I started writing this post on August 13, 2017. I’m just now publishing it, as is.
Enter August 13…
I decided to keep track of what I did each hour for a week. I originally intended this to publish this as a series of posts, sharing what I did on a daily basis over the course of a week. Then I figured I’d give some general thoughts on what I found on the final day.
Instead, it’s turned into one giant post outlining not only what I did each hour for an entire week but also my thoughts on what I’ve found from it.
Below is the hourly breakdown. If you’re more interested in my general thoughts on it than the individual hours, be sure to scroll down to the second half of this post at the bottom.
Sunday, August 13
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Slept
- 7:00am: Woke up, drove to Heine Bros. Coffee, hung out with Ted for Hunchback Whale stuff
- 8:00am: Hung out with Ted for Hunchback Whale stuff
- 9:00am: Got ready for church
- 10:00am: Drove to church, started church
- 11:00am: Attended church
- 12:00 noon: Attended church, started lunch at church
- 1:00pm: Finished lunch at church, helped clean up
- 2:00pm: Drove to Aldi, shopped at Aldi
- 3:00pm: Shopped at Aldi, drove home, unloaded groceries, took a 15 minute nap
- 4:00pm: Worked in the yard
- 5:00pm: Swam in our pool, took a shower
- 6:00pm: Went to Walmart for tonight’s meal
- 7:00pm: Cooked and started eating
- 8:00pm: Ate and played Scattegories
- 9:00pm: Played Scattegories
- 10:00pm: Played online poker with Meagan and Gage
- 11:00pm: Slept
Monday, August 14
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Woke up, got ready, drove to work
- 7:00am: Worked
- 8:00am: Worked
- 9:00am: Worked
- 10:00am: Worked
- 11:00am: Worked
- 12:00 noon: Worked
- 1:00pm: Worked and ate lunch
- 2:00pm: Worked
- 3:00pm: Worked
- 4:00pm: Worked
- 5:00pm: Drove home, picked up Meagan, drove to birthing class
- 6:00pm: Attended birthing class
- 7:00pm: Attended birthing class
- 8:00pm: Drove home, began making dinner
- 9:00pm: Ate dinner
- 10:00pm: Cleaned up the kitchen
- 11:00pm: Read some emails and blog posts, watched some Netflix
Tuesday, August 15
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Woke up, got ready, drove to work
- 7:00am: Worked
- 8:00am: Worked
- 9:00am: Worked
- 10:00am: Worked
- 11:00am: Worked
- 12:00 noon: Ate lunch and worked
- 1:00pm: Worked
- 2:00pm: Worked
- 3:00pm: Worked
- 4:00pm: Worked
- 5:00pm: Drove home, laid down for a bit
- 6:00pm: Picked up a card for Luke, drove to meet with Luke for his birthday
- 7:00pm: Hung out with Luke and his friends
- 8:00pm: Drove home, ate dinner with Meagan and Gage
- 9:00pm: Finished eating dinner, cleaned up the kitchen
- 10:00pm: Got Gage in the bath, packed his lunch, played some guitar
- 11:00pm: Slept
Wednesday, August 16
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Woke up, laid in bed, got ready, drove to work
- 7:00am: Worked
- 8:00am: Worked
- 9:00am: Worked
- 10:00am: Worked
- 11:00am: Worked
- 12:00 noon: Worked
- 1:00pm: Ate lunch and worked
- 2:00pm: Worked
- 3:00pm: Worked
- 4:00pm: Worked
- 5:00pm: Worked and then drove home
- 6:00pm: Mowed the lawn while listening to a podcast
- 7:00pm: Finished mowing the lawn, took a shower, and started eating dinner
- 8:00pm: Ate dinner, washed the dishes, sat with Meagan
- 9:00pm: Sat with Meagan, laid down, watched some Netflix, went to sleep
- 10:00pm: Slept
- 11:00pm: Slept
Thursday
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Slept, woke up got ready, drove to work
- 7:00am: Worked
- 8:00am: Worked
- 9:00am: Worked
- 10:00am: Worked
- 11:00am: Worked
- 12:00 noon: Worked
- 1:00pm: Worked
- 2:00pm: Worked
- 3:00pm: Worked
- 4:00pm: Worked
- 5:00pm: Worked
- 6:00pm: Worked, drove home, ate dinner
- 7:00pm: Drove to the Bible study, attended the Bible study
- 8:00pm: Attended the Bible study
- 9:00pm: Attended the Bible study, drove home
- 10:00pm: Tried some moonshine I got as a gift and then went to sleep
- 11:00pm: Slept
Friday
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Woke up, got ready, went to work
- 7:00am: Worked
- 8:00am: Worked
- 9:00am: Worked
- 10:00am: Worked
- 11:00am: Worked
- 12:00 noon: Worked
- 1:00pm: Worked
- 2:00pm: Worked
- 3:00pm: Worked
- 4:00pm: Worked and drove home
- 5:00pm: Hung out with Gage and Meagan, went to pick up food
- 6:00pm: Picked up food, brought it back to the house, and ate and watched Netflix
- 7:00pm: Watched Netflix with Gage and Meagan and fell asleep
- 8:00pm: Slept
- 9:00pm: Slept
- 10:00pm: Slept
- 11:00pm: Slept
Saturday
- 12:00 midnight: Slept
- 1:00am: Slept
- 2:00am: Slept
- 3:00am: Slept
- 4:00am: Slept
- 5:00am: Slept
- 6:00am: Woke up, laid in bed
- 7:00am: Got up, got ready, researched how to fix my laptop, fixed my laptop, washed some dishes
- 8:00am: Wrote this
To start off, we need to categorize the data. Otherwise, it’s meaningless.
- I slept 54 hours to Saturday morning.
- I worked 50 hours. That’s 10 hours per day, not including lunch time, which I took three times during the week.
- I spent about two hours from start to finish on dinners whenever we cook at home. The day we went out to eat, we saved an extra hour, but I just slept it away.
A couple observations on the experiment itself
First, this is not a normal week. I think I worked less hours than normal. I also didn’t play any music with our band. The week before, we got together twice. I don’t normally attend birthing classes (this was my first ever). But I had to pick a week, so this was it. It’s not a normal week, but what’s in it is accurate. What’s a normal week anyway?
Second, knowing I was tracking my time influenced what I did. I don’t think there’s a way to avoid that. This week, for instance, I purposely got out of work earlier. I also had things going on after work each day, so that helped too.
Third…
…
That’s as far as I got writing that morning. It’s now been a month and a half since then, and I realized I never finished this experiment or the accompanying thoughts on it.
For now, I’m going to leave this as is. I think I might come back to revisit this experiment some day. For now, it’s a small snippet of the raw data from that week.
