timers: this simple timer.c glut program manages a rack of timers, possibly
persistent, customized by a .timerrc preference
file.
See help file (in French).
Back to my research page.
Seems like for some people, time is the natural resource which
is vanishing the most, and for which a reasonned management is urgently
requested :^).
The point is that just like for code optimization, we have very bad
intuitions about where the time is spent and spoiled.
So, as for optimization, the best way to do is starting by
profiling your typical activity.
From this, you will be able to name your frustrations (and maybe to relativize
the time footprint of somes), check where you really spoil (or use for
good, finally), verify that you pay enough attention to some tasks and persons.
Next step will be to fit how you think your time schedulde should be
distributed, taking into account the real amount of time available in
a week.
Profiling your past and your current activity is also a convenient
tool to help us telling "no thanks, I already accepted my fair amount
for this kind of task" or "yes, I should still accept this request/proposal".
Here is a set of tools I developped (no, it didn't took me much time) for this profiling purpose:
timers: this simple timer.c glut program manages a rack of timers, possibly
persistent, customized by a .timerrc preference
file.
See help file (in French).
temps: this simple temps.c text-mode program analyse the time data you
stored in a
text file in order to produce customized statistics from command
line with options and a .temps preference file (in this example, it
includes separate preference files
timestats/presentation,
timestats/aliases,
timestats/datas
).
There are many ways you can organize your datas (here is an
example file timedata_2006.txt.
The minimal requested is, per day, a list of categories with time
spent for each, and the length of this working day.
In fact, there is a 'bloc-note' area between the day entry and the day
summary, which I suggest to use to easily dump the raw information as
it comes:
for each big chunk of task I'm doing in the day, I type an entry in
the bloc-note. If the same kind occurs several times in a day, this
makes several entries.
For spotty tasks (mail, phone, and other interruption-based), I use
the timers (I simply clic on or off on the dedicated box in the rack), and I type
this value in the bloc-note at the end of the day or half-day.
I also account for pauses and lunch time (to be substracted from work time).
In the bloc-note you can use pseudo categories or even clear meaning.
At the end of the day I type the summary from this (in 30 secs).
Using pseudo categories helps you to better define the real
categories, especially during your first monthes of using the tool.
It also avoids you to think too much about tool syntax during the day (risking miss-classification).
Also, it might helps you later for a finer analysis of your time
activity (e.g. if the time amount of a category was inexpected).
Example of result detailled report.
timechart:
this simple timechart.csh C-shellscript program does month
analysis (using the temps program with an alternate preference
file timestats/timechart_prefs)
exported as a table in a text file, ready for graphical
visualisation using a tool like OpenOffice or Excel.
Example of resulting graphical chart.
Same with my hand-made analysis.
Contact 
E-mail :
Adresse : Maverick / LJK -
INRIA ZIRST, 655 avenue de l'Europe
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Fax : +33 (0)4 76 61 54 40 Secretariat : 76 61 54 26 (NB: I strongly prefer being contacted by email) |
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