Check This Out, Toggl

Seven Days Until An Exciting Announcement!

This is not an affiliate post. I am getting no money for this at all.

I just happen to like Toggl. Do you remember back in May when I talked to you about Time Sheet? Don’t get me wrong, I still like that one. But Toggl is something different.

See, when you’re self publishing, time is not your friend, and it’s your most precious tool. You don’t have enough hours, especially if you’re doing this around a day job, family time, writing a different book and running a blog. I thought I was devoting a lot of time to my creative writing, until I started actually tracking my time with Toggl.

Because that’s what it’s for. I spent a whole week tracking my time, and how I spent it. There’s a pie chart on the reports page, which is nice because I am a visual person.

To say it was an eye opening experience is an understatement. I spend way too much time playing Tapped Out.

I’m going to track all of my writing time for at least the next year as an experiment.  Here’s why.

• I have a rough idea of how long certain projects take me, but I’d like something more detailed.  That way, the next time I’m trying to figure out how long it will take me to finish a specific draft, I can know.
• This is super important for my yearly goals, because I want them to be as realistic as possible.
• It’s going to be important later, when I have an agent who would like an estimated time frame of when my next book just might be done.  I want to be able to say, within a week, when they can expect something from me.
• I try to keep my social media pimping to a certain level.  That level’s going to change when I’ve got something to sell, but I still want to keep track.
• Research is another thing that needs a timer for me.  Otherwise I’ll intend to spend half an hour researching Middle Eastern dogs, and find myself still on Wikipedia five hours later, reading about Egyptian clothing designers. (True story.)

So this week, check out Toggl.  See what patterns it helps you find in your habits.