I tracked every hour in 2024 as TimeCamp CEO and here are the results

“There are constant pressures toward unproductive and wasteful time-use.”
– Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive, 1967

TLDR

I tracked all my time for a year (5995h, without sleep) using a calendar into 15 types of activities. I'm pretty happy about my time allocation. But have some insights about relocating time.

Why I Started Time Tracking

As the CEO of TimeCamp, a time tracking software company, I wanted to practice and gain deeper insights into my own productivity patterns. I was curious: where does my time actually go each day?

My Time Tracking Method

After some experimentation, I found a system that worked for me:

• I used Google Calendar and Apple Calendar rather than real-time timers (which I found created too much cognitive load in my case)
• I updated my calendar a few times daily, using 15-minute increments
• I integrated TimeCamp computer usage tracking as iCal into Apple Calendar to help remember what I was doing when I forgot: the integration filled out my calendar with the time blocks representing apps/sites I was using
• The entire process took me less than 5 minutes per day

This approach worked because I already lived in my weekly calendar, making it easy to visually see where my time was going. The TimeCamp integration automatically copied my calendar to my timesheet and assigned tasks based on automations I’ve created.

What are the categories?

After researching time tracking methods and analyzing posts in the r/dataisbeautiful subreddit, I settled on these categories:

1. Work
2. Kids
3. Morning routine (getting up, getting kids ready, etc)
4. Personal tasks (personal tasks or hobby)
5. Waste (useless scrolling, cheap dopamine)
6. Chores
7. Other
8. Travelling
9. Relaxation
10. Home projects
11. Family
12. Sick
13. Eating
14. Education
15. Meditation (I'm doing Vipassana meditation)

Key Insights from My Time Tracking

Generally, I'm pleased with my time allocation, but I discovered some areas for improvement:

• Having to enter activities in the "waste" category made me more conscious about reducing unproductive time
• The app Clearspace helped me significantly reduce cheap dopamine-seeking behaviors
• I identified an opportunity to redirect hundreds of hours from "waste," "morning routine," and "chores" categories into more meaningful areas like "kids," "relaxation," and "spirituality"

Tools I Created

To help analyze my data, I created a small Chrome Plugin that cleans up Google Calendar data and generates statistics. You can find it on GitHub and Chrome Plugin Marketplace.

Full Reports

For those interested in the complete breakdown:

• Open full report in PDF
• Open full report in PNG

Bonus: My Top Computer Apps & Websites

Data source: TimeCamp usage tracking, 2024