21 days of time tracking with TimeTag: Day 1
21 Days of Time Tracking
Using Timetag & TimeTag goals: Day 1.
Day 1! I guess today is technically day two and yesterday was really day 1, but let's pretend that I count like an engineer or software developer, and still call today day 1.
Anyway. It went great -- I setup my TimeTag Goals as discussed. I made good progress on my Meditation goal (I actually did 20 minutes yesterday instead of only 10), and I wrote quite a bit. I did not run yesterday (I like to have Sundays as rest days), but I'll make sure to do that today.
That puts me at:
33% completed for meditation (1 hour a week)
18% completed for writing goal (4 hours a week)
0% completed for running goal (3 hours a week)
I feel compelled to note something here -- when setting a new habit or goal, it's super important that you don't load too much on your plate -- which is basically something I've done. However, my meditation practice is one I've had on and off for years, so I feel more comfortable having that one become a daily thing. Writing and running are similar -- they are habits I've had on and off, and have been desiring to make more regular. That's why I went with a low total hours per week -- to be a little bit more realistic about my ability to set aside the time per day, or even to skip a day if needed.
Habit forming (and tracking it with a time tracking tool) is all about consistency -- showing up. And the best way to show up is to constantly remind yourself why it's worth showing up. It's not enough to want something -- we all want things. It's really easy to want something. To want to make more money, or to want to work at an interesting job, or to want to be famous, or to want to own your own company. All of those things, on their own, require a tremendous amount of work to accomplish -- so I have to:
Pick one to start
Figure out why it's the most important one to start on
Repeat that to myself all the time. I want this because _______.
Everything is achievable -- I really believe that. If you have the right mindset, and the right tools in your life, and a bit of organization, you can achieve your goals.
My final thought exercise for today's log: If I take my writing goal as an example, at 4 hours a week, and think about where I'd be if I kept that up all year. That's 4 x 52 weeks, or 208 hours. That's 3.5 days worth of writing time. If I write a blog post (on average) in 30 minutes, that's 416 potential blog posts! That'd be an incredible amount of content. Even if I take away 50% of that (and assume some blog posts take 2x as much time, for whatever reason), that's still 208 articles I could have on my blog for people to read (and hopefully enjoy).
That's what this is all about. You take a small step today, and you keep repeating. Take the smell step tomorrow. And the day after. And keep it going until you take a slightly larger step. Before you know it, it becomes second nature -- and you can add in a new goal or new habit you'd like.
If you haven't already gotten your copy of the app, TimeTag, you can download it and use it for free -- the Pro version is a premium upgrade (with a free trial!) and not only unlocks the Goal tracking benefit, but many more benefits as well such as dashboards, more insights into your time, and cross-device syncing.
Hope everyone has a wonderful week, and stay tuned for day 2!