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.
GSG
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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