Time Tracker: 7th Day of Christmas

Today’s gift suggestion is a bit unorthodox, but it’s something that will help you get organized, stay on task, and make the most of your time. There are a lot of ways to keep up with time, from grandfather clocks to wristwatches. Of course, we’re not so much interested in telling time as we are in finding some extra time because we never seem to have enough.

Stopwatch/Timer

Price Range: Low. Available just about everywhere.

Every time I find myself complaining about not having enough time, or I find myself not completing everything I should in a day, I fall back on this inexpensive tool that helps me discover how I’m using my time. I bought the kind on a neck rope so it’s convenient to walk around the house with it on. Trust me, this really helps.

It’s simple. Just use a stopwatch to time yourself when you do email. Maybe you think it only takes a half hour to zip through the morning email, but, if you time it, you may find you’re spending much more than that.

About every few months when I get bogged down, I get my stopwatch and find out what I’m doing with the 480 minutes in an average workday. You’d be surprised how little tasks eat up big chunks of time.

By the way, if you’ve got kids, they actually get into the spirit of things when you time then for certain tasks they avoid. It’s a great way to make a game out of teeth brushing, bed making, and clearing the toys away. Plus, they can learn early that it doesn’t take any more time to put things away than it does to drop them then have to come back to the scene of clutter to put it away later.

Takeaway Truth

Time is the one commodity than no one can produce more of so it’s important to effectively use each day’s portion.

Tags: holiday gift, time management