What Time Tracking Granularity Do You Recommend?

00:00:04.000 | Alright, we got a question now from Mika,

00:00:08.000 | who asks, "What time tracking granularity

00:00:12.000 | would you recommend?" 30 minutes.

00:00:16.000 | I think the smallest granularity with which you want to do any time

00:00:20.000 | block planning is 30 minutes. Once you're below 30 minutes,

00:00:24.000 | you should just batch whatever you're doing into a collection of activities

00:00:28.000 | that takes 30 minutes. Once you get below 30 minutes,

00:00:32.000 | you're getting too fine grained. There's no way that you're actually going to hit those blocks consistently.

00:00:36.000 | What's the point? So this is why you'll see in my time block planner,

00:00:40.000 | for example, 30 minutes is the smallest granularity that I've demarcated

00:00:44.000 | for actually drawing out time blocks, and that's the way to do it.

00:00:48.000 | Quick technical tip for accomplishing that,

00:00:52.000 | because if you're time blocking on a planner, that 30 minute

00:00:56.000 | block might be small, physically small, right? It doesn't take up much space.

00:01:00.000 | So if you're putting five small things into a 30 minute block, you're probably

00:01:04.000 | not going to be able to record those five things in a

00:01:08.000 | 30 minute size block in your time block planner.

00:01:12.000 | So the advice I give in the front of the planner, where I have a sort of mini dissertation

00:01:16.000 | on time block planning, is you instead put a number in that

00:01:20.000 | 30 minute block. Put a number 1 and circle it. And then in the upper

00:01:24.000 | right of your time block planning grid, you draw the 1 up there, and then right

00:01:28.000 | next to it you can have the list of everything that's supposed to go in that block. Oh, here's the

00:01:32.000 | five things. 1, 2, 3. And you put it up in the upper right of your time block grid

00:01:36.000 | because your time block plan, even as you correct it as time goes on,

00:01:40.000 | gets lower and lower and lower. It looks like a downwards facing slope.

00:01:44.000 | So the upper right of your time block grid is unlikely to actually be

00:01:48.000 | space that you need for corrected time block plans. So you put it up there

00:01:52.000 | and so you can elaborate a lot of little things

00:01:56.000 | that are supposed to happen in a small block. So don't go less than 30 minutes, just put more

00:02:00.000 | into those 30 minute blocks.