i’ve been noticeably less productive over the past several weeks. i feel like this happens every year and is seasonal driven. after reading this blog post (https://samplesize.one/blog/posts/my_year_in_data/) i decided at the beginning of 2021 that now would be as good a time as any to start measuring what i do every day. after logging my life in 15 minute intervals over almost three months i can confirm i’ve become lazy.
how it works
largely following the methodology described in the original blog post, i assigned activities into different categories including:
– sleeping: pretty self explanatory
– intensive/focused work: work that requires all of my immediate attention, no distractions
– administrative/easy work: work that i can do without devoting my full attention, e.g. just checking emails periodically
– high intensity exercise: think running, playing basketball, playing tennis
– low intensity exercise: think walking, going outside for a casual activity
– human function: anything related to keeping myself alive like eating, showering, hygiene, talking (not really directly related to keeping myself alive but you get the point)
– quality time: time spent doing things you enjoy like reading the news, watching youtube videos, watching tv
i then set a “-” flag to signal what subcategory the broader category should be assigned to. for example, if i’m working on something is it for my day job or for a side project i’m working on?
ultimately you end up with a spreadsheet that looks like the below:
now that we know how time is being spent, we then set up a scoring system that rewards good behavior and penalizes bad behavior. my scoring system rewards doing high/low intensity work, spending time with loved ones, and exercising. it penalizes watching youtube/tv and wasting time doing unproductive tasks. any human function activity does not add or subtract to your daily points. what i’ve found is that recently i haven’t been as productive. oh no! anyways…
as we near quarter end a couple of things i’ve noticed i should be working on:
– sleeping: i sleep like i’m 60 years old. ayyyyyy
– intensive/focused work: 6 hours of focused work a day is a good thing in my opinion. i need to keep that up.
– administrative/easy work: almost 3 hours of easy work also makes sense.
– high/low intensity exercise: bruh, i barely exercise – coming into Q2 this number needs to be at least 30 minutes a day
– human function: nothing i can really change there
– quality time: i spend too much time watching tv, youtube, and playing video games. this number likely increased as a result of these past few weeks. in Q2 i’m going to work on getting this down to 2 hours a day
note that the avg. hours/day may total to greater than 24 hours because you can do multiple things at once.
let’s get this bread in Q2 2021.
