When doing software development it could be useful to track your time (split task types into categories) and start counting. Utilities with a start-stop interface are the less intrusive ones for this purpose.
We all know there's a difference between a plan and real-life execution (project plans, life plans, etc.). This is also valid for our daily plan (we do plan every day right?). If we do track time spent on our daily tasks most of us will for sure be surprised how differently we spend our time (when compared to our initial plan). In software engineering, for your projects, Project Monitoring and Control, helps us keeping projects (and its plans) on track. What about in your life? The % of effective time spent working sometimes is radically different from our first mental guess (and maybe this is why time runs out without things getting done: because we are NOT doing it).
But we mustn't panic: Typically it is normal that we don't spend 100% of the time working but do you know your %? This is because there are context changes as well as several types of interruptions including meetings, phone calls and many other asynchronous events that will make you stop te current task (and incur into new context changes). Also, this is why we should never plan 100% of our time fully.
Repeating the question: Do you know the average % of time you are able to be productive?
If not, try using a time tracker for a week, so that you have the numbers. There are for sure published studies on this productivity topic (google is your friend) but only after having your own % number you can start thinking in optimizing the way you spend your day (you can only optimize what you can measure).
Some example of time trackers are listed in this article (mini-review):
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-free-and-useful-desktop-based-time-tracking-software/
My minimum requirements for such a tool are:
- that's in your budget (mine is zero, so I look for freeware)
- that allows you to define task categories (don't try to track individual tasks, unless you really need to); things like, analysis, coding, testing, meetings, [coffee] break (if you're doing SW development);
- that has a start/stop interface (a plus would be to pause tracking time when the screen saver enters in action - I don't know many people that are able to work while the screen saver is running)
- that presents you some reporting on the collected data (charts, dashboards - per day, week, month)
- that exports data to CSV/XLS format (for further analysis, if needed)
You could have additional requirements, e.g. "has a web interface" but for me this is not required.
PS. For personal productivity tips (not properly related to tools) you could try these:
http://umdiadestesvou.blogspot.pt/2016/09/um-dia-destes-vou-testar-mais-dicas-de.html
