For further analysis of my Media Diary hour log, I decided to do a word cloud (http://www.wordle.net/create), after I had standardized phrasing and ensured completeness.
I had to laugh when I saw it, as apparently the most important word was PM! Which I didn’t expect, but makes complete sense, as I work mostly from afternoon to night. The next dominant themes: Research, Educate, Projects, Classwork, Office were also quite appropriate, with Computer, relax, following those closely. Though relaxing is not something that I do for long periods, it is something that I do frequently, to improve my productivity. Since I only monitored media use, the thing doesn’t show well is the time I spend with family. This is because I spend time with the kids by playing or doing something together. And even though, Michelle and I made the decision that I’d have to sacrifice in that area to better serve the family and to complete my Graduate degree expeditiously, I do spend more than this word cloud suggests.
Multitasking
Another way I analyzed the data is to look for times of extended simultaneous multi-tasking. Though I often do sequential multi-tasking, I don’t often do it simultaneously. And there weren’t actually too many of those groupings in the data, so here they are:
Date |
Duration |
Medias |
Purpose/Effects |
| 9/13 | 39m | Phone, TV | relax/de-focus |
| 9/13 | 3h 16m | Computer, Pandora | focus, light work |
| 9/14 | 40m | Computer, Pandora | focus, light work |
| 9/15 | 40m | Computer, Phone | reconnect |
| 9/16 | 19m | Computer, Pandora | focus, light work |
| 9/17 | 34m | Computer, Pandora | focus, light work |
| 9/17 | 1h 17m | Phone, TV | relax/de-focus |
| 9/19 | 24m | Computer, Youtube | Try (and fail) to focus |
| 9/19 | 1h 15m | Laptop, Phone | View Site Demos |
That’s 9:04 minutes of overlap time over 7 days, or 1:17 per day on average. Most of which were successful in the purpose they were used for. The Computer/youtube failure though shows how hot entertainment media can defeat cold work media quite easily.
Work vs School data
When it comes to computer and classwork over that period, I spent the following lengths of time:
Project |
Hours |
| grad | 63:20:24 |
| admin | 2:47:58 |
| work 3 | 1:58:34 |
| work 1 | 1:23:07 |
| work 2 | 1:16:45 |
| family | 0:13:43 |
This comes out to a total of 71 hours, which is longer than the 66.65 I spent just on computer. That’s because some of my work hours I utilized books and my phone as the primary media.
For example, for graduate work, I spent 2:42 in books, which added to the 66.65 I spent on computers, comes up to 69:29, approaching the total 71 hours of work accounted for using all media. Anyhow, these numbers mean I spent 89.2% of my work time on classwork, 3.94% on administration and 6.54% on billable hours.