Most of us often feel that we don’t waste time while working or at the workplace. In general, we hear a lot of people saying the same phrase “I was too busy.” But we never ever actually count the number of hours that were spent on those particular things. The reason behind I am saying this over and over is because, once we knew how much we are actually spending on things is lesser than the time we thought we spent on those things, there is a lot of scope for improving our productivity in a day to achieve our goals in a faster and better way.
Someone once said, “The first step toward change is awareness.” If you know how much time your spend on each of your activities or tasks, you can work to improve your efficiency. Calculating tasks such as how much time you spend on working on a particular project will add up quickly. Wondering how to do that? By using time tracking software.
Time Tracking Software
Calculating time spent on the each task you did is not rocket science at all. All that you need is good time tracking software that perfectly measures the time you spend on each job. If you have a business that frequently depends on employees working efficiency then this time tracker software not only helps in improving productivity but also gives the motivation to complete the given task in time.
This software will give you a good impact on your overall productivity in a day. It keeps well-performing employees motivated all the time so that they can maintain their performance. In addition, it brings not-so-well performing people to the company’s management so that they can keep a check on them. For example, one of the group member struggling with a particular task. If self-employed, you can introduce the training and professionalism in yourself to evolve into a developed business.
Track What’s Important
There’s no task that you cannot track with this tracking software but also keep in mind that whether it is worth to track. Right from your sleep time to exercise, you can every little thing that you do in a day. But what you need to understand is whether tracking those will help you in improving your productivity? Personally, I am a bit interested in how much time I spend on each project or assignment at work. But see what’s important and track that.
Transparency Matters
If you are a freelancer and work on per hour basis, then clients definitely would want to see how much time you spend on each assignment or task. This is one of the difficult things to explain to the client if you are not using tracking software. Freelancers often don’t get full credit because of their working style and at times it is because clients think that they didn’t spend enough time working on their project. So by using a time tracking software, you can show it as proof for how many hours you spent on each of their projects.
Here are some of the essential things that may happen if you maintain this level of transparency.
- You don’t have to defend yourself. Your tracking software will speak for you.
- They may offer more business as you are making things easier on them
- They may likely recommend your services to other businesses because they know how you work.
It Will Let You Expand
Right from starting day of your business if you maintain robust processes such as time tracking, invoice practices, etc. then the whole business improves efficiency and productivity than you thought you would whether it is a freelancing job or a business (Small or medium). Also, you can use your information to make smart moves in your business and your systems to reduce the minimal errors that often take in an administrative desk.
Simplify Your Client Billing Processes
Whether it is legal services or app development services, the number of hours you spend servicing your clients should actually make you money for your company. If you are memorizing or copying the time spent on each project from your sticky notes will only make a loss for your business in some or the other way. Because most of the times, you either would be over calculating or under calculating the hours spent. So I think, you should actually be utilizing an integrated project management, time tracking, and billing structure. Having such features in one system will save you not only time and money but also enhances your work productivity and efficiency.
See the Change for Yourself
Once you figure out after several months of time tracking, you can sit and analyze thoroughly those hours and see what can be changed. When I first tracked time of my tasks I was completely unknown of the results. But once I knew what was going wrong and where I am spending more time immediately tried to change that.
After tracking time of all your activities, you will get a useful, helpful data that gives you insights on various aspects and whether you are making profit or loss. Find out the toughest projects that are giving you hard time so that you can know how much time ideally you should spend to get the desired results and what kind of niche you should interact with frequently.
I personally believe that the main hurdle that is stopping from achieving our dreams is finding the time to pursue them. And as far as tracking time is concerned, it is an effective way to find out where your time is going and in which direction.
In case you already deployed on tracking software, then please let us know what software you utilized and how it helped you in improving your work efficiency in the comment section below. We would love to hear from you.