Excel: an excellent tool for self-management

   Dear friend,

   It has been one year since I started using Excel to track my work and efficiency. I first had the idea of using Excel to keep tracking my study and research when I was in the second semester of my first year in the Master's program. As I told you in the introduction about me, I have only two years to finish 24 credits of classes, do my research project, and apply to universities for Ph.D. programs. And I need to graduate on time: I would have neither scholarship from the university nor a monthly income from my supervisor if I were late for graduation. I have no choice but to try my best to manage to do everything (successfully) on time. For my first semester, I tried to stay up very late at night to study. However, it seems not a good way: I usually felt tired during classes and in spite of spending the whole day at school, I could not finish so much work. That was when I decided to change and find another way to study efficiently.

 Like most of the students, I heard about the Pomodoro technique but had never applied it to my daily life. I thought I did not need it to keep my concentration, I could do more than only 25 minutes! In fact, I had never "really" measured my study time before, I just counted how many hours I spent in my office (including scrolling through FB, chatting with friends, reading news, blah blah...), not the time I truly spent on studying. 

 After a year and looking at the charts, I can see how much I have been improving day by day. Therefore, I would like to share with you how I use Excel to manage my time and improve my performance. There are the charts I made for tracking my efficiency (the first chart) and the time I wasted on social media (the second chart). 

 In the first chart, the horizontal axis represents the date and the vertical axis describes the point I give myself at the end of each day. The score ranges from -2 to 2, based on three main criteria: 

1. Do I complete all prioritized task(s)?

2. Do I waste much time (> 1 hour) on social media during my working time?

3. Do I enjoy my day?

For days that I got all these three criteria, I give myself points from 1.5 - 2, depending on how satisfied I feel with the tasks I completed. Inversely, for days that I did not try to finish my tasks but wasted my time on FB, chatting,... I give myself minus points, depending on how much procrastination I was. You can see that at the beginning, from Jan-Apr, my scores are almost negative. From Apr-Jun, almost all the scores are positive. That was my final exam period, however, I can not deny that I did improve a lot after a few months. The time from mid-Jun till early Oct was my summer vacation, I also got many negative points, but not so much compared to the beginning. From Oct till now, I rarely have had negative scores. One of the reasons is that this is my final semester. Besides, I am now not so interested in other activities (FB, news,...) since I feel OK after a long time of not touching my phone/online. I also feel engaged in my current work, so I do not need to find any other activity to engage myself.

  Every day after work, I write down how much time I lost concentration on my work and spend it on FB or the news. The second chart records all my procrastination time: time spent on social media during the time I was supposed to work. The horizontal axis also represents the date, while the vertical axis shows the time (unit: minute) I used for FB, news,... By looking at this chart, I know exactly how much time I wasted - it makes me realize I spent my time on the wrong activities (at the wrong time). You can see that the time I wasted on social networks decreased while my points for concentration increased.

  The image above is the Excel sheet for my daily work. I write my long-term goals on top of the sheet to remind myself. The columns from left to right are date; work (I spend 5 minutes every day reflecting on all my work and planning for the tasks I need to do the following day). I set my emotion and motivation in the column "How today will be" and re-check all the tasks I planned to do 5 minutes before starting. At the end of the day, I note down the time I wasted on FB, news,... during my working time. Based on the second and the fourth columns, I give myself points (from -2 to 2, with the criteria as above) on the "evaluation" column. I also clarify why do I score that point for the day on the column "Reflection", and "discuss" with myself what to do to improve my performance. Finally, to practice imagination, I write down at least one idea for the day. It does not need to be a big idea, just the simple one as the waiting time for redlight correlates to the density of cars/bikes on the streets. 

  Those are my way of managing myself and my day. I hope you can find something useful in daily planning and time management (an efficient way to spend your time is in the Pomodoro technique post). The main point here is that you need to be self-consistent: make it become your daily habit and do not break the chain! To keep yourself consistent, I recommend you to go back and see my summary of "Learning How To Learn" lectures, starting from understanding your thought with Focused and Diffuse Thinking. 

Be Brave.