As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve posted a few timers and time tracking tools lately. In my quest to become more productive in my working week, I’ve decided to put my money where my mouth is, and use next week to conduct a ‘time audit’ of my working week.
I haven’t yet picked which time tracking tool to use, but from Monday morning until Saturday morning when I finish work for the week, I’m going to keep a record of the tasks I do and how long they take me. At the end of the week I’ll have a better understanding of how long various tasks take (ie research, writing and editing, as well as the marketing, networking and pitching for new business that’s part of any freelancers job.
Gina posted recently about using a digital timer to get things done. I had a look at the blog that tip came from, and I liked the philosophy behind it – which is make the list of your daily, weekly and monthly activities, then decide on the amount of time you have to complete each one. Use a digital timer to keep on track. I think once I’ve done my one week audit and gotten an idea of how long my take me, I’ll be in a position to put a system like this in place. Anyone else interested in doing the audit next week? Let me know in comments.
We’ve mentioned a few work timers lately, such as the Title Bar Browser Timer, which lets you set how long you’d like to be able to websurf before getting a message telling you to get back to work, or Using a Digital Timer to stay on track and get things done.
But what if you want to track your worktime because you bill your clients by the hour, or need to know how long a job takes you? Then a time tracker may be what you need. The Freelance Switch came up with 6 timetracking tools today, including previously mentioned Cashboard. Several of them are freeware or offer free basic versions too.
6 Cool Tools to Track Your Time [Freelance Switch]
