Recently, days just end before I know it, and I’ve been having busy days where I think “What did I do today?”

Happily, being a startup means there are infinite tasks, so the reward for work is more work. Work never ends. However, since it’s a startup, resources are limited, so doing everything is completely impossible. I need to prioritize and tackle things accordingly.

Given this situation, I’ve been thinking lately that I need to understand which tasks are taking time during my workday. If I can identify what’s causing time drains, it could lead to an approach where I solve problems by writing code to add features and make fixes.

First, starting today I began using a time management tool called Toggl. At my previous job, I used a time management tool called SlimTimer, but since it was mainly a contract development company, the main purpose was work-hour management. This time, the purpose is to visualize tasks that are becoming bottlenecks.

By the way, Toggl has a more refined design than SlimTimer and seems easier to use. It also has apps for iPhone, Android, Mac, and other platforms, which is another high point.

By using time management tools, I’ll visualize work time per task and implement improvement measures. For now, I want to focus on properly identifying bottlenecks.

That’s all from the Gemba.