Where did the day go? Have you ever got to the end of the day and felt baffled by what happened? It was like a series of tasks, moods, events, and chores, but only a tiny fraction of the day was spent doing what you loved. How easily did you get caught up in other people’s wants and needs? You can feel burned out and unfulfilled when you react instead of responding to life. By stepping back and becoming conscious of how you spend your time, you can make better choices that align with your true values and goals. Here’s how to do a time audit and discover how to live your OWN authentic life.
- Write down your goals.
- Document everything you do for two weeks
- Review and rate your activity (negative, neutral, positive)
- Adjust your time allocation to line up with your goals
- Congratulate yourself and make a note of the positive changes you experienced
Write down your goals.
Before we complete the time audit its important to make a list of all the goals you want to achieve; you know those dreams that seemly keep getting further away? Do you want to get fit, save money, or write that novel? Feel free to DREAM; go for it and write down your wildest dreams! Now take that dream and break it into steps or actions. For example, want to get fit? An action you’d take could be walking before work and at lunchtime each day. Want to write a novel? An action for that could be writing 500 words per day.
Document everything you do for two weeks
Make a note of EVERY single activity throughout the day. Include scheduled meetings, admin and calls, and seemingly insignificant activities, like brushing your teeth and making dinner. If you’re easily distracted by cat videos and strangers’ holiday snaps, you may prefer doing this in a journal. If you’re OK with using tech without it using you, you can opt for your notes section on your phone. Set an alarm every hour to remind you to document your recent activity.
Review and rate your activity (negative, neutral, positive)
At the end of each day, go back and RATE how you felt during each activity. Did you feel energised, engaged, happy, contented, frustrated, annoyed or drained? This time audit is your chance to be brutally honest with yourself. Alongside each activity, give it a rating of + positive, – negative, or = neutral. Try not to overthink it. Once you have your ratings, you can step back and play detective!
For activities you marked as negative, ask
Why was this activity negative?
What story am I telling myself about this activity?
How you think about something or the context gives it its meaning. For example, If I say it’s raining today, and you want to water the new plants you just put in your garden, you’d think, “Hey, that’s great”, or If I say it’s raining today. You planned a picnic celebration. You’d think, “oh no, that’s terrible; what will we do?” As you can see from this example, the same situation, “it’s raining,” had different meanings based on how you interpreted the situation. It’s essential to be mindful of your thoughts during the negative activity.
Was it the time of day?
Was I trying to do complex thinking tasks at night as an early bird or vice versa?
Was it the type of task?
Was I doing something to please someone else instead of being true to my goals?
Was it an activity I did to appease someone at the expense of my happiness?
For activities you marked as positive, ask these questions
Why was this activity positive?
Was it the time of day?
Was it the type of task?
How can I do MORE of those activities?
How can I appreciate these more instead of jumping to the next activity without savouring the positive one?
For the neutral activities, ask these questions
Why was this activity neutral?
Why wasn’t this a negative activity?
What could I do to make this more of a positive activity?
Adjust your time allocation to line up with your goals
Now that you have a clearer picture of how you are spending your time and living your life, you can start to make some decisions. What percentage of your activities were based on your goals? For example, if your goal was to write a novel, but you spend your time watching Netflix instead of writing after the kids go to bed, you may feel unfulfilled at the end of the day.
Now, don’t beat yourself up here; go easy and use your learning to plan the week. What changes will you make? Even minor daily adjustments create the change you want in your life in the long run. A word of caution here is that you may encounter negative self-talk while making these changes. Be extra aware of your self-talk for comments like… You shouldn’t upset people; you don’t deserve to do the things you want, you must put other people first, don’t be selfish etc. That’s OK; observe those thoughts without buying into them. By taking these small steps, you light up a part of your brain called the Striatum, which helps you get into a flow and gives you a motivational boost. Make sure that you have time for your goals scheduled ahead of time.
Congratulate yourself for completing a time audit and make a note of the positive changes you experienced!
Psychologist BJ Fogg explains in his book Tiny Habits that the simple act of CELEBRATING will supercharge your ability to create new habits. The fact that you’ve read this blog to this point is cause for a celebration! It’s a sign that you are committed to living a more authentic life. In other words, any positive changes you make are also worth celebrating! Your celebration doesn’t need to be fireworks or even getting a gold star. However it needs to be something said or done, either internally or externally you can IMAGINE your cheerleaders shouting “GO YOU! GOOD JOB!” or you can give yourself a fist pump and a YES!
BJ Fogg calls this feeling “Shine.” You feel Shine when you ace an exam. You feel Shine when you spend quality time with your family. You feel Shine when you smell something delicious cooked for the first time.
Shine is a feeling you deserve to feel more often, and you WILL feel more often by making these changes towards taking control of your time and living life on your terms.
