I developed this productivity tracker for myself over the course of a few weeks during a phase when I found it extremely difficult to focus. It was the peak of the second wave of COVID in South Africa, I was under a lot of stress at work, lost three family members, and my gran was in recovery from COVID.

So, I started logging what I did with every hour of my day time, the food I ate, and anything I drank. Alongside this, I would rate my energy, focus, and anxiety levels, last night's quality of sleep, and how much coffee I had to drink.

After about a week I was able to look back and identify patterns. The things that impacted my energy, focus, and anxiety – both positively and negatively. I was also able to identify my most, and least, productive times of day for specific types of work.

I used this information to redesign my weekly schedule to better capitalise on activities and times of day that I performed at my best.

After a few weeks of of using it, I was able to refine my productivity tracker down to a single A4-page template.

This printable A4 template includes areas to:

• Log what you do, eat, or drink every hour
• Rate your energy, focus, and anxiety levels every hour
• Log number of coffees you drank today
• Rate your sleep quality the night before
• Write down your most important goal for the day
• Jot down your ideas, notes, and doodles