How To Use Time Tracking To Boost Your Productivity

In order to increase your productivity, you need to know when you are meeting or exceeding your expectations of completing tasks and goals and when you are missing them. You can’t increase your productivity if you don’t know when you are falling short. Therefore, it’s important to keep track of how much time you are using to complete each task and learning why you are taking longer on specific tasks. Learn more on how to use time tracking to boost your productivity below.

 

When wanting to boost your productivity, you have to know how well you are currently performing before steps can be taken to improve. It’s much like an athlete wanting to get a better time at running, getting more base hits, hitting more shots, and/or catching more passes- you have to know how you’re doing now to know where and how you can improve. 

 

Therefore, you need to set up a daily plan of what tasks and goals you want to achieve, then monitor how long it takes you to complete each task, as well as long how it takes you to reach each goal. Write down how much time it takes to complete the task, then compare it to how long you thought it would take (you can write this number down before you begin).

 

If/When you take longer to complete a task than you thought it would, review how you went about completing the task. Did your mind lose focus while you were doing the task? Were you distracted, and if so, was it by something you could have expected and prevented (email/social media/smartphone) or by something that was unexpected (an emergency, etc.)? Were you worried about a future task you haven’t gotten to yet? 

 

Carefully analyze the tasks it took you longer to achieve and how much more time than you expected for you to complete those tasks. Add up how much extra time it took you to complete those tasks. Realize that you lost all of this time where you could have been more productive. 

 

Now, you need to take steps to rectify the causes of why it took you longer to complete those tasks. If it’s distractions, do everything possible to eliminate or reduce them. If it’s because of worry, try to calm yourself down and boost up your self-esteem. If it’s because of a lack of focus, consider taking more breaks and/or getting more sleep.

 

Time management can help you to boost your productivity because it aids you in knowing where you are falling short in terms of productivity and how to rectify it. Only by knowing where and how you are falling short in terms of productivity will enable you to rectify the issues and increase your productivity.