Indeed understanding time use can be a useful diagnostic tool for understanding productivity. I’ve been running a time study consulting business since 1990, using the innovative TimeCorder device that I invented and launched in 1989. Whether you use a TimeCorder, or an app, or the back of an envelope, or a form from a time management book, understanding something about your time usage can be useful. Only when you measure your productivity can you improve it.

But once you discover that you spend ten hours per week on one of your major activities, what does that mean? Most statistics gleaned from research are only helpful when they are placed in context. How do those ten hours compare to other people who are like you? Perhaps they are similar, but do those people have the same job or family situation? Also, how has the data changed? Are those ten hours going up or down over time? Are there occasional peak periods? If so, what causes them? And how does your time use in one area affect all of the other areas? An illustration of this is when overtime hours are examined. If you work longer hours than usual during a particular week, that time has to come from somewhere else. Something has to give. More work might mean less family time, or less exercise.

When you spend more time on one thing, then some other thing will either disappear completely or become compressed. Time for meals is an example of this. With all those overtime hours, chances are you’re not eating massively lower amounts of food. You may simply be compressing your meal time. Rushed breakfasts, lunch on the go, and fast food for dinner take the place of long lingering meals over a glass of wine and good conversation. Another artifact of large amounts of time use in one area is overlapping activities. More and more you start doing two things at once. So those rushed meals are eaten at your desk or (heaven forbid) in the car while driving to work. Ask a busy mother what keeps her going, and she’ll tell you how she can feed children, speak on the phone and clean dishes, all at once.

Based on our time study research, the thing you are most likely to discover is that you spend fewer hours than you might like on your highest priority tasks while spending much more of your time than you would like on low priority tasks. In the work place, those low priority tasks are administrative activities; filing out reports, going to staff meetings, answering routine internal requests and other activities that aren’t part of the main thrust of your job. Outside of work, those lower priority tasks will be household chores, shopping for groceries, minor repairs, laundry, and cleaning up.

So track your time and put it into perspective. You are likely to be surprised about something. Then you have to figure out what to do next. Are you happy with the way things are or do you genuinely want to improve your productivity? A thorough time study analysis leads to insight. And that leads to results. Your time is worth it.

Our time study research shows that procrastination in the workplace is among the top 20 productivity inhibitors that employees face.  And procrastination is not just a problem for those at work. Stay-at-home mothers and fathers, students, and those who are in between jobs also find that there are some tasks that are simply hard to get to. You may have support systems in place; a spouse who offers advice or a boss who provides direction. But for some reason, the support you get from the people you know doesn’t always work. No matter how much nagging your receive from your spouse, those unfinished tasks just never seem to get done. You can take a time management course that gives you lots of theory. There are numerous ways to overcome procrastination; break large tasks into smaller ones, give yourself a reward for completing a task, visualize a positive outcome rather than a negative one. If you can do any of those, you’re on your way.

But in many cases, you just might need to be more accountable. And that’s where you need a buddy – someone who is looking out for you. And what if that person needed your help in return?

BuddyHive.com has just launched a new feature that builds the community aspect of the site. From the start, the idea was to link people up with each other to provide support, encouragement, tips, advice – mostly to provide accountability.

Now there’s a new community feature. As always, buddies are teamed up. Now, anyone who is registered on the system can “drop in” to look at messages that have been sent within the last two weeks. Then they can offer their own advice. The buddy relationship comes first, but now the community can help as well.

At www.BuddyHive.com, just go to the “Hive” tab and click on “Tasks Underway” to see all the tasks where buddies have been in touch with each other during the last two weeks. Think you can offer help? Once you’re registered, just click on the “Offer Advice” button, and add your comments to the conversation

You can receive advice from others too. Once you send a message to your own buddy, your task will go to the top of the list, and you can receive support from registered users.

Meanwhile, buddies are getting all kinds of things done. From work to hobbies to household tasks to studying, accountability makes a difference.

Here are some of the recent tasks that buddies have accomplished:

• I was able to clean my storage room
• I was able to redo my resume
• I was able to produce a business plan within two weeks.
• I was able to practice for an English Essay
• I was able to complete a consulting report for client in the UK

Get the procrastination support you need. Buddy up and get stuff done. You never know who you’ll meet.

BuddyHive.com

A while back, we met the contractors, agreed to a quote, and set a date for them to begin. It was a month out because they had another job to finish. That was fine with us. It seemed like good scheduling when they had a window to do our relatively small job. Maybe a week beginning to end.

But the job ended up stretching out over three weeks. On this basic productivity measurement, the contractor failed. His company had another job, and needed to give it priority. So someone showed up at our house for two or three hours to do some work, and then poof! They were gone.

The contractor thought he was being efficient by booking two jobs at once. Do a bit of work here, wait for something to be ready, then off to the other place to nail some studs, and then back to the first place again for the next bit. Two clients at once! Busy, busy.

Waste, waste is more like it. There is a huge productivity inefficiency to starting and stopping a project. First is travel time. If a job extends out for ten days instead of five, then that’s ten extra trips (there and back) for each extra day. Most trips are at least a half hour, so there’s an extra five hours of time right there. Also, most contractors clean up at the end of each day. So that means more clean up time. And more set-up time at the beginning of the next day. All those tools that were put away have to be brought out again.

And then there is reset time. All of us need time to get refocused after an interruption. Contractors are no different.

We know another contractor who is much more productive. He shows up early in the morning and works right through until the end of the day, rarely taking a break. If something has to wait – concrete drying for instance – he schedules that towards the end of the day. If it has to be in the middle of the day, he always finds something else to do. He plans out his work using basic project management techniques. As a result he finishes on time with little waste.

So the next time a contractor quotes you – ask how many other jobs he is doing, and what he does to minimize waste. Ideally, ask for a completion date, and build in a penalty clause for every day he goes over what didn’t result from a change you requested.

Your time is worth it.

After communicating with a buddy, a user presses a button that says, “My task is done.” In fact, the system doesn’t allow them to press this button until at least one message has been sent. We want to encourage the mutual support that BuddyHive can provide.

So what are people getting done?

Based on early results, (you can see all of them on the Achiever leader board) the most common type of task that people are having success with deals with personal marketing. Typically these include writing a web based newsletter, or a blog, or updating a contact list. These are relatively straightforward tasks that are not essential to the operation of one’s business and don’t have time lines, but nonetheless enhance personal branding. They are also tasks that can be done alone. They don’t involve collaboration with other departments, or waiting for customers to reply, or getting approval from a boss. They are tasks where a buddy can make a difference.

The second type of task is general work activities; updating a contract, completing a presentation, writing a software development plan, and more. These are high priority work tasks that need to be done.  People struggle with getting these done for a variety of reasons. What our results show is that having a buddy can make a difference.

The third major task is cleaning. People are burdened by their accumulated stuff, by their lack of organization, and by their messiness. Like the personal marketing activities, many of these can be done alone. It just takes the encouragement of a buddy to make progress.

Study activities are next. Our site attracts students who inevitability find themselves procrastinating. Check out a “procrastination” hash tag on Twitter late on a Sunday night and you’ll see hundreds of students putting things off. The goals of education seems to be to separate those who can get their work done from those who can’t. When a history project is sidetracked by aimless procrastination on Twitter, help is definitely needed.

Accountability can make a difference.

Household chores such as mending, doing one’s taxes, or laundry are next. Many people struggle chronically with clutter and disorganization. Yet, cleaning up is not a hard task to begin. Put someone together with a buddy, and great things start to happen.

The last significant group of activities is work administration. We define these as tasks that need to get done eventually, but aren’t part of one’ s job description. They include data entry, sending forms to a supplier, and completing expense reports.

To sum up, BuddyHive makes a difference. Check it out to buddy up, stop procrastination, and get stuff done.

www.BuddyHive.com

PLANNING TO WRITE

• If you are concerned about the volume of email you receive, remember, it’s not them, it’s all of us who are guilty. If you send out 2 emails, and copy 20 people on each, you have contributed to the glut of email by sending out 40 emails yourself!
• Do not copy people needlessly. Ask yourself why you are copying everyone – if it is to make you look good, it probably is not necessary.
• Ask employees who report to you not to cc you, unless they include a short note explaining why they are copying you.
• Hire someone to go through your email when you are on vacation and eliminate what is obviously unnecessary.
• Use the phone instead of sending an email. If you find yourself typing a lot and telling a “story”, then it is better to call.
• It is very difficult to convince others through email, especially when you know that they already have entrenched positions. Find another way.
• The best use of email is for short transactions: “Here is the document you requested,” “When is the meeting?”, “Can you provide an answer to a question”, etc.
• Just say no. If you’re on a mailing list for which you have no interest, reply by unsubscribing.
• Unsubscribe from newsletters. If you want to learn something, take a course. If you are hoping that occasionally some useful tidbit will come through on a newsletter, then you are wasting your time. Unsubscribe.

WRITING

• Check the spelling of your email before sending it. Spelling errors seem generally accepted in email. But go beyond acceptable. Aim for excellence.
• DON’T TYPE IN ALL CAPS. This is perceived as shouting.
• Re-read your email before sending it. Writing quickly often results in awkward grammar.
• Consider carefully what you write; it’s a permanent record and can be easily forwarded to others. Never accuse people, call them names, suggest they aren’t being smart or criticize their spelling. Assume their intentions are genuine and that they are good people. Be polite and assertive if necessary (i.e. to spammers) but not vindictive.
• Write succinctly.
• Write descriptive subject lines. Many busy people will only open messages with captivating subject lines. Think creatively.
• If you must forward a message, put your comments at the top.
• Do not keep all of your messages in your mail box folder. Create new mail folders with names that categorize your mail and move messages into them. Thus, new mail is quicker to find.
• Create folders for : Things to do, Upcoming Events, Manager Issues, Subordinate Issues, Reading, Family, and folders for each of your major customers.
• Be careful with punctuation. A lot of periods can separate thoughts….. but use a lot of exclamation marks and it looks like you’re angry!!!!!!!!!! How does a line of question marks look ??????? You might not intend strong emotion, but the other person might think you do.
• Avoid cyber-speak. Not everyone is familiar with the cute acronyms used in Email correspondence, such as IMHO (in my humble opinion) or FWIW (for what it’s worth). Performing a mental translation each time slows down the reader. Do not make reading difficult for them.

- – - -

Felicia Fetherstonhaugh was not looking forward to the meeting. It was for the Pennies for Penelope the Penguin Committee. Something deep inside warned her that, just like last week’s meeting, this one would run with the all of the finesse of a drunken cyclist doing figure eights on a skating rink. While blindfolded. But Felicia had committed to her community group’s newest project, and she didn’t want to back out.

She arrived at chairman Sydney Hackenberger’s house at the designated 6:15 p.m. start time. No one else had showed up yet. She waited impatiently, while reading an old, dog-eared copy of the National Enquirer. Apparently, Elvis had kidnapped some aliens and was teaching them to play guitar.

At 6:30 p.m. Sydney proclaimed that the turnout was quite good. Besides Felicia, the turnout consisted of Sydney, his wife Blossom, who was in the kitchen burning popcorn, his four-year-old daughter, who kept trying to give Felicia an unwanted manicure, and Sydney’s dog Rumbledork. While waiting for more people to arrive,Sidney proudly announced that this would be a special meeting. Special because not one but two types of coffee would be served. Then he reviewed the project’s purpose: to raise money for Penelope, a trained penguin at the local zoo who had hurt a flipper during a recent performance.

At 6:45 p.m. Anthony Slobodsky and his girlfriend, Ignazia Grunwald, arrived. They had been held up on the highway after a truck filled with fluorescent ping-pong balls had spilled its load. At 7:10 p.m. Gerald McGuckin appeared. He claimed to be early because, according to his notes, the meeting was to start at 7:15 p.m. For the next fifteen minutes, the committee members munched on cold, burnt popcorn while trying to decide on a date for the following meeting.

When the proceedings finally started, Felicia askedS ydneyfor an agenda. “Agenda?”Sydney answered. “Yeah, well, I’ve got it all in my head, so we don’t really need one.” A heated discussion then ensued on what to discuss first; the fund-raising event, which was to be a sleep-a-thon, or the wrap-up party for the volunteers.

Felicia asked to review the minutes from the previous meeting. After much fruitless scrounging around, Gerald remembered that the minutes had been lost down a sewer grate on the way to a post-meeting rendezvous at a local bar. Felicia suggested that they look at the minutes from the prior meeting to that. After another flurry of searching, Gerald found them scribbled on the inside back cover of a slightly ragged and thoroughly trashy spy novel. The good news was that the minutes contained the name of a potential sponsor. The bad news was that Gerald couldn’t  tell which of the hastily scrawled names referred to the sponsor and which referred to the dental hygienist whom he had been flirting with in the bar.

The discussions continued, though without Gerald. Exhausted from all of his scrounging, he had taken to idly surfing the news on his IPad. Suddenly, he slapped his hand to his forehead in astonishment and jumped to his feet. “Oh my god, guess what? This is astonishing. Incredible!” he exclaimed with all of the profundity associated with the announcement of an imminent nuclear attack. “Penelope has recovered from her wound!”

“Well, then, I guess we should disband the committee,” announced Felicia.

“No way!” retorted Sydney. “Our committee was promised money to get this going and we’re going to spend all of it.”

Felicia interjected, “I thought the purpose of the project was to raise money.”

“Sure, but you have to spend money to raise money,” responded Sydney. “Postage, letterhead, a web page, the planning party, the after party, gifts for each of the donors, an embossed plaque for the penguin house…” The list went on.

The group spent the next twenty minutes deciding what to order for dinner. When pizza was chosen, they debated what size, what toppings and even what outlet to order from.  Sydney instituted strict parliamentary procedure. Motions were followed by amendments, revisions, counterarguments, points of order and points of privilege. As the committee debated how to extricate itself from a tangled web of procedural mish mash, Anthony made a definitive proposal. “I suggest we vote on whether to take a vote.” They ordered chicken.

Dinner was followed by a prolonged round of vociferous squabbling and silly name calling, Felicia interjected, “We’re spending an awful lot of time on this, and we’re not really getting anywhere. We have an idea, but no goals, no plans and no commitments.” She suggested some techniques to improve the meeting dynamics, including starting on time, sticking to the agenda, appointing a chairperson and preventing the dog from barfing on anyone.

As a result, the following meeting ran much more smoothly. The sleep-a-thon would be held in the city’s main square on a Saturday night in November. Television coverage would publicize the event in between periods during a hockey broadcast. Participants would sleep on inflatable rubber mattresses, floating on a large, portable swimming pool. With new-age music playing in the background and Penelope swimming around the sleeping bodies, it would be hailed as a 21^st century Esther Williams extravaganza. Or an 18^th century cesspool.

But troublesome questions remained. Would participants be allowed breaks, or would continuous sleeping be required? Would couples be allowed? What if the water in the swimming pool froze?

And the most troublesome question of all: What would happen to the proceeds of the event now that Penelope had healed? When the subject arose,Sydney stood and proudly addressed the assembled multitude of four.

“I’ve decided to continue with another zoological undertaking. As of now, we will now embark with energy, gusto, enthusiasm and other synonyms to raise money for a new cause: Dollars for Dentures for Delores the Donkey!”

All of these catch up some day. That’s when the trouble really begins.

So you need to avoid procrastination in order to prevent these negative consequences. One way to do it involves adding accountability. You need to be accountable to yourself. You can do this by writing your tasks on a to-do list. When you include items that you have been putting off, you begin to create accountability. As you do your work during the day, you glance at your to-do list and see that outstanding item. You have committed to doing it. So the time to do it is now.

At the end of the day, review your to-do list. Did you meet all of the goals that you set for the day? Did you get all the tasks done that you said you would? If not, what got in the way? An external factor that was unavoidable? Or your own procrastination? The temptation is to re-write the task on tomorrow’s to-do list. After all, you’ll get to it then. But that’s the problem. You don’t get to it. So there is a danger in repeating tasks on successive to-do lists. If your own disinterest caused you to put it off, writing it down yet again won’t change things. Instead, write down a small part of the task that you could very easily do. For instance, you need to clean up your basement. You haven’t yet. However, you could certainly go down there and list all of the boxes you need to go through. And if doing your taxes is too daunting, how about simply gathering up all of your tax receipts and putting them into a pile? It’s a start.

There is another even more powerful way to build accountability. And that is being accountable to someone else.

Take a task you have been procrastinating on. Break it into small pieces and choose the first step. Then make a deadline. When are you going to accomplish it? And what will it look like when you finish? You can’t just say, “Work on a project…” Instead, you need to say, “Complete the research from three sources required for the project…”

Now, here is the all important accountability step. Let someone else know what you plan to do. And ask them to check up on you. It could be a spouse, partner, parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, neighbor, work buddy – anyone. It’s helpful, but not necessary that they have a stake in the task. If you need to do a household repair, then telling your spouse is a good idea, because your spouse will benefit from the task being done.

Maybe you feel that the task is one you would rather keep quiet. The delay you have encountered is embarrassing, so you need someone to be accountable to, but it doesn’t have to be someone close.

We just launched www.BuddyHIve.com. It’s a web site that allows you to be accountable to someone new. You list a task, and we will set you up with a buddy who will check up on you. The innovative part of this is that your buddy is also counting on you to coach him! So you establish mutual accountability. This is the ideal situation, because both of you have the other’s interest at heart.

So stop procrastinating. Build accountability. Buddy up and get stuff done.

Your time is worth it.

Independent consultants work on their own providing a range of services from accounting to cost management, coaching, productivity improvement, graphic and web site design, and strategic planning. Some bill their time by the hour; others bill by the project and some are on retainer.

Over the years, a number of them participated in a time and motion study using our innovative TimeCorder device to track how they spend their time. Most tracked about 100 hours.

The main categories of activity where they spend their time include planning, marketing / selling, client service, administration and travel and other. The “other” category includes activities that are not part of other categories as well as personal time.

Overall they work 52 hours per week, a considerable increase versus other knowledge workers in our database who work 47 hours per week.

Selling time takes up 11 hours per week or 20% of the time. Veterans who had many years experience and a full calendar of clients spend just about as much time selling as those who are new to the business; 10 hours per week for the veterans and 12 hours for the rookies. The message for consultants is clear; you always need to be marketing.

As for client service time, it would be great to be billing every hour of the day. But the reality is that all the other activities need to be done. So client service time, most of which is billable, only reaches 13 hours per week, or about one quarter of the time. For those who are really successful, service time is higher, in the range of 20 hours per week or 36% of the time.

Planning is a key activity that represents 3.5 hours per week. Critical within this is 2 hours per week spent developing new products and services. Consultants recognize that they cannot rest on their laurels; they constantly need to be thinking about what new products and services they can introduce to their clients.

Administration is a huge time hog for most knowledge workers. And so it is for consultants who need to take care of all the tasks that are not connected to sales and service. General paperwork represents about 4 hours per week; filling out reports, submitting tax forms, and everything else that is required to keep a business going. This along with other administrative tasks adds up to 10 hours per week.

Finally, travel is also a necessity. Consultants who deal with local clients need to be there to do on-site work, present reports, and gather data and implement their recommendations. Typically consultants make 8 trips per week of 47 minutes per week, adding up to 6 hours altogether, or 11% of the time.

Check out the video below where I highlight some of the key points from the time study of successful consultants. If you are a consultant, be sure to allocate your efforts on your highest priority activities. After all, your time is worth it.

The problem is NOT that there isn’t enough time. Time doesn’t expand. The problem is that people burden themselves with too many activities. The key to success is how you allocate your time to the important ones. In time study research we’ve conducted for clients, average employees spend about 50% of their time on A and B priorities. But among the top performers, time spent on A and B priorities approaches 60%. That’s an increase of 5 hours per week that can make all the difference.

Here’s how to think about setting priorities. “A” activities are those that influence long term results. Ask yourself, if you had nothing else to do tomorrow, what would you do to affect your results one month from now? Those are your “A” activities. For sales people, this means selling, which usually only amounts to 23% of their time. For managers this means supervising people, (18% of their time) and planning (7%). What should you be doing? Your top priority items should take up 15-30% of your time.

When you think of your high priority activities, don’t just say, “I’ll work on the budget” or “I’ll work on my recruiting plan.” Be specific by listing activities you can complete today. You can’t do the entire budget, but you can set up a spreadsheet for salaries. You can’t recruit a new hire today, but you can review and update the job profile.

“B” priorities are the activities in your job description that must get done today. These are the things that keep you busy. Depending on your job, they might include providing customer service, running monthly meetings, preparing reports, designing products, inputting data, supervising staff or shipping products. For most people, “B” priorities represent 30-50% of their time. These are the activities most people do well in their job. But they’re also the things that prevent them from getting to the “A’s”. That’s why you need to plan the “A’s” first.

“C” priorities are those unplanned or unwritten aspects of your job that have to be done. Whereas “A” activities are planned by you, “C” activities are often planned for you. They include department meetings, routine requests from your subordinates and inquiries from other departments. They also include administrative activities such as filling out expense reports, reading reports, filing and sorting through e-mail. Our research indicates that administrative tasks take up 20-25% of the time. Within this, paperwork alone can take 5 hours per week. If you’re spending more than that, the system is bogging you down.

Travel is also a “C” priority. It has to be done, but isn’t a key factor in the success of your job. And, let’s not forget lunches and breaks. It’s ironic how people will plan a lunch meeting or coffee break to the minute. Yet they never get around to planning their major projects. Breaks are necessary, and incubation time away from work can help you solve problems better. But breaks are still just “C” priorities.

Finally there are “D” activities. This means delete, delay, delegate or drop. Get rid of them. They include reading the paper, handling tasks that should be delegated, and excessive Internet surfing. Some of them are technological time hogs; fixing a photocopier paper jam, waiting for a computer to boot up or recording a new voice mail message every day. Beware of them. Miscellaneous time can be as much as 5% of the week.

So how do you spend more time on for your high priorities? First, take the time to plan for them. Set aside the same time every day to plan your daily activities. Choose a quiet time when you can review past accomplishments, as well as future things to do. Then write down a list of A, B, and C activities that relate to your goals.  Write your list in your time planner, on an app or even on a Post-It note. Include specific activities, such as “Prepare exhibits for monthly report,” rather than vague tasks such as “Work on report.” Later, when you’ve completed an item, check it off. Doing this gives you a sense of accomplishment, even for small tasks.

Block your time. Schedule time for your “A” activities first. Plan to do them when you’re at your peak and when interruptions are least likely to occur. Make an appointment in your planner, and allocate that time for high priority activities. Then, if someone asks you to meet during that time, say “Sorry, I have an appointment.” No one will ask whom it’s with. It’s an appointment with yourself.

Then it’s time to start by working on your A items. They should always come first. Don’t work on a C just because it’s easy to do. And if you find your A tasks are overwhelming, or if you don’t think you have enough time to do anything on an A priority, the activity is too broad. Break your A priorities into small manageable chunks, so they’re easy to accomplish. Even with just five minutes left before lunch or before an appointment, you should be able to make some progress on an A priority. Your time is worth it.

We’re testing different ways to promote the site. So, in seeking out those who were experiencing time management challenges, I went to Twitter on a recent Sunday night and searched using a procrastination hash tag. A hash tag is added to a tweet to indicate a subject. I was able to find all the tweets where people had specifically included the word “procrastination.”

To my surprise, the floodgates opened! Hundreds of students in a few hours, confessed to not doing their studying, or not making any progress on school projects. Some couldn’t even start packing for upcoming trips. I was surprised at how Twitter has become an on-line confessional.

Procrastination seems to be a particular challenge for students. My web designer, who is close to that age, suggested that students often face a massive block that is extremely difficult for them to overcome. Some do, and perhaps they are the ones who graduate from college successfully.

By watching the tweets throughout the week, one can see patterns of activity.

In the middle of the week, tweeters are reasonably nonchalant,

“Since 2pm, I’ve stared at blank manuscript, ate a mars ice cream, watched TBBT, & learned how to whistle and hum together.”

Or:  “Still haven’t started my homework, well I guess it’s time for a shower.”

Then by Friday night, with the entire weekend stretching ahead of them, students are optimistic that they can eventually get to their school work.

“I always wait for Sunday to do my homework, procrastination at its best.”

And on Saturday night, there is still time: “Should I do my homework tonight? Pshh hah no thanks.”

But then on early Sunday evening, with only a few hours until an assignment is due, they express worry that they might not get it all done.

“I wait until the last minute to do EVERYTHING. “

“Damn… definitely just starting my history children’s book! Due tomorrow…. and have had 2 weeks to do it!”

“History paper due in 12 hours and I haven’t started yet.”

Then, late Sunday night, many are prone to resignation, doubt, and self-loathing. They realize that time is just about up, and they are in a precarious situation with little to show for all their distractions.

“Should have started this psychology before the day it was due!”

“Can’t focus on this homework.”

“I’ve got to stop doing this to myself.”

Few celebrate their successes. The majority use Twitter as a confessional. And almost none reach out for help. They will often confess to what’s distracting them; “My senior paper may as well be on twitter and Facebook, because it seems like that’s all I’m doing. “

Most tweets seem to be written by high school students, because  “homework” is a popular topic. One would not expect to hear this quite as much among college or university students. Among that group, essays and papers need to get done, not homework.

Another curious item, noted around March break, is the difficulty people have with getting ready for travel, particularly packing:

“Leaving in 6 hours, haven’t begun to pack yet.”

“It’s seriously not setting in that I’m moving in 11 days. I need to start packing. “

Clearly putting things off is a huge challenge for this group. As one of them put it, “I’m a big fan of procrastination, or as I like to call it, postponed time management.”

They need to set goals, they need discipline, and they need accountability. That’s why we built www.BuddyHive.com.  They need it.