People often complain that they waste their day but they don’t know where their time goes. I encourage friends, students, and clients not to get bogged down by tracking every minute of their day, because the focus on time management actually makes people less efficient with their time. Instead, I encourage clients to develop a personal, simple strategy to account for whether they are productive or not.
I call my simple system “The Daily Letter” and it involves writing one letter for each day on a physical calendar. The 4 letters are as follows:
P = Stands for Producing –> Accomplished daily goals and feel you made a positive impact in your work.
C = Stands for Consuming –> Leisurely enjoyed life’s amenities and spent meaningful time with family/friends.
B = Stands for doing Both –> Pretty straight forward
N = Stands for doing Neither –> Perhaps you were sick…or hungover.
I have used this simple system for over a year now, and the simplified nature of this aggregated data is magical. I now have a tally of exactly how many days I focus on producing things, consuming things, doing both, or doing neither. My personal goal is to be a producer, a creator, and to spark a productive zest in others.
