reactive:
check if the activity emerged from a response from inbound signals (like email, phone calls, news, websites, facebook etc) or from habits.
Invest:
Check if the activity results in some future return of value. For example, health, business building, skill building, personal growth, investment growth, wealth building, stronger relationships, learning etc.
Spent:
Check if the activity has no future value, if it was in essence time spent. Example: watching tv, gossiping, reading the news, partying, playing etc.
Flow:
Check if you felt a combination of these:
Completely involved, focused, concentrating – with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training
Sense of ecstasy – of being outside everyday reality
Great inner clarity – knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going
Knowing the activity is doable – that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored
Sense of serenity – no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of ego – afterwards feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible
Timeliness – thoroughly focused on present, don’t notice time passing
Intrinsic motivation – whatever produces “flow” becomes its own reward
(source how does it feel to be ‘in the flow’.)
OR
You felt deeply connected, you experienced synchronicities and/or things felt like they went your way.
Charge:
Check if the activity renewed or recharged your energy levels (physical, mental, emotional or spiritually)
Discharge:
Check if the activity subtracted from your energy levels (physical, mental, emotional or spiritual).
Core Activity:
Check if the activity was a ‘core activity‘. A core activity can be something that expresses your talent and strengths. It can be something that adds a lot of value to your life or others. An activity that is at the core of what you do or set out to do. Any activity that is deeply important to you. For example, speakers: speaking events, Stand up comedians: writing jokes, practising their routine. Authors: writing, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: What if an activity wasn’t one or the other? For example: Charge/Discharge.
A: Check in between the two check boxes on the line to indicate an ‘average’. (see picture)
Q: How accurate do I need to be / What if I spend half a block (like 5-8 minutes) on something and start something else after that?
A: As long as you’re roughly on the mark. You can be fairly lenient and still get a very insightful picture.
Q: Why did you create 12 minute blocks?
A: I use 12 minute blocks myself, because I often set my self the goal of working on something for 12 minutes minimal. I experimented with 10 minutes and 15 minutes and longer as well, but it was either too short or too long (too long= more resistant to starting). Twelve minutes also fits nicely into the pareto principle of 80 – 20, where I apply 4×12 minute of work combined with 1×12 of rest per hour.
Dowload the Advanced Time & Activity Audit sheet
PDF & Spreadsheet version available, in portrait and landscape layout, 12 or 15 minute blocks.
Time Sheet Spreadsheet Version-66 kB-xls
Time Sheet with 15 minute blocks (Portrait A4) pdf-17.72 kB-pdf
Time Sheet with 12 minute blocks (Portrait A4) pdf-20.11 kB-pdf
Time Sheet with 15 minute blocks (Landscape A4) pdf-19.28 kB-pdf
Time Sheet with 12 minute blocks (Landscape A4) pdf-19.89 kB-pdf
