After a few abortive attempts at time-tracking, we’re rolling out a new time-tracking system here in product support. One of the main goals it to understand how much time specialists spend on “reactive” events (responding to support requests) versus “proactive” events (writing KB articles, developing training, blogging, and manning the forums).

The difficulty for me with time tracking is that these days my time and effort is so interrupt-driven. For example, I’ll be drafting a blog post when I see a new scripting question on the mailing list. So I jump on that to try and answer before someone else does 😉 But then one of my support cases is updated, so I jump on that and reply.

Meanwhile a new case comes in, so I take that and start research. Then maybe I have a meeting, or someone needs me to explain how to do something in our help desk system (I’m the local superuser). Eventually I rewind back through everything, possibly being interrupted again at any time. Or being distracted by my almost compulsive checking of my email inbox and the support incoming queue;-)

I admit this may not sound like the best way to work, but it works for me. I know many others on the support team prefer to handle one thing at a time.

I’ve found I need some utility, like the one in the screenshot, that allows me to have multiple timers going. That way I can accurately keep track of what I’m doing.