How to do a Time Audit and Take Back your Day

If you want to organize your home, experts usually recommend decluttering first. You go through each room in your house and really think about your possessions. Which ones are serving you well and which have reached the end of their useful life?

Once you decide which items are no longer useful to you, you can donate them to clear space in your home.

Would you believe that you can and should do the same thing with your schedule? Often our time becomes cluttered without us really noticing. Like physical clutter, schedule clutter creeps in slowly. We may not notice until we’re suddenly feeling busy but not productive.

When you have the feeling of being rushed all the time, it’s time to do a schedule audit!

At Work

People love to schedule meetings! But you can attend a full slate of meetings and accomplish very little. That’s why it’s important to do a workday schedule audit at least quarterly. Recurring meetings can be the bane of your productivity! Here are the things to look at when reviewing your work schedule.

One on Ones

If you’re a manager or you have one-on-ones with your manager, think about the frequency of those meetings. Do you feel that the time is being used wisely? If you work closely with your manager or direct reports, you may not need to meet once a week.

For more senior employees who don’t need much direction, monthly one on ones are fine. Earlier career employees may need more feedback, so more frequent one on ones work well. I also factor in whether the person is remote or not. Typically I meet with remote team members more frequently than with team members in the office. That’s because I usually end up chatting with people in the office so I am more plugged in to what they have going on.

If you don’t have people reporting to you, it’s still worth thinking about your one on one with your manager. Are you at the right cadence? Are you getting what you want out of the meeting?

Consider Consolidating

If your work involves concentration and focus, it can be very hard to jump from work to meeting and back again. That’s why I highly recommend consolidating your meetings into one part of the day. If it’s possible, this will really free up your time to focus on the work that requires deeper thought.

When I’m programming or putting together a complex analysis, it’s incredibly difficult for me to stop. I also find that when you make the whole day available for meetings…meetings will take up the whole day (Brownian motion for time management). If you simply decline morning meetings and block off your calendar, people will take the hint. You’ll gain precious uninterrupted work time.

Projects that Are Winding Down

Sometimes recurring project meetings persist long after their usefulness has ended. Are there any recurring meetings like this on your calendar? Ask the organizer whether you could meet less frequently, or simply tie up loose ends via email. Sometimes people just don’t think far ahead enough to cancel the series.

Revise Attendee Lists

Some meetings may need to stay on the calendar with a revised attendee list. If a project lasts a long time, the invitee list for a project meeting can grow overwhelming. When more people attend a meeting, there’s a higher likelihood if the meeting being derailed.

That’s why, if you own a meeting, it pays to think carefully about who really needs to attend that meeting. Give your colleagues the gift of time, allowing them to do more valuable work rather than attend a meeting they’re not needed at.

Reconsider Large Group Meetings

In the last two years, I’ve almost completely quit going to large group meetings. You know the type. An informational seminar here, a demo of a new tool there. Don’t get me wrong – these meetings can be very valuable if it’s a topic that’s relevant to me. But if not, it’s just a waste of time.

That’s why I look carefully at all large-group meetings in advance. If it’s something I definitely want or need to attend, I’ll accept the invite. When I want to keep the invite on my calendar for awareness but probably won’t attend, I tentatively accept. This is my sign to myself that I don’t need to go to that meeting. If the meeting isn’t relevant, I’ll simply decline.

At Home

At home, our time can be eaten by kid shuffling, volunteer efforts and other activities that might not be serving us well. This can really affect our happiness level too. That’s why we shouldn’t hesitate to audit our home schedules and routines as well. We usually have more control at home, so you have a huge opportunity to add time back to your day when you streamline your home life schedule.

Check in On Activities

Activities can creep in over time. When younger siblings start wanting to do activities, you can double your commitments overnight. That’s why it’s important to check in with your kids every once in a while to make sure they want to continue with their activities.

Some sports, like soccer, have a natural decision point at the end of the season. Other activities, like martial arts or piano lessons, don’t have a defined start and end date. Don’t give your kids the opportunity to quit every week, but do make a point of checking in two or three times a year.

The same goes for adults! Are you attending an exercise class you no longer enjoy? Is there a book club that you’re over? Don’t keep yourself committed to activities that are not important to you right now. Sometimes priorities change, and that’s OK!

Are You Attending the Right Day/Time/Location?

Some activities have multiple class times and locations. So it’s worth asking yourself every once in a while if you are attending the right day, time and location.

We recently switched to a new martial arts studio. While it’s about the same distance from my office and house as the old studio, there’s much less traffic around the new studio. It makes the drive about half what it was at the old place.

When you’re working with just a few hours after school and work, even 5-10 minutes make a big difference in how you feel about the evening! That’s why it’s worth auditing these activity decisions periodically.

Is your before/aftercare and daycare situation still working for you?

At the end of each school year, it’s a good idea to think about how things went in the past year. If your child is in school, are you still happy with the before and aftercare setup? If your child rode the bus last year, did that work for your schedule or do you need to look into early care? Will your child continue to attend aftercare or come home on the bus? Would an afternoon babysitter work better for your family?

If your child is in daycare or preschool, you can ask yourself similar questions. Is the daycare still convenient to your office and home? Are the hours working for you? Have you been happy with the care and programs?

Don’t confine yourself to the way you did it last year! Instead, give your mind the freedom to rethink what would work best for your family.

Are you happy with your medical providers?

Hopefully you’re not going to the doctor and dentist every week, but it when you do have to go it can take a big chunk out of your day.

I usually find that it makes the most sense to have medical providers close to my daughter’s school. If I’m driving work to school (20 min), school to dentist and back (10 min) and back to work (20 min) that’s 50 min of driving. If the dentist is close to work, though, I’m essentially going between work and school four times (80 minutes of driving) which is a non-starter.

For my own medical providers, I much prefer them to be close to my office. Punctuality is also a huge factor for me. I am always on time, barring a major emergency, and if a medical provider runs more than about 10 minutes late regularly I’ll look elsewhere.

So think this through and decide if there are any medical providers you could switch up to buy yourself some time.

Should parents switch tasks?

Schedules and jobs change, and sometimes it makes sense for parents to take on new roles. My husband works from home, and for a while he was able to handle the bus stop every day. Now he has a daily call at bus stop time so I typically do the bus in the morning. But if that call ever gets cancelled, we should re-think the system.

This applies to pickup and activities as well. Sometimes it’s an on-the-fly discussion based on who’s more busy on that day, but if you’ve fallen into a rut with one person doing the majority of tasks it may be time to revisit!

Audit your schedule today

When you have a busy life, just a few minutes a day can make a big impact on your feeling of well-being! Make a commitment (put it on your calendar!) to audit your schedule 2-4 times a year. You’ll find yourself with more time to be productive and more minutes to enjoy the company of your family. And what could be better than that?