How much time do you spend performing various activities? In 2022, I spent 506 hours answering email, or 63 full work-day’s worth of time. At that point, my reading for pleasure had dropped to virtually nil and I just thought: this is not how I want to spend my time. After a radical reorganization of my life and work, I wanted to see how well I have done this year.
The answer is… 108 hours spent answering email. That’s down to 13.5 days of time; a substantial improvement! This left, during my working hours, many more opportunities for (I feel) more meaningful work.
I also tracked how long I spent on general reading/reading for pleasure. It turns out that I spent 212 hours in this mode, or 26.5 (8-hour) days. This could have been more/better, quite frankly. It was going really well until I was hospitalised mid-way through the year. This totally derailed me, not least because I had a load of work to catch up on. I never really regained my reading foothold after that point, last year. So: let’s start again. The advantage of new years.