maphew

Time Tracking: lying for truth

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

Time Tracking is a formalized exercise of lying to get to the truth.

What's the truth? Depends on questions being asked.

Are you after:

  1. How long does it take for job X to be complete after it's been accepted?
  2. How much concentrated thought is needed?
  3. How much attention is needed?
  4. …many more Q's

 

Example task: print a copy of this map#

45-60 minutes elapsed time on average, but could be days. Steps include:

  • look for existing hard-copies
  • nozzle checks (and cleaning if needed)
  • Unload/load paper and ink
    • Get more from stock
    • Order more when low
  • Print
    • Reprint if errors (page margins, cropping, bleeds, dropped features, …)
      • Could require going to source and making corrections
  • Notify
  • Deliver

However, only 15 minutes attention time was required, and perhaps only 5 min concentrated thought. While the nozzles are being cleaned I can walk away and do something else for a few minutes, which easily turns into hours. Ditto for printing and a few other things.

So what should I log in the Time Tracking journal?

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Time tracking is structured lying, to get an idea of truth.

Think of remote sensing. We have a satellite image. each pixel is so many meters on the ground. A group if them that have similar values but not the same,  and we say "this T area is treed,  that W one is water, and the third R is barren rock".  In absolute sense, that is wrong. There are trees there in area T, but also shrubs, paths, ponds. But it's mostly T.

Wisdom of the crowds. Ask 2 or 3 or 6 people what is the truth of a matter, "How many jelly beans in the jar?", and you'll end up with half a dozen predictions that are wildly apart and none close to the truth. Ask 20, 50 or 100 the same question and average them, then, weirdly, we arrive at a number very close to reality.

This where we're trying to get to with logging our time -- if we’re smart. If we keep in our minds that the particulars are fuzzy to the point of wrong, and that math is applied properly only to the aggregate.

There is bias to account for. I will naturally down play the amount of time spent on things that I think I shouldn't really be paying attention to, and upgrade the important things. Different people will attempt to "de-bias" themselves in varying degrees, from existential crisis style agonizing over each and every time entry to no attempt whatsoever. That's just people.

There must be trust between the worker and the manager, and the manager's manager. If the worker feels time logs will be a tool that could be used against them they're going to lie through their teeth at every turn. Justifiably! It’s the proverbial double edged sword, cutting back as well as forward, so wield with care and attention.

Time tracking is not something to just adopt without thinking and conversation. Everyone should have a common understanding of what it can and can't do, what it's nature is: imprecise, fuzzy.

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A great advantage to logging something like "productivity" is that it motivates some serious introspection on what is important. I found that reflecting on these ideas helped me define my personal idea of productivity, and classifying activities inside and outside of that definition made me realize what I truly value in the long-term.

I ultimately aim to log the time that I spend getting better at, and creating things that I care about. It's about productivity, specifically in the (mostly) creative sector. The topics I choose to log are therefore specifically oriented towards that goal.

From <https://v-os.ca/timekeeping>

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At some point I changed it to be sorted by how much I made per hour, so all my personal projects, which earn me nothing, would be at the bottom of the list.

After two years of using it, I stopped working on any of my own things, and for a while couldn't figure out why. I got a bit depressed, and I couldn't force myself to do anything other than work. It turns out that working on personal projects is very important for me, and seems to be connected to the quality of my life.

From <https://szymonkaliski.com/writing/2017-04-30-time-tracking/>

The "eureka" moment came after watching Devine Lu Linvega's talk Frameworks for Mystics, and hearing how he uses his time tracking to split time between working with audio, visuals and programming. It was one of strangest mixes of emotions I had, understanding that the tool I made for myself, that should help me, ended up impacting my life in such a big and unpredicted way.

From <https://szymonkaliski.com/writing/2017-04-30-time-tracking/>

Weekly review is an important part of this process.

An inbox is not worth much if it's never cleared.

From <https://szymonkaliski.com/writing/2020-04-19-memex-dreams>

Right now, usually on Sunday mornings, I check out every collected link, and last week of daily journals. At this stage, I'd say half of the things are ignored, because after a couple of days they just don't matter much anymore.

From <https://szymonkaliski.com/writing/2020-04-19-memex-dreams>

Archivist is a set of tools for archiving and exploring of reference materials.

I spend a lot of time gathering resources and lateral thinking material. Over the years I noticed that stuff tends to disappear from the web, both the original content, and services used to collect it.

Archivist fetches local copies of the source images and frozen copies of the websites, so things wont get lost. I'm trading my local disk space for feeling safe that the content stays with me.

From <https://szymonkaliski.com/projects/archivist>

#On Worklogs

Keeping worklogs had the biggest positive impact on my work in recent years.

The basic idea is simple — to just jot down whatever I'm working on at the moment. Even better, jot down my assumptions, potential issues, and conclusions.

From <https://szymonkaliski.com/writing/2020-04-19-memex-dreams>