Measure your productivity to keep up with goals
The picture above depicts exactly what happens at my job almost every day. The big meetings are scheduled, by the time the last person enters the conference room, it’s already 5 minutes over the start time. By the time we are finished, it’s already half hour into the lunch hour.
Just like many others, I also set my 2008 goals at the outset of the New Year. I have to confess though that I have been awfully busy at my work these days and after getting home in the evenings, I hardly feel like writing anything, let alone write something good and interesting. That doesn’t mean I haven’t spent hours on StumbleUpon and Digg and Mixx and chatting to people online.
Although, all along, I am aware that I could be writing a post, but for some reason, I am not able to. It is just too easy to spend aimless time on the web when you could really be resting and getting ready for your next blog post.
During this time, I came across a site called measure productivity which lists articles on how to increase productivity. The site also has a downloadable productivity software that does exactly what the name implies. It measures your time spent, hence your productivity on various activities while on your computer.
I downloaded the trial version and just let it run for a while I surfed the net, wrote a couple of emails, opened Word and Excel to do some reports and other stuff. And some time, interestingly, the report generated by the software showed my time spent on each of the sites I visited, email, Windows Live Writer (as I was writing this post – I started reading other drafts). It even listed the time spent on Word ad Excel.
The software sits in the system tray without interference with other programs and can be disabled at any time. You can also customize the time period in the reports for analyzing your activities over a few days, week, month.
The short time I have used this application, I have definitely loved it. It’s a type of software that anyone who spends a lot of time on computers could use for all their productivity measures and based on the reports, can work to increase productivity by eliminating doing unnecessary things.
I recommend the software to anyone who is seriously interested in measuring how much time they spend on the computer, doing things that could be avoided.
Pearl, the graphic is messed up,
I’ve always found most meetings a waste of time. The problem is that the big decision makers usually aren’t there. We have to meet to decide on what to ask the decision maker. Most people hate meetings because it takes away from what they could be doing, whether its real work or internet surfing.
Ever try to sit at your desk and not use the computer or your cell phone? That’s how work was back in 1995. How did we ever last 8 hours?
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You are talking about a different era GSG :lol:
I’ve been through those too when the decision makers didn’t show up but this time around I’m really really lucky to have the nicest of the bosses.
We have a tech support that doesn’t show up in meetings and the director wouldn’t start the meeting until all members show up – oh he is aware of the problem.. and theres is another co-worker who argues with everything thats been said in the meeting… so most of the time is taken up by these two :)
pearl’s last blog post..Measure your productivity to keep up with goals
I use similar software called RescueTime which is outstanding. It is shocking to look at the reports and see how the perception and the reality can vary so greatly.
Maintaining a balance of work and family and all the stuff in between can be a challenge, and seeing things so concretely has helped me keep things in perspective. Sometimes time spent on diversions or distractions is necessary – and budgeting that time has been good for me.
Great post.
SB
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I will try that software, though I’m aware that I spend too much time with less important things, instead of writing posts :) I wonder, after you use that program, your productivity has increased? Because if there are moments/days when I am not able to write some posts, that program definitely will not help me. Maybe it can just annoy me, because it reminds me how much time do I waste :)
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This is really interesting. Another interesting take that I came across is Wrike – http://www.wrike.com/. I’ve been using it for a month and I guess I’m going to recommend it to our management team.
@Scott: I’ll have to check out RescueTime also. Not that I do not know it but I guess we are so programmed to see everything on the screen, when I saw the reports telling me the exact time I spend on different things, it blew my mind :D
btw, I loved that title on your last post and had to check out – I’m sure everyone will now :)
haha Diana13 – you are too honest :)
no my productivity hasn’t improved YET because I’ve only been using the software for a short time. But I believe the first step in the rehab program is ‘acknowledgment’ ;-) and thats what this program will continue to do for me, make me realize theres a problem – and it’s really up to me to get annoyed and uninstall or make ammends!
well, if it starts to annoy you, all you have to do is disable it by right clicking on the icon in system tray – until whenever!
@John – Wrike looks good too and Im definitely going to try it…
thanks for reading and commenting John!
Our company has recently started “brain storming” meetings for a complete front end/back end rebuild of our website. There have been dozens of meetings planned and almost every meeting begins at lunch time, where lunch is provided. Yes, some people are a little late to the meeting, but we all seem to finish at the same time and everyone is there to start the actual presentations on schedule.
So far, so good. Fortunately, or unfortunately for some, these meetings are open until complete. There is no set end time. Once the meeting starts, you can expect to be there for at least two hours, sometimes longer.
I’m going over to that site and downloading the software immediately. Such a great idea for productivity. I’m just afraid of the results… =)
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Oh, thanks for the review. I like hearing about tools like this that may come in handy sometime as I grow in the blogging world! :)
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@Home Insurance: what if there was a stop watch during these meetings? :) I don’t like to sit in any meeting that goes beyond an hour.. that just wastage of time and resources..
would you like to read the other post I wrote just a few days ago? http://tinyurl.com/yrcao9
thanks for reading…. hope to see you around here again!
@David – let us know how you use it and if you find it useful…
@teeni – blogging does take up a lot of time and it’s really useful to have something to gauge how we spend all those hours… glad you like it
After using it today, it just didn’t seem like it was specific enough for me within my web browser. I’d like a breakdown of specific sites, how long, etc for it to be really productive. I spend a majority of my time on websites, eg. research, getting ideas, and so in that way it fell short.
David.. the software isn’t too intuitive at first but if you read on their site, and the help file, you can actually customize it into Groups or Roles – which is essentially based on the type of activity – it should give time spent on each site though…
I’m going to try Wrike and RescueTime this weekend and then compare them – may be they’ll be a bit easier to work with
Wow, that’s interesting. I feel like I multi-task like crazy so knowing how much time I was on Word vs. Excel may not do much for me since I spend a lot of time there analyzing and documenting info for my business. It would be interesting to know how much times I spend blogging (writing, reading, commenting, etc.).
I am going to stumble this because I’m sure there are many folks out there would would love to know about this!
Aruni – I’d be interesting in knowing what you think of this app.. thank you for stumbling too :)
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I started trying out online tools to measure my productivity and increase it but I failed. Miserably. For me, I need something that I can always carry around with me, so I just bought a small little planner and it’s been doing a decent job of keeping me on track.
Good time management is an important ingredient in any successful individuals daily life, but what I’m looking for is something that will help me become more self-aware, and in so doing choose the activities that have the greatest return. If there was some where to relate ROI to time used, that would be a great product.
@American Flag Pin: Those planners never fail us :) I’ve tried all kinds of apps for this too but theres something about writing down stuff that works great
@Joshua: ah, time management is an ongoing struggle for me .. thanks for stopping by
I never thought about using these tactics but I’m thinking I could accomplish a lot more if I did…
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