The Growth Mindset: How to Measure Your Own Success

I agree with you that tracking the hours spent working on a project can encourage inefficiency—focusing more on working for a certain number of hours rather than focusing on getting specific goals done. I still see the benefits of tracking the time spent on tasks (without paying too much attention while you're tracking) with tools like Toggl, as you will be able to evaluate wether you are putting enough time on something or not, or if you are putting too much time on something that is not really making a difference.

I guess writing down small achievements could help, as a way to visualize the progress you are making, which, in some ways, reflects your effort. Habit-tracking apps[1] (or a simple spreadsheet) allow you to make sure you are on top of what you wanted to do, and I think this strategy works for things like meditation or exercise, or to deliberately practice skills such as playing an instrument or drawing, but quantifying how much effort you are putting during that time seems like a totally different story.

[1]: https://lifehacker.com/the-best-habit-tracking-app-for-iphon...

I think it matters the type of work, and whether the outcome you want is more effort (crunches) or more of another type of output.

For an example counter to yours, I'm a musician. Hours in the studio -- even lazy, half-assed hours -- are a positive thing. It would be a bad idea to discard all the time blocks when I'm not working in the upper quartile of my ability. Lazy time in the game plants seeds for good ideas and increases the odds of having one. It's a bit like solo crypto mining -- you do a lot of grunt work for a big chunk of payout at an unknown interval.