Logging hours at work is one of the most mundane tasks that most of us don’t like to do. But if we look at it from a different angle, it serves as a good process to study and modify our working patterns to be more efficient.

Don’t view timesheets as a requirement from the management or the company. See it as a tool to capture the distribution of time (and effort) spent.

How much time am I allocating for learning and growth?

Why is so much time being spent in this project?

What patterns can I find that have the scope to be optimized for efficiency?

And many more like these.

Once we change our perspective, we will also alter the way we log our hours. We will customise it to answer questions about our efficiency and fine-tune it to improve our productivity and growth. It also gives us incentive to make this a daily habit so we can continuously take stock and iteratively improve.

Time is the most valuable investment we can make in our lives. We should do it wisely.