How long should a time audit last?

At least 5 working days, ideally 10. One week can be unrepresentative (a conference week, a vacation week, a quiet week). Two weeks gives a more reliable baseline. After the initial audit, quarterly spot-checks (2–3 day tracks) maintain accuracy as your schedule evolves.

Does time auditing have to be exact?

No. Granularity of 15-minute intervals is sufficient for most purposes. The goal is category distribution, not billable-hour precision. Round to the nearest 15 minutes and focus on the patterns, not the exact numbers.

What tools work best for a time audit?

A simple text file updated in real time, a notebook, or a spreadsheet are effective. More sophisticated options include Toggl Track (manual entries) or Timing (automatic Mac app tracking). The best tool is the one you'll actually update throughout the day.

Should I change my behavior during the time audit?

Track your behavior as-is, not as you wish it were. The audit measures your baseline, not your aspirational schedule. If you modify behavior during the audit, you'll underestimate the problem and overestimate your baseline performance.

Time audit: track your actual time for one week to find out what your days are really made of

A time audit involves tracking where your time actually goes for 1–2 weeks. It's often shocking and almost always actionable. Here's how to run one.

What is a time audit?

A time audit is the practice of tracking how you actually spend your time for 1–2 weeks, recording each activity in real time rather than from memory. The goal is to produce an accurate picture of your time distribution across categories: deep work, meetings, email, administrative tasks, planning, social interaction, and transitions. Most knowledge workers believe they spend significantly more time on high-value focused work than they actually do. The time audit is the instrument that replaces belief with data. It's uncomfortable — the gap between where you think your time goes and where it actually goes is almost always larger than expected — and that discomfort is precisely what makes it actionable.

How to run a time audit

The practical method for a time audit: carry a simple log — a notebook, a text file, or a tracking app — and record each activity as you do it, not at the end of the day. Record start time, activity, and a category label. Run this for at least 5 working days, ideally 10. At the end, aggregate by category: how many hours were in deep work vs. meetings vs. email vs. administrative vs. transition time? Compare the distribution to your ideal. The typical knowledge worker wants to spend 30–50% of their time in deep focused work; the audit typically reveals 10–20%. That delta is the primary target for restructuring.

What time audits typically reveal

Common time audit findings include: meeting time is 40–60% higher than perceived (because people mentally account for only the meeting itself, not the preparation, follow-up, and transition time it generates). Email consumes 3–4x more time than people estimate (because each email check generates a 15–20 minute context recovery period). 'Deep work' blocks are frequently interrupted at the 15–25 minute mark by notifications, messages, or self-initiated context switches. Administrative tasks expand into whatever time is available (Parkinson's Law). Transition time between tasks — the minutes between finishing one thing and genuinely starting the next — is often 20–30% of the workday, largely invisible.

Using time audit data to redesign your schedule

A completed time audit is most valuable as input to schedule redesign. The redesign process: identify the category where you're spending the most time relative to value (usually email or low-priority meetings), identify the category where you're spending the least time relative to value (usually deep work), and restructure your schedule to shift hours from the first to the second. Specific interventions might include: setting email batch processing windows (2 sessions per day rather than continuous), introducing no-meeting mornings, creating explicit deep work blocks with calendar protection, and designing transition rituals between tasks to recover the wasted transition time. today's session tracking is a lightweight ongoing version of a time audit — it doesn't capture everything, but it captures your most intentional work.

Frequently asked questions