When I want to see how I’m spending my time, I fill in this sheet I made up on ordinary paper.

I like it simple or I won’t do it.

So I write my start and end times to the nearest 5 minutes. I write down the total minutes beside them. Then a brief description for whatever I’m doing.

The important things are in the next two columns:

+ / – / 0

and:

buomtrn?

+ is taking me toward my purposes and goals, – is taking me away, and 0 is neutral. Picking up the drycleaning for example.

Sometimes, however, something can actually be taking you toward your goal, like reading an instructive book, say, and it isn’t the best use of your time at the moment. Not much use in reading that book when you have no new business in the pipeline.

So that’s where “buomtrn?” comes in. It’s the last part of (time management expert) “Lakein’s question”. It’s #58 on this list.

What I’m really doing when I analyze my time use is looking for a lot of checkmarks in this column.