Analysis of 6 months of tracking my time in a Create / Consume challenge.

1. Create / Consume
6 Month Update
Andrew Tarvin

2. A Brief Intro to Create / Consume
The concept of Create / Consume is simple:
for an entire month (or longer), spend more
time creating than consuming. As far as
rules go, that’s it.
What you define as creating and consuming
is up to you. How you track your time is up
to you. The rewards for completing the
challenge, also up to you.

3. A Brief Intro to Create / Consume
The idea came from a friend of mine,
Matt Shafeek. You can find out more at:
createslashconsume.blogspot.co
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4. A Brief Intro to Create / Consume
I started tracking my results
(that’s me )
in July 2012. What follows is
an analysis of my tracking
over the last 6 months of
2012, complete with charts,
graphs, insights, and
probably a little weirdness.

5. My Create / Consume Rules
As mentioned, you can define the rules
however you want. I defined 4 types of
activities I would track:
1. Create—time spent creating content
2. Consume—time spent consuming
content
3. Gray—time spent on activities that don’t
fit either create or consume
4. Sleep—time spent sleeping

6. Create
My Creation activities include:
• Coaching – 1on1 sessions for clients
• Exercising – working out, playing sports, running
• Marketing – activities related to increasing awareness
• Meetings – discussing business or creating with
others
• Performing – improv, stand-up, storytelling
• Planning – strategic sessions for business
• Practicing – improv, stand-up, storytelling
• Researching – necessary / relevant info for writing
• Speaking – speaking or training on topics
• Writing – for any of my websites or guest posts

7. Consume
My Consumption activities include:
• Browsing – the Internet
• Hitting snooze – not waking up when I should
• Playing – video games, board games, etc
• Reading – newspapers, books, magazines (for
pleasure, not research)
• Watching – TV, Movies, Sports

8. Gray
My Gray activities are ones that don’t fit nicely into creation
or consumption, but I still spend time on them, such as:
• Emailing – reading, writing, organizing
• Errands – going to the bank, getting groceries, etc
• Networking – with new people or old acquaintances
• Showering – getting ready for the day
• Reconnecting – with friends

9. Sleep
My sleep activities are, well, sleeping (or napping).
Note: This is not me.

10. A Few Notes on the Data
• All tracking is based on my own entries.
Some of it is specifically timed, some of it
is entered at the end of the day.
• For June-August-September (JAS), I
made entries into an Excel sheet. For
October-November-December (OND), I
used the website toggl.
• I did not track every single minute of every
single day.

11. A Few Notes on the Data
• I improved my tracking
methods, and what data I
tracked, as I went.
• In my first month of tracking
(July), I had 124 entries
totaling 155 hours, meaning I
tracked 21% of my total time
that month.
• By comparison, in
December, I hit 412 entries
totaling 665 hours, tracking
89% of my total time for the
month.

12. Create / Consume Totals
Here are the results for all activity types
from the OND*.
*October was the first month I started tracking sleep, so OND is used
here to get an accurate analysis of all 4 types of activities. The amount
of time shown represents 86% of the total time that quarter.

13. Totals Analysis
• Insights
– Sleep was the biggest type of activity at 37% of my
tracked time. That’s 714 hours over 92 days, or an
average of 7.7 hours per night.
– The next biggest type was Creation at 28% with 538 total
hours or 5.8 hours per day.
**Adjusting for only 61 traditional work days it was an
average of 8.8 hours per day.
– Next came the Gray activities at 21%, 394 hours or 4.2
hours per day.
– And finally Consumption at 14%, 263 hours or 2.9 hours
per day.
• Action
– Increase amount of time creating slightly. Ensure it’s on
the right things.
– Decrease amount of time sleeping slightly (goal is 7.5
hours per night).

14. Create versus Consume
Here are the results of create versus
consume for all six months (July to Dec)*.
*Exercise was added to Create in September. Snooze was added to
Consume in October. This data represents 30% of total time.

15. Create
I spent 973 hours creating in the following
categories:

16. Create
• The actual tasks were 

17. Create Analysis
• Insights
– I spent 417 hours on Humor That Works. That’s 2.3
hours per day.
– Comedy (including ComedySportz) took up 317
hours, or 1.7 hours per day. That includes 50 improv
performances and 10 stand-up shows.
– In 6 months, I only spent 45 minutes on Slash
Entrepreneur.
– I exercised, on average, every other day for around
30 minutes.
• Actions
– Spend more time on marketing, meeting, and
networking for Humor That Works.
– Post more consistently to Slash Entrepreneur.
– Exercise more frequently.

18. Consume
I spent 416 hours consuming the following:

19. Consume Analysis
• Insights
– I spent a lot of time browsing the Internet, an
average of 1.5 times per day, in 45 minute
increments.
– I hit snooze once every 6 days (32 out of 184
days), wasting 27 hours of my life.
– I barely spent any time reading books for
pleasure (2 hours in 6 months).
• Actions
– STOP HITTING SNOOZE
– Spend more time reading for pleasure.

20. Gray
I spent 519 hours in the Gray area:

21. Gray Analysis
• Insights
– I spent 140 hours on email, working on it 177
times for about 45 minutes at a time.
– I reconnected with people 136 times for an
average of 80 minutes per.
– I went on 32 dates (not all with different people)
for an average of 2 hours each.
• Actions
– I’ve felt like I spent too much time on email, but
45 minutes per day isn’t that bad.
– I enjoy meeting and reconnecting with people
and want to keep that up.

22. Frequency
Below is the number of times I started an activity based on
time of day.
*Sleep wasn’t added until October.

23. Frequency Analysis
• Insights
– I usually go to sleep between 12am and 4pm.
– I’m most productive between 10am and 8pm.
– I consume the most between 10pm and 2am.
• Actions
– Embrace my ―non-morning-person‖ and try to
start my day at 10am.
– Try to follow a rough schedule of:
• Sleep 2am to 10am.
• Create 10am to 10pm.
• Consume 10pm to 2am.
• Various Gray in between.

24. For More
• Humor That Works –
www.humorthatworks.com
• Create / Consume –
createslashconsume.blogspot.com
• Toggl –
www.toggl.com
• Contact –
andrew@humorthatworks.com
Twitter: @humorthatworks

25. Or pick up my book*…
*That I spent 176 hours on from July to December 2012.

26. Fin