100’ SPLIT: The Simplest Work Time Tracker
It is a simple tool for tracking work time and estimating productivity. All you need is a scrap of paper or a spreadsheet.
You split a workday into chunks of 100 minutes (i.e., 100-minute time boxes) and track the time you spend on work during these time boxes. Why a hundred? It is a simple denominator: marking time in these boxes gives you the percentage without further operation.
Depending on your routines, you start counting time. If your workday begins at 0800, start the first timebox at 0800. Then, the next would begin at 0940. The third would start at 1120, the fourth at 1300, and the fifth at 1440. The sixth timebox would begin at 1620 and end at 1800.
How does it work? You come to work and mark the start time at, for instance, 0807. Then, you start a timer and try to focus on things during your work time. The duration of such a cycle can be anything, but I recommend having at least 40 minutes, or better, 50. Two 50-minute cycles make a hundred and counting becomes easy. If you get into the flow and want to continue work, do so for another cycle. Next, mark the time spent on work in the 100-minute timeboxes and split the cycle so that it gets into the following box. For example, starting at 0807, you worked for 50 minutes and then for another 50 minutes without a break. Thus, you worked 50+43 minutes during the first time box. The last 7 minutes go into the second.
When you do not work—when your colleague Robert drops by to tell you an exciting detail about some café from his troublesome childhood or when you could not resist the urge to see what your Facebook friends ate during the weekend or what they think about BTS’s choreography in “Fake Love,” stop the timer. It’s not work. During lunch, stop the timer—you are not working either.
When you call it a day, mark it. Say you stopped at 1745. Then, calculate how many out of 578 minutes (08:07 to 17:45 is 9 hours and 38 minutes) you were at your workplace and spent on work. You can compare these data to published ones (e.g., Zapier report: How office workers spend their time).
Soon, you will have stats on how you spend your time at work—how long, the fraction of time spent on work, and your most productive timeboxes. You can use these data to compete with yourself and be more productive. If you want that, of course.
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