There is no very precise definition of growth. But one thing that is undoubtedly true is that we feel more and more that time is precious. As life gets faster, responsibilities get bigger, dreams become clearer, and the days go by faster and faster. At this point in time, we all wish that time would go slower, but time does not stop and wait for us. It is only up to us to try to catch up with time, to improve our ability to perceive the passage of time and to become friends with it.
Laziness, procrastination and distraction are all psychological instincts that we need to combat in the process of implementation. So it is very important and necessary to have a tool at hand to support behaviour in this process of managing time.
I have tried most of the time management software that has been on the market for several years, from logging (active and passive), to tomato clocks (the difference lies in the motivational approach), to time accumulation (10,000 hours of practice), and of course GTD and schedule related ToDo type software (single goal oriented).
Some of the time-based software I have used
The atimelogger series is a great example of timekeeping software, and its simple interface and intuitive operation make it the first software that many beginners are really prepared to use to keep good track of their time.
At the heart of this series is the idea of writing down everything about one’s time 24×7, the more detailed the better. Then after a period of time, you can take stock of your time use and go back and improve it according to your records. This diary-like way of recording time comes from the prolific Soviet biologist Lyubichev, and a biography of him written by his close friend, The Strange Life. But this way of recording events is very difficult to stick to, and it’s fair to say that the threshold for getting started is high.
As I quoted a regular user, time recording software like this requires you to do everything: tap on the selected item when you start, tap again when you’re done, pause tap, switch tap. Some people might say this is due to a lack of habit. But in fact when we focus our attention on specific tasks, the best state should be when we forget to enter the field of mental flow and concentrate on things and forget the passage of time.
And on the other hand, even if we are used to the beginning and the end, when we are working on a goal-oriented task, the constant thought of the end time in our minds is a factor that reduces the efficiency of the current task in progress.
Not only that, but after I had been using it consistently for a while, I started asking myself the question, “Do I really need to write everything down in detail?” Things like some of life’s necessities, such as eating, sleeping, haircuts and commuting, i.e. fixed time, cannot be scaled down. But for the things that are really important to me and require active input, such as studying, working, practising my skills, I want to do more than just record them, I want to keep track of them and record them in depth.
That’s where iHour comes in. This Clover Media Studio app is as sophisticated and useful as they always are.
The theory behind this practice of accumulating time in a specific area is supported by the 10,000 hours theory proposed by psychologist Anders Erikson. This means that a normal person who wants to become an expert in a field has to persist in that field for more than 10,000 hours, which roughly translates to 10 years.
But because of the halo effect, many people get caught up in the 10,000 number and miss the essence of the theory – it’s not just about doing something repeatedly for 10,000 hours, it’s about stepping out of your ‘comfort zone’ and into the 10,000 hours or more in the “learning zone”. See this answer for more details: What is the 10,000 hour law?
And with the mention of the 10,000 hour law, another related concept has to be mentioned – mind flow. It is a psychological concept, and we have all had the wonderful experience of being so absorbed in something that we forget that time has passed, and then realise how long it has been until we finish. To get into such a state, you have to work on a project that matches your abilities, not too hard and not too easy. The ‘learning zone’ I mentioned in the previous paragraph is a forgetful experience of entering the mindstream. Wikipedia page: Mind Flow
Having talked about the theory behind the software, let’s go back to iHour itself. It’s a great software, easy to use, and the most important reason why I use it. But I don’t know if it’s because the studio had too many productions or what, but after the software was released in ’13, it was updated once in ’14 with a drop-down bar plugin, adapted in ’15 and added 3D Touch functionality in ’16, but other than that nothing new was added. But as I said, the accumulation of skills requires a state of mind-flow and the need to recall when you’ve finished, which often leads to forgetting to finish a project you’ve started. Often when you need to work on a project the next day, you open the software to find that the previous day’s project is still on the go.
In addition to this, a main project often contains a number of sub-items or Tag tags. For example, learning a foreign language may include different sub-projects such as memorising words, reading, watching drama, writing, etc. iHour does not support this. This is not supported by iHour, which has led me to gradually stop using it to keep track of time as well.
There are many other To-Do based time management software such as OmniFocus, Tomato Potato, Forest, Learn to Save the Earth and many others. These apps are not strictly time management software, but are designed to help users focus on their goals and resist external and internal distractions.
Their theoretical basis comes from GTD – “Just Do It – The Art of Stress Free Work” – and the tomato clock, which divides time units. A complete GTD process has a total of seven steps, from collection to review, so its learning threshold is the biggest barrier to users practising the system. Because of this, there is some incentive built into the software for users to persevere: penalties and rewards. The best examples of this are Forest and Learn to Save the Planet, which I mentioned.
Forest has punishment at its core, in that starting a task and then unlocking the phone causes the user to fail the task – quite literally withering a small tree. Schoolboy Save the Planet, on the other hand, borrows some gamification ideas by using the completion of tasks and gaining experience rewards to improve one’s avatar step by step. These initiatives may have the power to assist in getting started for beginners, but they seem cumbersome and rigid for those who are capable of performing tasks on their own as time management initiates.
As for the so-called sense of achievement in completing a task, it doesn’t really come from the software, but from within one’s heart. Because only one knows exactly what one’s remarkable achievements are, which is why many users who use Excel sheets to record their time also enjoy looking at their data so much.
How to use your time effectively
Many people like to talk about time management, but you can’t actually manage time, only you can. Time management is also not a practice like a monk, where you have strict rules about what you need to do at what time and a fixed schedule. Time management is more like a framework of principles that you can follow to make your life easier and more comfortable.
Principle 1: Set aside time for yourself
As you enter society, you will take on more and more social roles. It is particularly important to have some time for yourself outside of these roles. This time for yourself can be spent doing anything from developing a hobby, playing a game, listening to music or even showing off your cooking skills. It can be relaxing, enjoyable and unmotivated.
This time to ourselves allows us to continually search for what we really want in life, to hit the pause button to recover from our modern, busy lives and, more importantly, to use this time to become an interesting person, open and informed. We instinctively gravitate towards people who are interesting in our interactions, who make the whole conversation less dull and always have many different experiences and insights from others. Interesting people share their love and joy for life with others, and to be such a person takes time to invest.
Time for oneself is precious in the daily allocation of time, but this needs to be based on having dealt with everything else. Or rather, having invested enough time and energy in other things. In this way, it is possible to have real free time and to achieve both mental and physical relaxation.
Principle 2: Have clear goals
Clear and assessable goals are always a prerequisite for good strategy, and the same is true for time management. Figuring out why you need to plan and manage your time can have a profound impact.
If you want to be more effective per unit of time because you have too much to do each day and are running out of time, then using a tomato clock to develop focus and using goal-oriented GTD are the best strategies. For those who have a loose schedule and don’t know where they are spending their time, they need to be more aware of the passage of time and use planning and recording to take control of their time. For those who want to be consistent and become experts in a certain field, maintaining their mental flow is the most important thing.
Principle 3: Discover your motivation
One of the most important aspects of time management is persistence, and persistence presupposes sustained motivation. And the only motivators for human effort, in a broad sense, are rewards and punishments. Rewards refer to the rewards you can get for doing the right thing, and punishments refer to the miserable consequences you can get.
Here I need to introduce a new concept: delayed gratification. It is a skill that needs to be acquired, but it is a very important one. It allows you to move towards your goals with clarity and excellence, and to reap the deep pleasure of a higher level and a longer half-life. (Related quote: Stanford toddler candy experiment) In fact, all people who start to practice time management are more or less starting to be aware of this. They start to try to guide their future behaviour through time planning.
Principle 4: Reduce fragmented time
Many people always think that they can make better use of their fragmented time, but this thinking is actually a kind of Benjamin’s thinking in reverse. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, suggested that there is a period of adaptation when one changes from one thing that one is doing to another. Modern psychology also proves that frequent shifts in attention are the biggest waste of time. Because the valve of human memory is attention, the brain will usually filter out things that are not focused on as fragments of information.
So even though you may be reading the same book for several fragments of time in a row, it is not as rewarding as an hour of serious reading. The best thing to do is to minimise fragmented time, plan ahead, schedule large sequential blocks of time for important things, and block out distractions. To prioritise tasks, refer to Eisenhower’s four quadrants and plan your to-do list wisely.
Principle 5: It’s better to overspend your will than to develop habits
This point is also related to persistence. Many people may find it hardest to get themselves to sink their teeth into something they don’t like but have to do. And the difficulty with this thing is that it is a process that requires an exertion of willpower. But a thing is much easier once it becomes a habit. But developing habits is a long process that requires patience, planning, well-timed feedback and rewards. In any case, your time is your own. If you don’t act on it yourself, no one will be held accountable for it.
Designing a suitable time management software
Ultimately, I wanted to design a time management app that would be easy to use, practical and long-lasting for a known purpose.
First and foremost, it must no longer be possible to forget to finish or switch tasks.
There are two solutions to this problem: one is to keep reminding you so that you can no longer forget or ignore them. But this is too crude and does not fit in with my idea of time management. The second is to simply eliminate the session, but how to end it at that point is a problem. My solution is to pre-set the time for each task and then use a countdown timer with a tomato clock so that even if you forget to end it, it will end at the scheduled time. It would be good to come back and add some details at that time.
The second is to distinguish between the time you plan to use, the time you sleep, and the time left unused, so that you can have a clear picture of your daily time planning.
This way we can be clear about how much we need to get done and how well it’s being done. Then, when all is said and done, it is possible to devote your own time without fear.
Thirdly, there is the handling of the details of the project.
Projects should not be too trivial to set up, but they should have the right amount of information. For example, deadlines, distinctions, goals remaining for the day, whether there are reminders, etc. I don’t really like the fact that a lot of information needs to be clicked in to be seen, and some of the key elements can best be grasped at a glance.
Fourthly, there is a focus on statistics.
For the single most important area of time management, cumulative, statistics are very important. This is so that I can visually see how long I have carried on in total, how long I have left until the next milestone and what I have done in each case. Only by knowing the past can I better guide the future.
Fifthly, there is support for the latest technology.
Technology is changing so rapidly that the iOS mobile operating system alone has already released its 10th version to double digits. The number of new features is endless. For example, 3D Touch, the latest expanded drop-down bar, Apple Watch and other new technologies can make an app more useful and convenient. Unfortunately, many older apps have not been updated to support these new technologies, let alone be deeply adapted. But I believe that seeking newness and change is an attitude to life, a most fundamental value to keep yourself always online.
Bedtime and wake time logging
Of course it’s not as simple as just recording the time you go to bed. When we look back on our day, we find that the time spent awake in bed is usually overlooked. Yet this time is not short, especially now that we are entering winter, when we go to bed but don’t go to sleep and play games; and wake up but don’t get up and stay awake for a while.
The main purpose of this function, then, is to keep track of how long we stay in bed and procrastinate. Of course I want to take a more elegant approach, after all the point of recording our time for both is to avoid it. So in the new version I will add a wake up alarm, and a bedtime reminder. The user can go to the software to remove this reminder after it has been made, and at that point the software will automatically record the intervening time period. These planned upgrades, as well as future upgrades, will be free of charge for those who purchase the software.
