[Discovering wasted time at work 🔍] Tips on using your calendar effectively and methods for visualizing your activity time.
Find and Eliminate Wasted Time: How to Visualize Your Work Hours with Kotomil
If you go through your workday without much thought, you may be using your time inefficiently without realizing it.
By identifying and improving wasted time, you can create more fulfilling, productive days.
💡 Discover the real causes of overtime and drive work-style improvement 💡 Use your data to report work hours to your manager or team 💡 Reduce overtime and make more time for skill development or certifications
1. Record Your Activity Time in a Calendar 📝
To understand how you use your time, start by recording your daily activities in a tool like Google Calendar.
However, if you record everything without structure, it becomes hard to review later. It’s best to define several categories of activities and use consistent titles when creating events.
If you try to log everything in too much detail from the start, it can become overwhelming. Begin with broad categories like Meetings, Individual Work, Inquiries, and Travel — a few consistent labels go a long way.
Most calendar apps let you assign colors to events — for example, yellow for meetings and blue for individual work — making it visually clear and easy to distinguish between activity types.
2. Visualize Your Working Time with Kotomil 📊
After recording your activities, connect your Google Calendar to the Kotomil web app. Kotomil automatically visualizes your data as graphs and analytics for easy interpretation.
2-1. Analyze by Time Period
For example, if you analyze the period “This Week,” you’ll see results like this:
You can immediately see how much time was spent on tasks like “Document Creation” or “Travel” through pie charts and rankings.
From this data, you can identify actionable improvements such as:
“Since document creation takes too long, I’ll delegate part of it so I can focus more on customer support.”
You can also review:
Total work hours
Average time per category
Number of scheduled tasks and even compare them with the previous period (e.g., last week).
2-2. Analyze by Keyword
By setting a keyword, you can track specific activities like “Customer Support” over time.
For example, you might notice:
“I wanted to focus on customer support this month, but the last two weeks were weak because I had more documentation work.”
This allows you to visualize fluctuations in effort and identify what caused them. You can do the same for Travel Time, Meetings, Document Creation, or other categories to spot detailed trends.
3. Not Just for Work…
The same approach also works for personal life tracking and improvement — not just work.
1. Health & Fitness
Workouts, gym sessions
Jogging or walking
Yoga, stretching
Doctor visits
2. Hobbies & Leisure
Watching movies or TV shows
Gaming
Fishing, camping, other outdoor activities
Art, music, or creative projects
Fan activities
3. Learning & Growth
Language study (English conversation, apps)
Certification study
Reading
Online courses or seminars
4. Rest & Refreshment
Sleep, naps
Café or lunch breaks
Hot springs, sauna
5. Family & Relationships
Taking kids to school
Family events (school festivals, ceremonies)
Meals or time with family
Meals or drinks with friends
Start by logging your most frequent activities — it doesn’t need to be perfect. Six months later, you may find that your overtime has decreased and your time for hobbies or learning has grown.
See where your time goes from your calendar at a glance📊🔍
With Kotomil, just connect Google Calendar to see how much time you spend on each area in charts and lists. It also helps you find what is making you busy and where your time is becoming unbalanced.
