It's About Time

Wed, 26 Aug 2015 06:50:35 +1000

At the end of a long day, do you find yourself wondering "where did the time go...?".

"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time." %(attribution)-- Steve Jobs%

But don't be mislead! This is not an article about time, or how to better use time. (There are already more than enough of those out there already.) This is an article about ideas. In particular, ideas about data as well as how, and more importantly why, it might be collected. In this case 'time' will merely be a vehicle for exploring one simple source of data. As I explore a rationale and means for tracking time, consider which other sources of data exist in your business that are yet to be tapped. h3. Why Track Time? There's nothing special about time as a source of data; most-any data has its uses. This is especially true when combined with data from multiple sources. But here are some real benefits that might be achieved through tracking time spent on activities. * You'll be able to offer *better estimates* as you have a record of how long similar tasks have taken in the past. * Visibility over how time is spent allows you to make *better decisions* about how you spend time in future. * Tracking time *helps focus*. The act of specifying the activity you're about to work on is a form of commitment to work on it. * Having time data opens up many avenues for *interesting analysis* when combined with other data! For example: observing the relationship between your body weight and the number of hours spent exercising (or conversely, sitting behind a desk) per week. "But", you argue, "there must be a reason you don't see people doing this all the time!" (No pun intended.) Yes, certainly there are reasons. Leaving the habit-setting aside, there's also the problem of devising a system to capture this information efficiently. And not only this, but maybe you already need to record some sort of time information (for example, in the form timesheets) and we all know about the problems associated with double-entry. I might not be able to help you much with the habit forming, but here's a system to tackle the other two pain-points. h3. Recipe for Tracking Time h4. Ingredients *Timesheet - Time Tracker*: There are a lot of time tracking apps available for Android, though this is my favourite. It offers quick and easy task selection and clocking in and out right from the home screen of your mobile phone so it's very quick and painless to do. For iOS, Eternity Time Log will likely do the job. %(reflink)["link":https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rauscha.apps.timesheet&hl=en]% *OwnCloud*: Synchronise files (in this case, exports from Time tracker) between your mobile and computer. %(reflink)["link":https://owncloud.org/]% *MessengerPigeon*: My own creation, which allows any sort of labeled data to be transformed and moved from any source to any destination. It's designed to be a developer's tool (in that it favours extension and configuration over all else) so if the examples look utterly confusing, that's good: it means you're normal. %(reflink)["link":https://github.com/cshclm/MessengerPigeon]% h4. Method # Define task categories in Time Tracker to suit your lifestyle. They should be specific enough to be meaningful, but not so specific you're forever switching tasks. I find categorising at a level where you'll switch tasks around once every 1-2 hours works best. # Clock in and out of tasks as you work on them. # At the end of the day/week/<time period you choose>, export the tasks from Time Tracker to OwnCloud. # Allow MessengerPigeon to run over the data to format & move it to the location(s) of your choosing. For me, this is in to various project management systems, for my clients' visibility of my times spent on their projects, and to my own global record, so that I can see everything at a glance and do further analysis. h3. Result In recipe books they'd offer you some mouth-watering photo of your newly created dish. Well, at least what you were trying to make anyway. But I can't really offer you anything mouth-watering -- actually seeing a bunch of someone else's time data might be nothing short of sleep-inducing. For this reason the actual recording of times (and reaping of the benefits thereof) will need to be left as an exercise for the reader. Data is most interesting when it's *your* data, and this sort of data collection and storage is the first step when it comes to creating new business insights. Can you think of sources of untapped data which could lead to new insights into your business?

Bit Pattern - Business Insights Through Technology

It's About Time