I've often heard the importance of "knowing thy time" (Peter Drucker) and "having a time budget" (John Maxwell).
But until 2025, I've had a hard time getting myself to do it.
This year as part of our effort to evolve and adapt Veth Group, I've had a seasoned entrepreneur coaching me daily.
As part of this, I've finally had enough discipline (and reason) to track my time.
I've been using Clockify. And highly recommend this free and easy-to-use tool.
If you're interested, here is a link to my entire month from a work perspective.
Here are 10 things this experience taught me:
1) You're "working" less than you think.
I've been tracking my time much like a lawyer or accountant would, down to the minute. And delineating "billable" (focused work) and "non-billable" (everything else) time.
Something that has been really interesting to see it's that it's actually very hard to get beyond 10-12 "billable" hours a day, even if you are physically sitting in the office from 7am - 12am.
If we focus more while at work, we can be at work less. And get the same amount done.
2) You will be surprised where your buckets fall.
Where you think you are spending time, and where you are actually spending time will vary dramatically on certain things.
I knew, for example, that I wasn't doing as many customer service calls as I was internal meetings. But I had NO idea it was more than 10:1.
Or similarly, it was good for me to see here that content writing (for ProfileBuddy) was taking me almost as much time as outbound (for LeadTurbo).
3) Very few things take "5 minutes."
We tell ourselves that "Dunkin will take 5 minutes"...
Or "I just want to call them for 8-10 minutes."
Very, very few tasks actually can be done under 20-30 minutes.
Especially phone calls.
We need to be realistic about this. And in many cases, this means saying "no" a whole lot more often.
4) Your "yes" means less the more you use it.
The more we try to pile into our glass...
The more we suffocate the "really important stuff" already in it.
The most important thing to me is my Christian faith.
The second most important thing to me is my family.
The third most important thing is my church.
And fourth most important is Veth Group.
When I let random things that realistically are not as important to me get my "yes"...
What I am essentially doing is giving a proportional level of "no" to something more important.
I've worked hard this year to cancel certain recurring meetings, say no to people wanting to "network," stopped responding to aggressive sellers, etc. - and it's been interesting to see how much time this has given me back.
5) Sleep matters. And diet matters too.
We all know this. But it's so easy to ignore.
When we don't sleep well...
And eat poor quality food...
We create a vicious cycle that kills our productivity short-term.
And long-term, creates big health issues.
I'm a work in progress on this one, but I definitely noticed this month how stretching the limits of sleep deprivation or malnourishment can actually lead to suboptimal work output.
6) Accountability buddies are worth their weight in gold.
Whether with time tracking like this...
Or personal budgeting...
Or fitness...
I am amazed how other people can often boost us to heights we can't reach on our own.
This type of data is amazing! But I never would have stuck with time tracking without an accountability partner pushing me forward on it.
This was a huge ancillary learning.
7) I spend WAY too much time in my email inbox.
I was shocked to see that the "Inbox & Admin" load for me in January was over 30 hours.
My friend Victor Cho created a tool called Emovid to help with this that is meant to be about 3-4x faster than typing emails.
The reminder from me on this is that I need to use it way, way more.
8) Sales is a time battle.
This past month, I have been hyperfocused on operations. And less focused on sales.
Even though I'm not the only one selling here at Veth Group...
Seeing my own sales activity (and lack of January deal flow) makes perfect sense to me looking at this report.
I haven't been putting time in!
Where time goes, results follow. Especially in the craft of selling.
After only one week turning up the faucet a bit, it's crazy to see the immediate revenue impact.
9) Done right, management takes a really long time.
In November, I probably spent 10 hours on internal meetings.
In January, I spent 87 hours.
It's been interesting seeing (with the help of my coach) what it takes to really run a great daily meeting, weekly sync up, or focused strategy discussion.
Again, where our time goes. Results follow. I had no idea what it meant to REALLY manage until this past month.
10) Some of the best software in the world is free.
Clockify costs $0.00. No gimmick. No free trial trap. Just free time tracking.
Don't assume that "expensive" equals "valuable."
This software helped me get over the hump. And didn't even require a penny.
CONCLUSION:
I think Peter Drucker was right about the learnings that come from tracking time.
I hope you pull something from at least one of these...
