Month: June 2020

Before starting the time tracking trial, I began a practice to schedule out my week ahead. It might be as simple as blocking out a time for writing or working out, but the act of setting the time in my calendar helps to remind me what I should be doing. Combine this with a time tracker, and we can see how that plan holds up.

The Best Laid Plans

While I long intended planned schedules to be a trial itself, it naturally made its way into my life. A few months ago, I found the days passing by in a blur. Putting what I wanted to accomplish in my calendar gave me a sense of direction for the week.

My calendar gives me a vision of what needs to be done for a given week. Having time set aside makes choice of action simple. Something scheduled now? Get started. In a world of endless options, it can be a relief to have made the decision days ago.

Overtime, some days have seen a general theme arise. Mondays have been streaming days. Tuesday and Thursday writing. Wednesday a weekly family call and finishing my blog post. The weekends have generally been gaming and relaxing, with some project work shuffled in.

Laying out my plans in advance also gives me an idea of what I can fit in otherwise. I may have to re-schedule or put off one thing or another should opportunities arise. Other times, I can spend time in leisure guilt free if there’s nothing scheduled for a given time. Vast areas of unplanned space are there for a reason, to recharge when needed.

The desire to see if I really was following the calendar was the inspiration for this trial.

Often Go Awry

As you can see from my calendar above, not everything went according to plan. I woke up late multiple days, got overly invested in numerous tasks, and even played Skyrim for 9 hours straight.

My planning process isn’t intended to be an absolute rigid structure, but an outline of my expectations for the week. Though looking it over, I do want to tighten it up more going forward now that I can see the comparison. A few minutes here or there is one thing, but there’s some spots that are just entirely overrun with a different task than planned.

There are times when I will likely go off plan, but without some spontaneity, what’s the point of life? Also, keeping some blocks unscheduled is important as well for leaving time to unwind when needed.

This week was another in which I feel I’ve been able to look back with more awareness as to how I am spending my time. In particular, it’s my difficulty in switching tasks. I found this through reflecting on a problem often seen in video games, the one more turn syndrome.

Just One More Turn

There’s a phenomena in video games that’s referred to as One More Turn Syndrome. It gained popularity through the Sid Meier’s Civilization series. Essentially, it’s the practice of continuing to play for an extended period of time, after consecutive expectations to stop in just one more turn.

For context, in the game you run a world civilization and develop it through scientific advancements, political decisions, colonial expansion, and of course, conquest. A given turn can have a number of events. You maybe have a new scientific advancement, a new city is built, or even a country declares war on you, among significant other possibilities. One more turn is all that’s needed to sort out the current situation, then you can pick the game up again at a good point.

I found myself in this one turn cycle earlier this week while playing the game, Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop. I streamed the game as part of my Indie Monday series on Twitch, and felt the need to keep playing after closing it out completely. There are far from the possibilities than Civilization, but there are a ton of progress bars and options to work on all at once. Each of these acting as a carrot on a stick to just keep going for a little bit longer.

Beyond Games

Reflecting on this habit, I see it in a variety of areas in my life. There are times I stay online at work after the day ends to wrap up one last problem, then an email comes in I can tackle really quick, and so forth. As well as many other areas that are far less responsible.

Streaming services have designed their platforms to take advantage of this. When was the last time you were about to close up Netflix when the next episode count down began, prompting the thought, “I can watch another.”

This isn’t always a bad thing, but when other responsibilities or expectations arise, it’s important to be able to shift from one task to another.

Solution

If one more turn syndrome was easy to avoid, it wouldn’t have the reputation. There’s something about chasing that carrot that keeps you from recognizing just how much time has passed.

As of now, I’ve tried and failed to implement the simplest of remedies, a timer to stop. After it went off, I still told myself, just let me do this one thing and that’s it. Another hour or so passed, and I realized that method just did not work.

There are some alternatives, one I’m curious to explore is scheduling the computer to turn off at a given time. Using a timer as a warning that it’ll occur soon. While not built in for gaming consoles, a timer plug can do the trick.

I wish I could say I was able to stop and start when I set out to, but willpower is tricky thing. The best way to have strong willpower, is to not have to use it.

This trial has been a long time coming. There were too many days and weeks throughout this year alone which seemed to pass by in a blur. While far from perfect, keeping track of what I’m doing throughout a day has given me some insight into where exactly that time is going. Tying in a rough calendar of my planned day, I can see where the disconnect is.

Expectations

My goal for this trial is to get a better grasp on my time. What am I doing with it.

Time is our most precious resource. Once it’s spent, that’s it. There’s no getting back lost time. Having a feeling that it’s slipping by without notice started to get me depressed and frustrated. Too many times I looked back and thought, “what did I even do in all that time?”

Keeping track of that time will give me a record of where that time was, in fact, spent. However, even more importantly, it can tell me when I’m spending time in a way I don’t want to. Realizing this, I can work on systems to push myself to work on what I have planned at a given moment.

My Tool of Choice

After researching a few options, I came across an app called Clockify. It’s about 90% of what I’m looking for, but has some issues that dock it that 10%.

In general, the app is pretty simple. Press start timer, and it begins. There are features for “clients” and “projects” which I use to somewhat organize categories. It’s really designed for contractors to manage how their spending their time while working, hence the language.

The real feature that drew me to the app, that I can’t seem to find anywhere else, is that through another app called Zapier, an automation tool. Timers can be exported to Google Calendar. I do all of my planning there, so I found this to be perfect. Unfortunately, there seems to be some issue with Zapier finding any of my timers past May 28th, a bug that is hopefully fixed. I really like the idea of seeing my timers and plan next to each other in the same place. Until then, I’ll just have to piece together what I can. The in app reports aren’t really useful, as they focus on how much time is spent overall, not when a timer when running.

I did enter a support ticket while thinking about this, maybe someone can help me out and we can tackle that last 10% to what I’m looking for.

Current Takeaways

What have I learned already? What am I doing with that knowledge?

In the short time I’ve been time tracking, I’m surprised by one thing, I spend my time pretty naturally. With starting, I was expecting to adapt to keeping track of time, thus paying more attention to my actions in a given moment. Similar to how I approached food when meal tracking and fasting.

Having this natural habit still gives me better insights into what I can do. For example, I have a bad habit of sticking on a given task or project too long. Not let me finish this thought long, but uh-oh, it’s 2 AM long. This is particularly true with video games, who saw that coming?

Setting some time aside to decompress is nice, and games are a great way to do that. However, recently, I’ve found myself spending far too much time playing. I have some ideas from simple to extreme to curb this. The simple starts with an alarm to remind me when it’s time to stop. The extreme consists of plugging my computer into an automated timer plug and having it power down at a given time.

Perhaps next time, I’ll touch a bit more on systems and what I do for planning. But would you look at the time.

As this trial comes to an end, I most importantly need a long term plan for any spending. While buying things, both necessities and luxuries, is a given, it all comes back to purchases that will actually improve my life .

Still Spending

Yesterday, I ended up making another big purchase, a tablet to replace an old laptop. I’ve long been considering it for a number of reasons, and looking at my accounts, the money was there. I spent about an hour going through a list of why I wanted it and needed to buy it that day. Funny enough, I almost put off the order by another few days just to be sure, but I saw the price dropped nearly $100, so I figured I’d bite the bullet.

This tablet is a tool that offers a number of benefits. For one, I plan to use it for reading e-books, something I’ve been doing more and more. While able to read on my phone, the text is small and holding my phone for a long time gets tiresome. I’ll also be using the tablet as a second monitor when needed, thanks to some software I was able to find. The model I bought also has a pen attached for drawing and writing , something I want to do more beyond a mouse and keyboard.

There will always be things I am looking to replace or upgrade, but waiting for the right time is what will be important in the long run.

Planning Ahead

Just before making my purchase yesterday, I put together an updated budget with what I believe to be my regular purchases. The template I use, one made by Thomas Frank, has a section specifically for investments. The first thing I did was put in what I wanted to there, and then needed to sort out the rest of my spending from that remaining amount. “Pay yourself first,” as the old adage goes.

Far from a perfect representation of my spending, the budget gives me a clearer idea of where my money will likely go month to month. Using it, I can better steer the course of continuing to save and invest, while finding the right times to spend.

Speaking of the future, the next trial I’ll be doing is time tracking. I’ve had on and off success in the past few weeks of keeping up with it, so hopefully a trial will get me in gear. Throughout this year, I’ve had days or weeks pass by in a blur with no recollection of having done anything. In an attempt to see where I’m spending this time, I’m going to track it and compare the results to my planned schedule. If you’re interested in following along, this is the free tool I’m using, but there are plenty of others out there.