Understanding practice of planning and scheduling is of interest as skill and performance of production schedulers have been identified as important for a company to achieve high productivity and flexibility. However, practice is not easily studied. The objective of this paper is to describe and assess the use of activity analysis as a method for studying the practice of production scheduling. Work activities of schedulers in four wood-working companies were investigated with activity analysis, which is based on analyses of work activities carried out in real work situations. Data collection included interviews with the schedulers and other employees concerning the scheduling task and the work context. Thereafter, each scheduler’s work was observed during five entire days. In the analyses, the observed work activities were described and categorized including time and spatial distribution, own initiatives to activities, interruptions, and relationships with others. Activity analysis was found to be a useful method for analyzing scheduling work. It provided rich data of the work content, sub-tasks, aids used etc, which could be used as an instrument to grasp cognitive aspects of work. Furthermore, activity analysis was easily applicable.