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Time management. Is this one of your big challenges? You are not alone! Social leaders often feel short on time and overwhelmed by responsibilities. Your time is a precious resource. How are you investing it? Let’s find out! This article will teach you how to do your Time ROI (Return on Investment analysis).

What is a Time ROI?

A Time ROI is an analysis of how you are investing your time. Here is the overall process:

1- Keep a detailed diary of your activities for a certain period

2- Catalog each activity by category or type

3- Add up the amount of hours by category and calculate the percentage of your time you invest in each

4- Analyze the results

The Time ROI Diary

Keeping a time ROI diary is the first step to really understanding how you are spending your time. I recommend doing this for a 2-week period. But, you can choose any significant amount of time you prefer. Make sure the moment you pick represents your routine (not a vacation week, for example).

Note EVERY activity as it happens, including time spent on it. Nothing is too trivial or off limits. “Ate a sandwich”, “surfed the web”, “helped the neighbor”, “reviewed Daniel’s work”, “attended Board meeting”, “chatted with my kids”, “slept” – track it all!

You can use any diary format that fits your style. Are you creative? Make your own nifty diary with stickers and drawings. Are you a spreadsheet geek like me? Use Excel or Google Sheets on your phone (this makes the following analysis easy). Technological? Use a timesheet app like Toggl. Of course, you can also track on a traditional daily planner. Just remember that you will need to categorize the activities later.

Activity Categories

Now it is time to assign a category to each of your activities. Each one will have its own color (color is not necessary, but fun!) If you are doing this as a creative physical exercise, you can create buckets. If you are doing this in a spreadsheet, “category” is a column (if you are feeling daring, you can color code using conditional formatting, too!). Finally, if you are doing this in a daily planner, you can color code with highlighters.

Remember that everyone is different. What may fall under one category for me, may fall under another for you. Be true to yourself.

Category 1: Self-Care (Blue)

Self-care encompasses everything you do to replenish your energy and health. This includes:

-Sleeping

-Eating (unless it is during a business meeting or while driving)

-Exercising

-Visiting medical professionals

-Pampering yourself (doing things you enjoy)

Category 2: Quality Time (Teal)

Quality time is spent nurturing relationships with those you love. You can have meaningful conversations or do some bonding activity, This includes:

-Quality time with your family, especially your children

-Quality time with your significant other

-Quality time with your friends

-Quality time with yourself (deep thinking or meditating)

Category 3: Non-Delegable Tasks (Green)

This category includes those tasks that you cannot delegate under any circumstance, either at work or at home. For example, no one can take a shower for you. Or, if you are a teacher, no one else can do your final grading.

Category 4: Important, but Potentially Delegable Tasks (Yellow)

These are the important things you do that could potentially be assigned to somebody else. You may need a longer term plan to delegate these, yet it is theoretically possible. This bucket tends to be fuller than people expect. It may include things like:

-Meetings

-Paperwork

-Reviews

-Reports

-Decisions

-Housework

Category 5: WHYYYYYY?! (Red)

This is the stuff that does not fit any other category. These are things you should definitely delegate or banish from your life. They are taking up way too much space!

Calculate and Analyze your Time ROI

Add up your hours per category and make sure you have accounted for the total hours in your time period. That should give you a percentage for each category.

For example, in a week (168 total hours), you may be investing:

20% in self-care

10% in quality time

20% in non-delegable

25% in important but delegable

25% whyyyyyy?!

Look at your percentages. Is that a good Time ROI for you? Are you happy?Do you have enough positive energy? Do your loved ones feel bonded with you and vice-versa? Do you feel overwhelmed at work? The answer to these questions will guide your adjustments.

Is there a perfect formula for all? No. Everyone is different. Figure out what you NEED in categories 1 and 2, calculate #3 and adjust in categories 4 and 5.

For example, I think most people need to invest more than 42% of their time on self-care. This includes 8 hours of sleep plus 2 hours for meals and other self-care daily. I think people should invest at least 15% on quality time (category 2). That averages out to less than 4 hours daily. These 2 time investments still leave plenty of time for your non-delegable tasks.

So, what is your ideal Time ROI?

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