The scoring formula (simple, but useful)

Your score is a weighted blend of time capacity and time protection. Capacity is how many hours you have after meetings/admin. Protection is whether those hours are used well: deep work blocks, low interruptions, clear priorities, and alignment with your energy. The result is intentionally practical — it’s designed to point to a single change that buys back time.

We start with your available work/study hours and subtract meetings/classes and admin/overhead:

• UsableHours = max(0, AvailableHours − MeetingHours − AdminHours)

• Time capacity: UsableHours as a fraction of AvailableHours (capped).
• Meeting load: lower meeting share = higher score.
• Interruptions: fewer interruptions per hour = higher score (inverted).
• Clarity: task clarity slider mapped from 1–10 → 0–1.
• Energy alignment: energy alignment slider mapped from 1–10 → 0–1.
• Deep blocks: more deep work blocks → higher score (capped at 4 blocks).
• Planning: 10–20 minutes/day is a “sweet spot” for most contexts.
• Delegation/automation: higher means less repeat work and fewer tiny decisions.

Each component gets a weight based on how strongly it tends to affect real output: interruptions and clarity are major multipliers, and usable hours set the ceiling. The final score is the weighted average multiplied by 100.

• Usable time capacity: 18%
• Meeting load: 12%
• Admin/overhead load: 8%
• Interruptions (inverted): 18%
• Deep work blocks: 16%
• Task clarity: 14%
• Energy alignment: 8%
• Delegation/automation: 4%
• Daily planning: 2%

Why does planning get a small weight? Because planning helps only if it turns into protected time. Ten minutes of honest planning beats an hour of reorganizing.

A realistic day → a better blueprint

Imagine you have 8 hours available, 3 hours of meetings, 1 hour of admin, two deep work blocks, about 3 interruptions per hour, and medium clarity and energy alignment. Your usable hours are 8 − 3 − 1 = 4. That’s not bad — but interruptions and meetings might be fragmenting the remaining time.

• Protect one deep block early: 9:00–10:30 (notifications off).
• Batch meetings: move meetings into one window so you don’t switch contexts all day.
• Reduce interruption rate: check messages only at 2–3 set times.
• Increase clarity: pick the “one outcome” for today before doing anything else.

The point isn’t to squeeze more hours. It’s to make the hours you already have behave like real time.

Your time‑block blueprint (how to use it)

After you press Calculate, you’ll see a blueprint with three parts: Core Blocks (deep work), Logistics (meetings/admin), and Recovery (buffers). This is the simplest structure that works for many people because it respects attention: you do the hard thing first, then you spend the rest of the day on coordination.

• Rule 1 — One protected block: start your day with at least one deep block whenever possible.
• Rule 2 — Batch shallow work: email, messages, meetings, admin in dedicated windows.
• Rule 3 — Buffers are real work: include 10–20% slack or your plan collapses at the first surprise.

If you’re a student, treat “meetings” as classes and “deep blocks” as focused study. If you’re caregiving, your “blocks” may be smaller — the blueprint still works, just shrink the blocks and protect one anchor task.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is the score scientifically validated?

  No — it’s a pragmatic model. It’s meant to help you notice leaks and choose a high‑leverage change.

• Why do interruptions matter so much?

  Because context switching adds hidden “restart time.” Even small pings can multiply task duration.

• What if I can’t reduce meetings?

  Then batch them and protect a small deep block. Even 45 minutes of protected time can change the day.

• How often should I use this advisor?

  Weekly is ideal. Save one snapshot per week, compare trends, and change only one thing at a time.

• Does this store my data?

  No. Everything runs in your browser. “Save” stores snapshots locally on this device only.

Why time leaks feel invisible (and how the math helps)

Time management usually fails for a simple reason: we plan the day as if time is a continuous, smooth resource. Real life is not smooth. It’s chopped into fragments by meetings, messages, and tiny “quick” tasks. When time becomes fragmented, you don’t just lose minutes — you lose momentum. Momentum is the ability to stay inside a problem long enough to make progress without restarting.

That’s why this advisor treats interruptions and deep work blocks as major score components. If your interruption rate is high, even a generous number of available hours can behave like a small number of usable hours. A common pattern is: “I worked all day, I answered everyone, and I still didn’t move the important project.” The issue is rarely effort. It’s often the structure of attention.

Suppose a meaningful task needs 90 minutes of focused thinking. If you are interrupted twice per hour, you may restart your attention every 20–30 minutes. Each restart has a tax: opening files, remembering context, re-reading your last paragraph, or re-deriving where you were in the logic. That tax might be only 3–7 minutes, but it happens repeatedly. Over a day, that becomes an hour (or more) of lost progress.

Task clarity is not “having a long to-do list.” It’s knowing what done means today. When clarity is low, we default to easy tasks: email, tidying, minor fixes — work that feels safe. Clarity moves you from “busy” to “directed.” The advisor maps clarity from 1–10 into the score because it changes what your hours turn into.

Planning is valuable because it prevents repeated decision-making. But planning can also become avoidance. The sweet spot for most people is a short planning ritual that creates three outputs: (1) the top outcome, (2) the first deep block time, and (3) the next action for the hardest task. That’s why planning has a small weight — it helps most when it results in protected time.

How to raise your score quickly (without “working harder”)

The fastest way to improve time management is to run a small experiment for one week. Do not change five things at once. Change one rule, keep it consistent, and measure how you feel. Use “Save” once per week to create a tiny trend line.

• If interruptions are lowest: add message windows (2–3/day) and keep notifications off in blocks.
• If deep blocks are lowest: schedule one protected block before noon, even if it’s only 45 minutes.
• If meetings are lowest: batch meetings into one window; make 25/50 minutes the default length.
• If clarity is lowest: write today’s “one outcome” on a sticky note; start with the next action.
• If admin is lowest: create one logistics block; build a checklist for repeating tasks.

• 2 minutes: choose one outcome (“When today is done, I have ___”).
• 45–90 minutes: first deep block (no notifications, single task).
• 10 minutes: quick reset: next action + schedule the next block.
• Batch: meetings/admin/messages in windows, not scattered.

Use this like a compass, not a judge

If your score is low, it doesn’t mean you’re failing — it usually means your plan is fighting reality. Start by changing the environment (batching, blocks, fewer pings), not by demanding more willpower.

• Run “Typical day (last 7 days)” once per week.
• Pick the lowest component and try one change for 7 days.
• Save a snapshot and compare trend direction, not perfection.