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How Productive Are You REALLY Being? Take This Test

by Jakehyten
4 replies
I am a seminar junkie and I was browsing through some of my old notes and found an interesting test you could do to see how productive you're REALLY being.

I now work full time online and I feel like I work 15 hours a day. But sometimes at the end of the day I'm left thinking "What the hell did I get done all day!?"

So, I decided to do the test. I got a stopwatch and I started it right when I got on my computer in the morning. I kept it going the whole time I was actively doing something within my IM business.

If I got up to go to the bathroom, grab some coffee, watch tv or talk on the phone I stopped it. I even stopped it for any NON related IM activity like checking my myspace or, watching a video on youtube.

At the end of the day when I was ready to go to bed I looked at the stopwatch. How many hours had I worked in my business???

6 and a half hours!!!!!!!

I thought for sure I was working more than this. And if i narrowed it down even more part of those 6 hours were spent in NON income producing activities like checking email, needlessly checking stats or other things.

I'd be interested to see other peoples results. One thing for sure is I can now use this to make myself more productive.
#productive
  • Profile picture of the author DrewG
    Jake,

    interesting case study! You might even want to check out rescuetime.com, it gives a break down of what sites you visit and for how long.

    This also leads to the question of getting an office or not. I think a lot of people find if they're in a more office environment, they'll be more productive.


    I should try the stopwatch technique, I'd either be surprised and happy by the amount of productivity, or sad that it's not higher than I thought lol

    $.02
    ~D.C.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      I wouldn't call checking stats and email useless or non essential. But I guess it all depends on how you set up your business.
      Signature

      "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

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      • Profile picture of the author Jakehyten
        Originally Posted by avenuegirl View Post

        I wouldn't call checking stats and email useless or non essential. But I guess it all depends on how you set up your business.
        you're right. checking your analytics to gather data for marketing purposes is not useless. But im talking about stat checking that IS useless.
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        • Profile picture of the author M4UNow
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          • Profile picture of the author Jakehyten
            yeah this is what I will be doing next. I was going to do 1 hour but now thinking about it ill probably do 30 minute intervals.

            Originally Posted by M4UNow View Post

            Have you tried the stopwatch to mark 30 minutes at a time, at one project. Whether it be writting an article, fixing a web page, doing seo, calling a customer/client back, cold calling whatever it may be. You do that one project that contibutes at least 80% to your goal for a straight 30 minutes then go to the bathroom, make your coffee, check your stats for 5-10 minutes. Go back to your desk, turn the clock on for 30 minutes and tackle another task for 30.

            Try that for a few days and see if that doesn't improve your "productive" time.

            Good luck.
            Gina : )
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