We've talked about using Qlockwork as an activity log, but what is an activity log?

Activity Logs

Before you can start budgeting your time, you need to know where it's going. An activity log is just what it sounds like – a detailed account of exactly where you are spending your time.

You need to keep a detailed log because if you're looking for ways to save time, you'll often find the savings in unimportant tasks you hardly notice.

If you were asked what you did two days ago, you would probably remember the important things: the vital customer meeting, the training session you gave your team and the urgent crisis you handled. You remember the tasks that were important and an effective use of your time. However, you may not remember the hour you spent handling routine emails.

To understand where your time is going, you need to keep an activity log. You need to log the tedious and mundane ways your time disappears.

Keep a log rather than to trying to notice unimportant tasks as you go along. Often you are too busy to notice, and you don't have the distance or enough data on hand to spot patterns.

You can keep an activity log by hand, on paper, but using Qlockwork makes it much easier.

Read more about using Qlockwork to do your Activity Logging for you.