As I mentioned previously, we were recently required to do a time audit where I work. If you aren't familiar with time audits, it involves tracking how much time is spent on different activities, tasks, and/or projects and analyzing to spot trends and improve efficiency. Time audits are a bit tedious, take time in and of themselves, and can make staff feel distrusted and micro-managed when assigned by management, but I do think they can be valuable. In fact, I'd coincidentally started doing one on my own shortly before all full-time staff were asked to do them by the director. I'll give a breakdown of how I did my time audit, how my time was spent over a four-week period, and how I hope to use this information.
We were asked to record everything we did all day long by task, duration, and category, and total each category by day and by week. I took it a step further and did totals and percentages over a month, as I felt that would be a more accurate representation since there is so much variation day to day, and even week to week. We were allowed to decide if we wanted to record on paper or set up a spreadsheet, and to set whatever categories made the most sense for our department and jobs. I found it easier and more accurate to set up a chart on paper on a clipboard I could keep handy, but then I had to do all the calculations myself, which was time-consuming.
The categories (and sub-categories for some) I used are below:
- Programming
- Researching - Looking for ideas, checking out performers, testing activities, etc.
- Planning - When, what, and how activities will be done, making written plan, ordering/buying supplies
- Prep/Set Up - Prepping materials, setting up room, putting things out, making signs, writing & printing directions, making slides, etc.
- Execution - The actual program
- Clean Up/Take Down - Putting things away, cleaning, putting furniture back
- Administrative - Putting events in calendar, recording attendance, compiling stats, marketing
- Outreach
- Researching - Looking for potential clients/partners and making initial contacts
- Planning - Planning specific activities and making written plan
- Preparation - Getting everything ready to go, pulling books to take
- Execution - The actual outreach visit or event
- Administrative - Scheduling, recording attendance, compiling stats
- Collection Management
- Maintenance - Weeding, ordering replacements, displays, un-"NEW" ing
- Development - Selection, patron requests, ordering
- Customer Service
- Children's Desk - assigned to children's service desk
- Main Circ Desk - assigned to main circ desk
- Spontaneous - When stopped by patrons needing help while on the floor or walking through, stepping in at desk during busy times to help.
- Professional Development - conferences, webinars, courses, workshops, reading professional journals, trade magazines, blogs
- Training & Supervising of Staff - Providing training for, giving instructions to, answering questions from, or evaluating direct report and other staff
- Meetings - General meetings; any meetings specifically about programming or outreach are recorded under those categories
- Email/Phone Calls - general; emails/phone calls specifically about programming or outreach are recorded as administrative duties under the respective category
- Administrative - Time spent on time audit and any other paperwork, reporting, or managerial duties not specifically related to programming, outreach, collection work, or supervising direct report.
- Breaks - brief paid breaks taken on the clock, not counting quick trips to the restroom less than 5 minutes
- Other - All the unexpected miscellaneous stuff that comes up, all the conversations with coworkers not directly or exclusively related to any of the other categories, decorating the department, cleaning, organizing, etc. Anything that doesn't fit the above categories
I was told I should be spending 40% of my time on programming, 25% on outreach, 20% on collection management, 10% on professional development, and 5% on administrative tasks. However, this doesn't account for meetings, training & supervising direct reports, customer service, communication, all the "other" things I do as part of my job like decorating, cleaning and organizing, talking to coworkers, and yes, breaks. The math simply doesn't math, and I don't know how I'm supposed to reconcile that, but hopefully the time audit will help.
After tracking my time for 4 weeks, I totaled everything and calculated percentages, which I've shown below for all the main categories. As you can see, the reality was very different from the expectations we were given:
Since over half of my time was spent on programming, let's take a closer look at programming specifically, and all that it entails. During this 4-week period I was responsible for 15 programs: 6 regular storytimes, 2 special expanded storytimes, Pokémon Club, Lego Club, homeschool hangout (in collaboration with YA librarian), a special STEM program, a Halloween party, and two Kidbrarians. In addition, I had the ongoing passive Dinovember program, which required staging our toy dinosaurs and posting photos twice a week, and had to plan upcoming programs.
We all know that there is more that goes into programming than just the time spent in the actual programs, so I used multiple sub-categories in my time audit to reflect that and really get a clearer picture of where my time was going. Below is the breakdown of how much time I spent on each aspect of programming:
I'm not at all surprised by most of these results, in fact. I already knew I spent a significant amount of time on programming, at the expense of collection management, outreach, and customer service, and I also knew there were many "other" aspects to my job that the expectations above didn't account for. But now I have some data to back that up.
I do feel the time audit has been useful, and being forced to write things down has helped me stay more focused and on task. I know I still need to work on better organization, time management, and advance planning, and as I improve in those areas I will be able to shift some more time back to collection development, which had been pushed to the back burner over the last year due to staffing issues. I am also turning the weekly preschool storytime over to the part-time children's assistant, as well as some of the summer programs, which will free up time for me to add 1-2 more outreach visits per month. I am expected to add more programs for 4th-6th graders in the fall, and I hope by that time I will be able to delegate at least one monthly program in order to free up time for that.
I'm told that I need to delegate more of the "other" tasks and more of the programming prep, and I'm trying, but it's hard to delegate when you don't have enough reliable staff with the right skills available when you need them. I really think we need additional qualified youth services staff besides myself and one part-time assistant to pick up some of the programming and "other" duties, as well as cover the children's service desk consistently to provide better customer service by having the desk staffed when people are in the department. Currently, the children's service desk is rarely staffed, and I think that besides not being very welcoming, it hurts our circulation by not having a qualified person readily available in the children's department to provide reader's advisory and other assistance, and doesn't allow us to build relationships with, and get valuable feedback from, patrons that use the children's department. In addition, I have observed that having a consistent staff presence also encourages more appropriate behavior and results in much less mess and destruction.
I plan to continue tracking my time to get a more accurate picture of how I spend my time by tracking over a longer time period, since every month is a bit different. One month might be heavier in professional development if I attend a conference, summer is heavier in programming, and some months just seem to have a whole lot of "other". This particular month was heavier in programming because of Dinovember, and heavier in "other" because of changing seasonal décor and unpacking and setting up the furniture and accessories for our new dramatic play area. My hope is that once I have improved my organization and time-management and I have more data I can demonstrate everything I am doing, how much time programming really takes, and that we really do need more staff in order to do more programming and outreach (which I agree the community needs).
Has anyone else done a time audit? How did it go, and were you surprised by the results? What do you find taking up the bulk of your time? How were the results used? Any great time-management tips? Anyone know a great, flexible time-audit form/template that is easy to adapt to the categories you need and does all the calculations for you? I am finding doing it by hand takes far more time than I'd imagined, so I'm planning on switching to a digital format.
