I Tracked 8,921 Activities This Year. Here's What I Learned About Where My Time Actually Goes.

I Tracked 8,921 Activities This Year. Here’s What I Learned About Where My Time Actually Goes.

In January 2025, I decided to track every waking moment of my life. Every meeting, every meal, every scroll session. 8,921 logged activities later, I learned some things I didn’t love. I also confirmed some things I did.

Method for Tracking

I used Simple Time Tracker on Android (paid version) to log every activity. One activity at a time - no multitasking. If I was eating, I logged “Eating.” If I was scrolling social media, I logged “Doomscrolling.” If I was working, I logged “work.” To make this easier, I kept a home screen with quick access widgets that would allow me to start and stop timers. I also used the app on my watch for on-the-go tracking and would manually update entries as needed in the app.

I’m sharing this article at the end of 2025, but there are a few caveats to this data. For the time tracking app, I am looking at data between January 1st and October 31st. We took a three-week trip in November and I did not track time during this period. I also paused tracking in December while analyzing the data, spending time with family and preparing for 2026. The Digital Wellbeing screen time data discussed was pulled on December 28th, 2025.

The Wins

Let’s start with the good stuff, because there was plenty of it.

I showed up for the people who matter. 845 hours with friends and family, trivia nights, road trips, long dinners, and random Tuesday hangouts.

I built things on the side. 458 hours on side projects involving consulting, speaking, building, networking and teaching.

I read 48 books. 263 hours of reading the first 10 months, which averages to just over a book a week. Not bad for someone who “doesn’t have time to read.” (I hit my goal of 52 in early December and finished the year at 54)

I moved my body. 118 hours of exercise, walks with my dog Lola, gym sessions, the occasional adventure. Room to grow, but consistent.

I served my community. 58 hours on the SOAR Afterschool board after joining in March, helping provide free programming to 550 kids across Northwest Arkansas.

I set these as goals at the start of the year. The data confirmed I hit them. It also showed me where I didn’t.

The Uncomfortable Discovery

Then there was the other data.

I spent 500.9 hours doomscrolling this year.

My first thought: “Where did I find the time?” My second thought: “Did I fail at my job or sleep?”

I ran the numbers. Even with scrolling, I still averaged 7.5 hours of sleep and just over 7 hours of work per day. I was able to sleep, work, and accomplish quite a lot.

And there were still more than 1,000 hours left over.

This was the biggest realization: I didn’t have a “time” problem. I had plenty of time. I just kept giving it to my phone.

• That’s 20.8 full days of my life, gone to the infinite scroll
• 1,181 separate sessions, averaging just over 25 minutes each
• My worst single day: 10.5 hours of scrolling
• My longest single session: 5.5 hours (October 30th - I was sick in bed all day and did nothing but scroll, over 10 hours total)

I knew I scrolled too much. Everyone knows they scroll too much. What I didn’t know was how much, and more importantly, when.

59% of my mornings started with doomscrolling as my first activity. Not meditation. Not exercise. Not even coffee. Just my thumb reflexively opening social media before my feet hit the floor.

We’re told that the morning is our most productive time, yet the data told a different story. Every morning followed a self-sabotaging pattern: wake up, reach for the phone, and spend my prime focus hours fighting a battle I had already lost in bed.

Thursdays were my worst day (87 hours total for the year). Tuesdays were my best (54 hours). Turns out having an early standing meeting forces me to start my day with intention instead of infinite scroll.

The “Quick Check” Lie

42% of my doomscrolling sessions were under 15 minutes. These feel harmless - just a “quick check.”

But 497 “quick checks” add up to 83 hours. That’s 3.5 full days of my life spent on what I told myself was “just a minute.”

There’s no such thing as a quick check.

Then I Dug Deeper

I thought 500 hours was bad. Then I extracted my phone’s actual usage data using Android Debug Bridge.

It was worse than I thought.

My phone tracked 1,140.7 hours on social media and time-wasting games between Jan 1st and December 28th:

• Reddit: 763 hours (31.8 days)
• Games: 180 hours
• Discord, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: 198 hours combined

The Gap

I tracked 500 hours in 10 months. My phone logged 950 hours during that same period.

The gap exists because I only tracked when scrolling was the only thing I was doing. I didn’t log:

• Scrolling while the TV played in the background
• Filling dead time while waiting on water to boil
• Waiting for a video call to start
• Eating meals with my phone
• Hanging out with friends but half-present

The time tracking app captured my intentional scrolling. My phone captured the truth.

What This Really Means

Over the holiday break, I read “4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” by Oliver Burkeman. The title refers to the average human lifespan, about 4,000 weeks if you’re lucky.

I’m 40 years old. I’ve used roughly 2,000 of my weeks. I have about 2,000 left.

I’ve had a smartphone since the iPhone first came out in 2007. That’s 18 years. If I’ve averaged similar usage, that’s roughly 20,500 hours on my phone.

That’s 2.3 years of my life.

The question Burkeman poses in the book hit differently after seeing this data:

What would you do if you truly accepted you only have 2,000 weeks left?

Would you spend 160+ weeks of that scrolling Reddit?

I deleted it immediately after seeing how much I truly spent on it.

The Comparisons That Hurt

That extra time is abstract until you realize what else you could do with it:

With that time I could:

• Quadruple my exercise time from 118 hours to 593 hours. Even redirecting 20% of that time would double my exercise.
• Read 135 books instead of 54 (2.5x more)
• 8x my nonprofit impact from 58 hours to 533 hours
• Actually build a business instead of just side projects

The most damning comparison: I spent 16.4x more time scrolling than I did on nonprofit board work. The contrast was hard to ignore: 58 hours dedicated to board service versus 950 hours dedicated to a screen.

What I’m Doing About It

So here’s what I’m changing in 2026:

I’m removing the phone from my bedroom entirely. I ordered an old-fashioned alarm clock. My phone now charges in the kitchen overnight. No more 234 wake-up scrolls.

I deleted Reddit after seeing the 763 hours. I was planning to just hide it. Then I saw I’d spent 4.5 weeks of my life on it. It’s gone.

I’m redesigning my phone. I’m making my phone boring on purpose. Remaining social apps are buried in folders, removed from home screens, and blocked during my morning hours with the Block app. I updated my home screen to be less engaging and have removed social notifications entirely.

I’m building morning structure. Four structured mornings a week - networking, bike rides, Million Cups meetups, and coffee shop work sessions. Out of the house before 7am means the scroll never gets a chance to start.

I’m getting serious about exercise. Hiking every weekend and 30-60 minutes of activity 5-6 days a week. Weights added in February. The time exists, I just need to redirect it.

The Takeaway

Here’s what a year of obsessive time tracking taught me:

Data without action is just self-surveillance. The numbers didn’t change anything until I used them to redesign my defaults.

Your morning wins or loses the day. 59% of my days started with scrolling. If I can win the morning routine, I can win most of the battle.

You have more time than you think - it’s just hiding. 1,141 hours materialized out of nothing. Time I couldn’t account for, leaking through my fingers one session at a time.

The wins are real too. 845 hours with people I love. 54 books. Financial freedom. Board service. A trip to Asia. The same tracking that revealed my worst habit also confirmed my best ones.

I’m not deleting the time tracker. I’m not pretending I’ll be perfect in 2026. But I’m going into the new year with my phone out of my bedroom, Reddit deleted, and more intention in my mornings.

8,921 activities tracked. 1,141 hours to reclaim.

Let’s see what I do with them. What would you do with an extra 1,000+ hours?