Providing consulting services as a business requires I track my time worked. This makes perfect sense in a business context.

In my personal life, it hadn't occurred to me to account for my time as stringently as I do on work. At home, I revel in thinking of new ideas and opportunities and trying to weave them into the fabric of my life somehow, usually by convoluting other projects, or spreading myself too thin.

Reading the book, "The One Thing", helped kickstart my thinking about time management. Coming to grips with the fact that my appetite for creation in the world will exceed my capacity to deliver on all of it. Trying to do all of it leads to relative failure on several fronts. I now see that clearly.

Also, busting the myth of multitasking. Doing more than one thing at a time just results in diluted attention on any given task. I'd consciously seek to limit myself to one task at a time.

When I began to use Mint.com to track our finances, I was empowered with the ability to see all my accounts at once. Having higher visibility into my financial behavior began to subtly influence my behaviors. We bought beans instead of $4 coffee every day. We made breakfast bagels at home, rather than buying muffins or sandwiches near the office.

I've started to use Harvest to track Personal time, admin work, side projects, and house work.