Tracking Every Hour for 750 Days

Your time is the most valuable resource you have. It’s completely non-renewable. Once you use it, you can’t get it back.

Inspired by a few of my role models, a little over 2 years ago I decided to start tracking my daily time spend in a Google Sheet (shown above^). My goals were pretty simple: understand where all my time was going, link it to my mood, and optimize accordingly.

So each of the past 750 days I’ve recorded my hours spent working, exercising, relaxing, etc. and rated my mood on a scale from -2 to +2. I didn’t really realize it when I started, but looking back I’ve created a pretty meticulous hourly time-study of my life. Through this I’ve learned a lot about myself, how I work, how time works.

I’ll summarize a few of my biggest learnings and takeaways.

How I’ve Spent My Time

Over the past two years I’ve spent about 4,832 hours working (6.6 hours per day, 46 per week), 415 hours exercising (about 0.6 per day), 2,672 hours with friends/family/fun (3.7 hours per day), and about 5,612 hours sleeping (7.7 hours per day). The rest is time lost to mundane tasks like driving, TV/social media, cleaning, etc. (about 5.4 hours per day).

It’s interesting to see how those numbers compare on a quarter-by-quarter basis. On a daily or weekly scale it can feel like my time ebbs and flows quite a bit — some weeks I manage to exercise 10 hours. Others I can’t find the motivation to do anything. But when I zoom out I realize that my time spent working/exercising/having fun/sleeping is more or less consistent quarter by quarter.

That said if you look very closely you can see a few small trends. For instance I have tended to spend slightly more time sleeping and slightly less time working over the past few quarters vs. previous quarters. I am not sure what to think about that — maybe I’m getting more efficient. I’ve also managed to spend a little less time having fun and exercising. So be it. But big picture each of these categories have stayed more or less the same.

How Time Affects Mood

Each day I’ve recorded my mood on a scale from -2 to +2 (ie. -2, -1, 0, +1, or +2). Though it’s an inherently subjective measure, I try to rate each day as objectively as possible based on how I’m feeling at the time of recording. A +2 day is when I’m feeling exceptional; a great day. A -2 day is when I’m feeling bad, often days I’d like to forget. A zero is neutral — not great, not bad.

The most interesting takeaway for me has been tracking how my recorded mood at the end of each day relates to how much time I spend in each bucket. Whereas my time spend in each bucket is very consistent on a quarterly scale, when I break it out by mood you begin to see stark variations.

In short, end of day mood is heavily correlated with how I spend (or don’t spend) my time. Look at the summary tables above, I’ve taken the average hours spent in each time category (work, exercise, fun, mundane, sleep) and broken them out by each mood level. The relationships here in the data are very interesting:

• Mood is positively correlated with time spent exercising and having fun

• Mood is negatively correlated with time spent sleeping or doing mundane things

• Mood is starkly uncorrelated with time spent working

Maybe that feels obvious to some people, but that was surprising for me to see, right there in the data. I love working, and going into this I assumed more work = more happiness. But that’s really only true up to about 4-5 hours of work per day. According to the data, time spent working after a certain point doesn’t have a positive OR negative relationship with mood in isolation; exercise, fun, sleep and mundane time spend do.

Looking at the data, the ideal day (ie. a +2 mood score) is about 4.6 hours working, about 1 hour exercising, about 6.5 hours spent having fun with friends & family, and about 7 hours sleeping.

Of course work pays the bills, so I know this can’t always be a reality. But looking ahead on my goals, one major one is to get to a point in life where I can consistently spend my time in these buckets. Make more days +2’s and fewer -2’s.

Intentional Time Spent Matters

Speaking of more +2’s and fewer -2’s, I’ve noticed another interesting thing about my average mood over time. It’s evolved, and generally it’s improved.

See the chart above, I’ve taken the count of each mood group, and broken it out by year, and by quarter. As you can see looking at the quarterly counts of -2s, -1s, 0s, +1s, and +2s, the number of -2s have trends downwards over the past 2 years, and the number of +1s and +2s has generally trends upwards.

Now again, I know that self-reported measure of mood at the end of each day is inherently biased. It’s not a perfect dataset. But with 750 days of data, you have to give some credence to the statistical significance here. What I’m seeing is fewer really bad days, and more really good days on average over time. Why is that?

Part of it is probably maturity. As you get older you learn more about yourself and the world. You make little micro-optimizations. Maybe you get better at waking up to your alarm, or more disciplined about spending time on social media. Maybe you just develop healthier habits of working out and eating right. Or maybe it’s about your relationships.

Another big part of it, I’d argue, is the simple act of tracking. I don’t think writing down my time each day in itself decides my mood. But I do think it’s a simple forcing function to keep myself accountable, and ultimately be intentional about my time. If I am feeling shitty at the end of the day, and I look back and see that I also spent 10 hours sleeping and 4 hours scrolling/watching TV, then I begin to build some implicit connections. I realize that maybe I should spend time in better ways.

A Few Takeaways

First, a caveat: I am not trying to share this data about my time to impress anyone. I think it’s probably more embarrassing than anything. But I also realize there may be some valuable in seeing an objective analysis of how your time spent can influence your mood. Because I assume many people (like me) don’t realize how strong the relationship between time spent and general happiness is.

Now, in no particular order, a few things that this data helped me see:

1. Happiness = Meaningful Time Spent — My happiest days on average were those spent most purposefully (on difficult projects, meaningful time with family and friends, exercising, etc.), my worst days were lazy, sick, unproductive, and bored. The opposite of happiness isn’t sadness, it’s boredom. The data strongly supports this

2. Balance matters — This might sound obvious... but for me it wasn't. Again I love working, and going into the year I assumed more work meant more happiness; turns out this is only true up to about 4-5 hrs per day. More often than not, happier days are those with a good mix of exercise, work, family/friends, and hobbies. Better yet, if you can cultivate a routine/habits around this balance, you're golden.

3. Rest is not optional, it's mandatory — Everything feels good until you burn out. I burnt out a few times these past few years. A consistent 7-8 hours of sleep mitigates this. And at least 1 full-week vacation per year seems to solve it entirely (do more if you can) -- sometimes the best thing for your productivity and habits is a good ol' hard reset. (A great quote: 'there is virtue in work and virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither' ~Alan Cohen)

4. Grow your relationships = grow yourself — I know it's cliche, but the data here backed it up. My happier days were elevated when I A) spent them with friends & family or B) spent them trying a new hobby. Bonus points if you can spend time doing new hobbies WITH the people you love... now that's a mood multiplier. I’ve written more about the friendship multiplier here.

Looking ahead on the year of 2025, I have some powerful takeaways to bring with me. I plan to continue tracking my time like this for as long as I possibly can — would be cool to keep it going until I retire.

For anyone reading this, my only hope is that this may inspire you to spend your time a bit more intentionally. For me that’s been my greatest takeaway. Some resources to help you measure your time:

1. First, I’m happy to share a template of my time-tracker template here. Email me if you have any questions or suggestions :-)

2. If keeping tabs on your life in a spreadsheet isn't your cup of tea, another great resource is the 'Productivity Planner' from intelligentchange.com (same group that made the famous '5min Journal')

3. A strong inspiration for me here was Jim Collins. He’s tracked his time like this for decades. Here’s his secret formula for a fulfilling life.

Ok that’s all, back to work!
Ramsey