List of articles in this page

August 22, 2011

Case: HR Specialist

I interviewed a MyStats user who is an HR specialist working as a leader of HR and General Affair team in an enterprise.

------------------------------

- Records 24 hours including “Sleep”.

- Activity Set has 13 activity masters.
They are divided into 5 categories such as, Work, Amusement, Exercise, etc.
He named his activities like, “Work–Meeting”, “Work–Simple Tasks”, and so on.

- Reviews the pie chart every night, and he says something like these to him self:
“Oh, only Simple Tasks is filling my day! I got to do something with my brain!” or
“I need more sleep, but I’m sleeping too much on Sunday…”

- Records “schedules” on purpose.
MyStats is designed for handling the things that happened and not the things that will happen, but he sometimes inputs things that will happen which are schedules. For example, something like a promise to himself, he would record “Study” into the next day; in order to make sure if it gets done. “However,” he said, “Since MyStats is a real easy-to-operate app, it is easy for me to change what I scheduled into something more amusing.

------------------------------

In the morning of April 26th, he was thinking that he should start time management based on Peter Druckers’ method. He looked at Nikkei Industrial Newspaper and found an article about MyStats. He thought “This is it!” and downloaded MyStats.

At the beginning, he didn’t think that he could record the entire 24 hours, but since it is so easy to operate, he was quickly able to record his entire day, after all.

As he used MyStats everyday, his technique of recording schedules came naturally.

“The best part of MyStats is the easy-operation. I love this!”
That’s a great compliment!

Thank you so much for using and loving MyStats! We will continue to develop more and more features but we promise not to forget about the simplicity of operation!
lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

(Original article was written on July 13rd.)

July 29, 2011

Case: Shihori, Singer and Song Writer

I interviewed piano singer and also known as song writer, Shihori!

Shihori wrote many songs for famous Japanese singers like Shoko Nakagawa, Nana Mizuki and many others. She is also famous for singing a popular TV commercial song called “Papapapa-n Song”!

Surprisingly, we found that Shihori is using MyStats and she loves it. So, here we are. This is Shihori’s case…

------------------------------

Q: What were some of your issues with Time Management?
A: I didn’t know where my time went. I unintentionally would just waste time. Whatever I’m doing, I always get into things so deeply that I would lose track of time. As a freelance artist, I am my own manager. But I can’t manage my time unless I have a strong determination or something.
One example is music arrangement. To tell the truth, I don’t need that long of time for writing a song. It just comes to me. But music arrangement is different. It takes me so many hours. I get so into it that I forget about eating, sleeping and everything, and then I fail to keep myself in good shape.
I am the kind of a person who can get into things so much. This is the reason why I needed something for my time management.

Q: What was your first impression of MyStats?
A: “This is it!” That’s what I thought. A friend of mine Eri told me about MyStats, and I understood what it could give me right away. When Eri found out about MyStats, she immediately thought, “I have to tell Shihori about this!” I knew that I needed something to manage my time, and it seems Eri knew it, too. Haha!

Q: How did you get started using MyStats?
A: It actually took some thinking. It was like, “What are the classifications of my time?” But looking back at that moment, I think it was something really great that happened in my life. I can say that even only with this reason, MyStats is very valuable to me.
After a long time thinking, I came up with an Activity Set with about 10 activities. As I use MyStats everyday, I think I’ve changed some activities a little bit, but most of the activities that I defined in the beginning have not changed.

Q: What are the outcomes you get by using MyStats?
A: First of all, my mind has been changed. Now I am always aware of the kind, quality and meaning of time I am spending. I can say that I am now good at time management. For music arrangement, in order to avoid spending too much time, I first decide the end-time before I start working on it. I also keep my eyes on the amount of time I waste and reduce those “meaningless times”. I have two different activities for “Break Time”: Meaningful break time and meaningless break time. Since I gave them the colors pink and grey, I can see the ratio of these two break times on the pie chart anytime, and one of my goals is to have as little grey as possible.

Q: Have you tried the new function, Daily Activity?
A: No, not yet. I haven’t figured out how I can use it.
At this point, I explained how people are using it, and I gave her examples like Weight, Number of Sit-ups, Time Spent Practicing Guitar, Amount Spent on Groceries, etc. And her response was…
Wow, this is so cool! I’m gonna try it right now!

Immediately she started making her own Daily Activity Set. She got so into it that it seemed like she forgot that she was in an interview. Then I thought yeah, she really does need time management.

The following are some key points of Shihori’s case.

------------------------------

- Her activity set has about 10 activities such as Song Writing, Arranging, Meeting, Transportation, Sleep, etc.
She colored activities with her own meanings. For example, red for music arrangement, blue for sleep.

- She does not record her activity for 24 hours, but it is close.
The percentage of recorded time shown on Bird’s-Eye view was 82.5%.

- Non recording time is time she thinks not worthy to be recorded. i.e. Changing Clothes.

- Two different activities for Break Time colored in pink and grey.
She occasionally checks the ratio on the pie chart.

- No activity for meals.
Since she’s usually doing something else while she is eating. Meal times are included in activities like Song Writing, Meeting Friends, etc.

------------------------------

Shihori’s songs have both vigor and sensitivity. After meeting her in person, I see that she herself have both vigor and sensitivity.

While she is relaxed and talks personally, she gives an impression of being soft and gentle. At the same time, with her facial expressions and words, she showed that she also has a strong mind and heart.

Shihori, thank you so much for your time and for using MyStats. Next time, let me ask you how you use Daily Activity Function!

I also would like to thank Eri for introducing MyStats to Shihori! Eri is an artist producing mainly leathercrafts and illustrations. Eri’s works are available at her web site or at the shop called Garandou in Karuizawa, Japan. Take a look!

Shihori Live


lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

(Original article was written on June 21st.)

May 8, 2011

Calculation: Client Meeting Time / Transportation Time

It's not a "MyStats Case" but...

I met an experienced sales rep recently. He is kind of a go getter.

This is what he told me.

------------------------------------------------------------

Client Meeting Time / Transportation Time

Once he recorded his time and found that it was 15% to 20%.

He thought that it was really inefficient and worked on improving his activity while he kept recording and analyzing this indicator.

Then he figured that the limit is 45% for him and he could not improve it futher.

However, while he was keeping this indicator at 40% to 45%, he was winning new contracts continuously.

So he thought that 40% to 45% was good enough for his business.

------------------------------------------------------------

A good number for this indicator depends on what you sell and how big your business area is, but this calculation can be useful for anybody.

Time A / Time B = Efficiency C

By the way, this person has even published a book about sales in Japan;)

FYI!

lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

May 3, 2011

Case: Cello-Playing Business Person

This is a second example of how to use MyStats.

------------------------------------------------------------

- Record only Cello Playing time.
END
------------------------------------------------------------

Wow, this is a simple one!


What this person told me is something like this:

- At first, he wanted to record everything he does.
Then he thought that he couldn't keep recording in that way.

- So he decided to record only one activity that he really wants to do.

- He once heard somewhere that, "anybody can play a musical instrument if he practices it for 10,000 hours" and he believes it.

- Because he has only one activity to record which he really wants to do, it's now very easy for him to keep using MyStats.


This is a story about a serious business person who works as a marketing planner at a big enterprise and decided not to record his working hours but to record only his cello playing time which he started just two years ago.

This is quite opposite of My Case, isn't it?


lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

May 1, 2011

My Case

This is how I use MyStats.

------------------------------------------------------------

- Record and analyze only working hours.
Eating, Sleeping, and other private hours are not recorded.

- Set the Activity Masters based on "Objectives" not based on "Actions."
Using the Activity Masters like, "MyStats Business", "Management in General", and "HR"
NOT using like, "Meeting", "Writing", and "Emailing"

- Define the monthly time allocation at the beginning of each month.
"I will have 250 hours for my work in this month."
"I will have more than 80 hours on marketing and it should be more than 30% of my working time."
"I will limit my time for HR matters to 20 hours and it should be less than 8% of my working time."

- Keep eyes on the difference between the planned time allocation and the actual time allocation.

- Change the Activity Masters for each month.
Start with two questions, "What activity I want to spend more time for?" and "What activity I want spend less time for?" and revise the Activity Sets.
* Usually the revisions are small.
For example, I was using an activity called "MyStats" which is for all of my activities for MyStats business. From this May, I divided the Activity Master into "MyStats Development" and "MyStats Promotion."
When I start a new project, I set a new Activity Master for it.

- Record in 30min range.
I sometimes record activities in 5, 10, or 15 minutes range but over 90% of my records are in 30 minutes range. (Because I don't think I can keep track of such small pieces of times.)

- Record after I finish each activity.
But to be honest, I often forget recording and record everything for that day at the end of the day.

- Record with I-think-the-most-of-the-time-was-spent-for-this judgment.
When I spent 30 minutes for MyStats business but actually some part of the time was taken by a call from somebody for something else, I just think that most of the time was for MyStats business.
At the same time, I sometimes think that "I spent this 30 minutes mainly for "activity A" but I used many small pieces of the time for "activity B" today, so I record last 30 minutes as "activity B" in order to adjust the balance.

- Intentionally use an activity called "Dandori", which means "planning" or "arrangement", in order to organize To-do.

- Don't have any Activity Master for "Transportation."
If I do any work on the way to somewhere, I record the time as that work.
If I study on the way to somewhere, I record the time as "Study."
If I daydream on the way to somewhere, I just don't record that time and keep it blank.

------------------------------------------------------------

I change the Activity Masters for each month as I stated above, I might be recording only private hours sometime soon, though;-)

Just FYI!

lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)