Time tracking apps are an excellent, vital tool for anyone who works from home, especially if they’re self-employed. At the same time, they’re like any productivity software in that they’re only as effective as you make them. If you don’t know what you’re doing, they aren’t likely to be of much use.
Working from home can get pretty rough, especially if you’re your own boss. The odd conference call and digital meeting aside, you don’t usually have a set schedule of any kind.
This can lead to some incredibly bad habits: Working late. Cramming all your work in at odd hours of the day. Failing to take any time off, or hardly working at all.
That’s one of the reasons I love time tracking apps. They introduce structure into your day-to-day. They allow you to more effectively block out your day into a collection of distinctive tasks, which helps you feel more accomplished and gives you a better idea of how much, how hard, and how frequently you work.
But as noted by Quartz’s Corinne Purtill, this can be a double-edged sword. In an email reportedly sent to a time tracker’s customer support staff, she recounts how distracting and disruptive Toggl ended up being in the context of her workplace. She found herself unhappily dwelling on how much time she wasted on grunt work, and on how frequently she had to return to the app as a result of constantly switching between tasks and projects.
The issue, Purtill acknowledges, is that time tracking doesn’t really mesh with how she approaches her workday. She used the app not because she felt motivated, but because she felt obligated. Because that’s just what you’re supposed to do when optimizing your productivity.
The thing is, the way you work is deeply personal. If you’re going to use any time tracking app, you need to consider how you’ll adapt it to your unique workflows. More importantly, you can’t just mindlessly track your hours - you need to manage them as well.
To that end, there are a few things you can do.
Consider what tasks or projects you most frequently work on during the day. It may be worthwhile creating premade categories for each. I’d also advise creating one for general work, as well, such as small jobs that don’t really fit anywhere else.
Go in with specific goals. Consider why you’re tracking your hours. Do you want to optimize how much time you spend on each project? Do you want a better work/life balance? Are you simply curious about how your day looks?
Prioritize and learn when to say no. Remember, not all tasks are created equal. Always take care of your most important, most time-sensitive jobs first. And more importantly, learn to recognize when you’re overwhelmed or when your attention needs to be directed elsewhere. In other words, learn how to set healthy boundaries where your workload is concerned.
Work to be less distracted. We are surrounded by distractions, and none of us are as good at multitasking as we’d like to think. The final and most important piece of advice is to be smart about where and how you direct your focus. Cut out as many unnecessary distractions from your workday as possible and you might be surprised at how much more you get done.
Ironically, time tracking can end up being both distracting and time-consuming. But it doesn’t have to be. As long as you’re smart, focused, and strategic about it, it’s an incredible addition to just about any workday.
Author Bio
About the Author: Brad Wayland is the Chief Strategy Officer at BlueCotton, a site with high-quality, easy-to-design custom t-shirts.
