I stopped tracking my time. Now I can't focus

Source: Hacker News

One of the most freeing things I’ve ever done in my business is to stop tracking time.

I used to religiously track where I spent my time when on my computer. Client work in one bucket, personal branding in another, and side projects/adventures in a third. Inside of those, I would then categorize which engagement/project I was working on.

At the end of the year, it was awesome! I had this huge breakdown of where all of my time went. I could even cross-reference it against what each thing made money-wise and figure out my effective billable rate. Which sometimes was super empowering. But for side projects? Super depressing. :P

I’ve launched more than a handful of “things” that made no money at all. And spent a ton of time working on them.

As time went on, I found myself taking a few seconds to pick which project to bill time to. “Ok, let’s go build this thing!” “Oh, let me track time first.” “Hmm, is this personal branding? Marketing? A side project that I haven’t solidified yet?”

That additional context switch (on top of the actual one) could often kill the idea I had in my head. Before I even started working, I all of a sudden had an admin task to take care of.

And sure, I could do it after the fact. So I started just clicking “start” without assigning a project in my time tracker. Which worked pretty well! But then I would forget entirely. Or even worse, switch tasks and now had to make two decisions (old work and new work).

I eventually realized that it was costing me more time and, more importantly, mental energy, to keep this up than the payoff was worth.

So in 2026, I completely stopped tracking my time. And it has been the most freeing thing I’ve ever done for my business.

When an idea sparks, I just… do it. When I want to context switch, well, I context switch!

And with AI-assisted development? It means I can bounce around like all freaking day working on whatever I want without any repercussions!

Except… not exactly.

Now I’m bouncing around all the freaking time. Why work on one thing when I could work on ten things?! Why limit my creativity to a single project that doesn’t make money when I could be building twenty things that don’t make money?!

And so on and so on.

Turns out, the friction I felt around picking one thing may have actually been beneficial. Perhaps it was actually helping me stay focused. Even if it cost just a bit of extra time before I sat down and worked.

I’m not sure if AI caused this or just threw lighter fluid on an existing fire. But whatever it is… damn is my brain fragmented.

I feel like I’m getting so much done. But also so mentally exhausted at the end of the day.

I also really want to work… more? It’s quite a feeling. And maybe all this is just my ADHD getting dopamine hit after dopamine hit when I’m working with Claude.

Or maybe this is just the new way of working?

No posts