How can I assess how I’m using my time?

Try keeping an activity log for a week. Keep a notebook with you while you work, or a file open on a computer, and every 15 minutes for a week note what you’ve done in that period. Be honest, because nobody else needs to see it and you won’t be doing yourself any good by lying. If you’ve spent the last 15 minutes looking out the window, or gazing longingly at photos of the ski slopes on the internet, put it down. Write down if you’ve spent the time in a meeting that was of no use to you, or helping someone else with their work, or waiting for the IT system to be repaired again. Put it all down.

Then, when the week’s over, look through the log and find out exactly how you spent your time. You may be very surprised. Your memory probably tells you that you spent all day working hard, but memory is a selective tool, and you may find out that you spent a great deal of time doing things that either somebody else should have been doing or that you simply didn’t need to do at all.

From that, you can work out what’s been taking up too much of your time, and possibly what’s been taking up too little. Knowing it is an important step towards fixing it. You will then be much more aware of the times when you’re doing unnecessary or wasteful things, and stop doing them. Try keeping the activity log going to measure your improvements and see where you can do even better.