In a previous post I described conducting a time audit and the results of the first month (November). I found the time audit helpful and decided to continue tracking my time. I made a few changes to make it easier and less time consuming, and combined some categories. Before I was logging everything on paper and doing calculations by hand, which took a lot more time that I had expected. I liked being able to have a paper log on a clipboard that I could keep handy, so I came up with a hybrid method using a simplified paper log to quickly jot down what I was doing and for how long, and then would enter it into a spreadsheet later, and set up a pivot table to figure out all the totals, and a pie chart that I could update as I went along.
Once again, the categories and sub-categories 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, un-"NEW" ing
- Development - Selection, patron requests, ordering
- Marketing - Displays, bibliographies, reviews, social media spotlights, etc.
- 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
- 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; general meetings, email, and phone calls.
- 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 but is still work-related. Conversations that were exclusively social in nature are recorded as breaks.
And here are the results for January, which ended up being closer to 3 weeks than 4 due to holidays and snow days:
This month was more balanced that the previous one, with a little less time spent on programming and more spent on collection work and outreach. This is pretty close to what I think it should be, though ideally, I would like to spend more time on customer service and less time in meetings. Logging time spent at the service desk was also a bit of a conundrum, since I often work on other projects when it's slow. I ended up logging time spent on projects while at the desk under the relevant categories, so the actual time spent at the service desk isn't accurately represented here.
Taking a closer look at programming shows once again that time spent in the execution of the program is only the tip of the iceberg:
Taking a closer look at programming shows once again that time spent in the execution of the program is only the tip of the iceberg:
Compared to November, I spent even less time on the execution of programs and more on researching and planning. This is due to one of the weekly storytimes being taken over by another staff member and my spending a lot of time on booking performers for summer and researching ideas for in-house programs for summer, in addition to planning programs for March and April. During this time period I did the weekly toddler storytime, monthly Pokemon and Lego programs, a family craft program, and 2 Kidbrarians for a total of 8 programs.
I really found continuing the time audit to be very helpful. Updating the pie chart each day was very helpful in setting priorities and deciding what to focus on when I found I had a nice chunk of un-scheduled time with no urgent deadlines, This kept collection work and professional development from being inadvertently pushed to the back burner, and forced me to be more decisive in programming and collection development, rather than over-researching and going down rabbit holes.
Now that I have a system set up that works for me, I am going to continue until I have a year's worth of data. I think it will be interesting to see how much the distribution changes from month to month, and the yearly averages over all.
Now that I have a system set up that works for me, I am going to continue until I have a year's worth of data. I think it will be interesting to see how much the distribution changes from month to month, and the yearly averages over all.
