Work management solutions abound on the market when it comes to managing a personal or work-related project. These tools and apps are tailored to suit your every need. For example, one of the most important is the time-tracking functionality. There are several benefits of time tracking besides task management or creating time entries, and reports. Here are just 7 of them:
1. Identify non-essential activities
Time is a limited resource. If you don’t track it, there’s a high probability that you have no clue about how much time is wasted on non-essential activities. You might even be shocked when you find the truth.
2. Stay aligned with your goals
When you track how you spend your time, you’ll be able to see if you’re on the right track to accomplishing your goals.
3. Define and clarify your goals
Many people are living without having defined clear goals. Tracking your time and taking a closer look at how you spend it might help you, or even “force” you, clarify and define your goals.
4. Tune and improve task estimates
Tracking your work time allows you to compare your initial estimates with how long it really took to accomplish certain tasks. This will help you make the necessary adjustments for similar future tasks.
5. Create daily routines and habits
Tracking your time might help you create daily routines and habits. In time, habits such as these will help you fight against procrastination and improve your personal productivity. This is crucial for people who have problems with procrastination that are mostly rooted in fear of failure or hedonistic delay.
Tip: A great way to manage your work or studying time is to use a Pomodoro app – also known as the clock that resets itself after 25 minutes to allow for a 5 minutes break.
6. Adjust your work rates
If you charge by the hour, tracking your work time is mandatory so you can get paid/charge fairly. If you have a flat rate, tracking your work time is still a good idea as it will give you a price/hour and allow you to compare yourself with those who offer similar services but charge by the hour.
7. Time tracking is easy to do
Keeping track of your time has become a very simple process, for your business, through the use of online time tracking software no matter where you are: at home, at the office, or on the go. You only click Start when you begin an activity and Stop when you’ve finished.
Over to you
If you’d like to explore the project manager career path, this guide shows you how to get started in pm without a degree.
If you already manage several employees, consider reading reviews from top employee time tracking software. These focus more on the team as a group and keeping a tidy timesheet for organizational purposes, which is good because you can turn your time entries into reports and invoices.
If you’re interested in software for timesheets, here’s a top list of tools you can use to help with recording work efforts on a weekly basis. If you are looking for web-based software for invoices that are completely free, we made a list of the best four tested-and-reviewed, fully free invoicing tools.
If you need a simple invoice generator with signature capability, opt for an invoice builder.
First published on May 13, 2015.
