Getting time back
As we all know, there are the following facts about time:
Now I say that the workweek is supposed to be 40 hours, but if you are not an hourly employee, then there is a good chance that you work more than 40 hours a week.
For the past 5 years, I have been a network engineer as a salaried employee. I typically would average close to 50 hours a week. Recently last year, I took a new role as Director of Engineering. Now, usually, this is fantastic news (and it is), but this was a reorganization of a department that only existed formally on paper. This means I still have to do some of my old jobs until new people are trained to fill my past duties. As a result, I am working more than 40 hours regularly. As part of my role, I now have direct reports, management meetings, and training courses to work through. I also have 3 kids who all have activities, which means time is precious.
I needed to find a way to "create" more time in the day to get things done. I have tried various time management tools and can get nothing to stick. I think the most logical reason is that nothing "forced" me to do whatever the program was. My place of work changes on a daily basis and life happens. Finding your rhythm is pretty hard in a family of 5 and working in IT.
Lately, I have been taking for continuing education courses via Pluralsight, and one session, in particular, led me trying a tool called RescueTime*. What I do like so far is, I can see what I have done online throughout the day. I have the option to force me to do work, and I can track how much time I spend in the car. My productive hours have increased over a few weeks, and this is getting me back on track for the right work/life balance. I found that over the past few months that I was getting easily distracted by other factors. That could be someone else looking for help, instant message, something along those lines. I have been implementing additional methods to help manage those instances, but I needed a way to track how I was doing.
RescueTime has so far been amazing at showing me how much time I spend on sites and whether I was productive or not and where I can cut out wasted time in the day. It easily plugs into whatever device I am using my Surface, MacBook, iPad, or Pixel.
I am positive with this tool that I will be able to achieve items on my PDP and I expect to see continued.
*-RescueTime offers a free plan and premium plan offered at $6/month, in addition to corporate subscription. I may earn commission by you clicking on the referral link above.
- 60 seconds in 1 minute
- 3600 seconds in 1 hour
- 60 minutes in 1 hour
- 86400 seconds in 1 day
- 1440 minutes in 1 day
- 24 hours in 1 day
- 604800 seconds in 1 week
- 10080 minutes in 1 week
- 168 hours in 1 week
- 7 days in 1 week
For most of us, the typical workweek is supposed to be 40 hours, and that is just under 25% of the week, but that does not count traveling to and from work. That leaves around 120 hours to sleep, and do everything else that we need to do. If the average person sleeps 8 hours a day or 56 hours a week, that leaves us with 64 hours of family time, meals, errands and chores around the house, and relaxation. Yes, a third of your life is spent sleeping, which sounds pretty depressing.
For the past 5 years, I have been a network engineer as a salaried employee. I typically would average close to 50 hours a week. Recently last year, I took a new role as Director of Engineering. Now, usually, this is fantastic news (and it is), but this was a reorganization of a department that only existed formally on paper. This means I still have to do some of my old jobs until new people are trained to fill my past duties. As a result, I am working more than 40 hours regularly. As part of my role, I now have direct reports, management meetings, and training courses to work through. I also have 3 kids who all have activities, which means time is precious.
I needed to find a way to "create" more time in the day to get things done. I have tried various time management tools and can get nothing to stick. I think the most logical reason is that nothing "forced" me to do whatever the program was. My place of work changes on a daily basis and life happens. Finding your rhythm is pretty hard in a family of 5 and working in IT.
Lately, I have been taking for continuing education courses via Pluralsight, and one session, in particular, led me trying a tool called RescueTime*. What I do like so far is, I can see what I have done online throughout the day. I have the option to force me to do work, and I can track how much time I spend in the car. My productive hours have increased over a few weeks, and this is getting me back on track for the right work/life balance. I found that over the past few months that I was getting easily distracted by other factors. That could be someone else looking for help, instant message, something along those lines. I have been implementing additional methods to help manage those instances, but I needed a way to track how I was doing.
RescueTime has so far been amazing at showing me how much time I spend on sites and whether I was productive or not and where I can cut out wasted time in the day. It easily plugs into whatever device I am using my Surface, MacBook, iPad, or Pixel.
I am positive with this tool that I will be able to achieve items on my PDP and I expect to see continued.
*-RescueTime offers a free plan and premium plan offered at $6/month, in addition to corporate subscription. I may earn commission by you clicking on the referral link above.