Too precise? I doubt you’d find this level of precision desirable
or helpful. I also doubt you’d keep recording that way for a full
week. Make your notes in a way that will tell you what you want
and need to know about yourself at the end of the week.
Be honest, even if it hurts. Folks tend to fudge downward on time
spent playing computer games and upward on time spent exercising,
for example. You want a true picture of your activities in a typical
week. Then you can decide if you want to change anything.
It can be difficult, but try not to let the process of keeping track
of time alter the way you actually spend that time. If you know
you’re going to have to record it, you may be less likely to want
to flop down and watch a CSI rerun. But if that’s what you would
have done without the log, that’s what you ought to do with it.
Nobody has to see your log, and you have the power to change any-
thing you don’t like about the way you live (and to decide to embrace
anything you do—public opinion, spouses excepted, be damned).
Allow enough time at the end of your survey week to do the
math. (No, you don’t have to note this time on your log. You’re fin-
ished with that.) Go back to your first page, where you made your
list and created your Estimate column and your Ideal column, and
write in the Actual numbers. Each entry should now have three
sets of numbers after it.
EStimatE idEal actual
Sleep 49 (29%) 56 (33.3%) 52 (31%)
If you’ve been rigorous and honest, you may get some
surprises:
EStimatE idEal actual
Video gaming 7 (4.2%) 3.5 (2.1%) 42 (25%)
Okay. You’re not likely to get that big a surprise. But you may
note some relatively large discrepancies among estimates, ideals,
A R E Y O U R E A L LY A S B U S Y A S Y O U T H I N K?