I tracked every minute of my time for the last 4 months. Here are 7 totally unexpected results
Since I was being as honest as I could with those time entries, weighing my decisions wasn’t that complicated anymore: I would look over my timetable, see exactly how much time I spent on something I decided to do, and look at how much I got out of it.

This way, “Is it a good idea to write that article for my 23rd birthday?” became “Is it a good idea to write that article for my 23rd birthday, given the fact that last week I spent 11 hours, and got nowhere with it?”. Not so hard to see the issue, from that perspective.

As a bonus, tracking my time solved another one of the biggest problems I had, in terms of decision making. I always had the tendency to overestimate my abilities and take on much more than I could actually handle. This obviously had some very bad consequences, like frustrating other people that were working with me.

Well, once I had this sheet that was telling me “this is how much it actually takes you to do it” and “this is how much free time you have on your hands right now”, deciding whether I could or could not handle something new became a factual decision, rather than a whim of my arrogant ego.

6. I finally felt in control of my time

As I said in the beginning, the irreversible passing of time was one of the biggest sources of stress and anxiety for me. And, while I’m still having my fair share of existential crises about it, doing this experiment drastically reduced that stress and anxiety. The main reason was that, again,

I finally felt in control of my time.

Yes, I was still binge-watching cat videos on youtube, probably more than I should. But at least it was a conscious decision, rather than a reaction to some algorithms designed by smart people to make me mindlessly spend hours on end on their website. And this “conscious decision” part was what made all the difference, for me.

And the coolest thing was that I didn’t have to change anything in the way I was spending my time, in order to feel better about it. Simply having it noted down was enough to give me that empowering feeling of control.

7. Felt more tense, uneasy and guilty (at first)

Surprise-surprise: this is not a silver bullet to shoot down all of life’s problems. It actually came with some not-so-nice consequences that I have to mention, if I am to paint an honest picture of my journey.

First up, I became more tensed and uneasy, especially in the beginning. I think that’s not too unexpected — just imagine having a cop on your back, 24/7, that sees every single thing your doing, and tracks it down on a sheet that’s gonna stare you in the face every Sunday. Quite a reason to feel uneasy…
['Dragos Bilaniuc']
['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Discipline', 'Focus', 'Time Management']