I’ve been actively hacking my lifestyle to make the most of my time.  One thing that usually comes up when I’m rearranging my schedule is the allotment of my hours.  After scouring the internet and finding endless scripts, $25 shareware applications, beautiful widgets, and ugly open source applications, I’ve found a really simple way to do quick spot check on how your spending your time.

Notepad, while by design is naturally limited in functionality, includes a time date stamp mapped to keyboard shortcut F5.  Simple F5, tab, and a quick description of what you’ve accomplished since your last log entry.  That’s it.  It’s not tracking projects, estimates, or percentage of focus time.  It’s just a simple way for you to see where your time is escaping.

Example:

7:13 AM 9/13/2007    Started UM Work
7:29 AM 9/13/2007    Wrote Post on Time Logging
7:35 AM 9/13/2007    Emailed advertiser rates

How do you track your time?