Track The Time Blog

The New York Times has a sweet information graphic that provides an interactive look at how most people spend their time.

Something I hear often from designers and developers is that they can never find the motivation to track their time — or they never remember to in the first place.

An underlying reason is that they simply don’t need to track their time in their job. A number of developers I know bill by the project and so there is no urgency to track time.

Convincing these people to track their time is nearly impossible, so I won’t try. I’ve put together a list of reasons why you might consider tracking your time if you happen to be one of these people.

For those who do need to track time, but dislike the process I suggest trying the following:

1. Consider tracking time with a stopwatch based time tracking system. Not only will a stopwatch remind you that you’re on task, but it should keep you from becoming distracted because you’ll know the timer is running. The next time YouTube or Facebook call to you, you’ll realize you need to stop the timer.
2. If a stopwatch isn’t your thing, you can always manually log your time after-the-fact. But you should know that your memory will never be perfect. If you forget about 15 minutes of possible billable time per day the lost earnings could cost you dearly.
3. Track your billable time, and your unbillable time. The reason you want to track your unbillable time is so you can gauge your billable efficiency over time. You’ll know whether you’re 50% billable, or 75%. Knowing that could mean the difference between success and failure.
4. Compare notes with coworkers or friends. Tracking time is best enjoyed as a team sport. Share your results with colleagues in your office, or outside.
5. Don’t just log time to projects. Write detailed notes about what you did during that time period. You’ll find that the notes help with billing but at the end of the week you will have an at-a-glance report of what you did.

I realize that time tracking isn’t for everybody, but if you need to do it as part of your job, I hope these tips help. Feel free to email with any questions you may have about time tracking. I’ve been tracking my time for over 3 years now, and I love it!

Update: There are a few time tracking apps that will automatically pop up and prompt you to let them know what you are working on. You can set a frequent interval, such as every 15 minutes. This forces you to enter your time constantly through the day.

I read a large number of personal productivity blogs, and thought it would be fun to share two of them with you.

Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People

www.stevepavlina.com

A site that became wildly popular after it was revealed that the owner, Steve Pavlina, makes a living off of ads on the site. Pavlina even tried the concept of Polyphasic Sleep to the amusement of his readers (but then discontinued after some time). Another good article is titled How to Become an Early Riser.

David Seah’s Better Living Through New Media

www.daveseah.com

Dave came up with an interesting idea a few years ago to create beautiful and useful productivity tools for himself. On paper. He calls them The Printable CEO, and shares his work with you for free and many people use them daily.

Andy Ferra, a designer in Phoenix I have had the pleasure of working with, wrote this about The Printable CEO:

One of the things I like about it most is it helps you define a clear system for prioritizing tasks and process to go through when you’re not being productive to help you get back on track.

Here’s a great little video that explains how entrepreneurs can change the world. I originally saw the link on Ward Andrews’ blog.

Twitter asks what are you doing? Brightkite asks where are you? Facebook asks what’s on your mind? Why not a calendar that asks what you are doing today?

If that strikes your interest, check out this sweet little pocket calendar for exactly that purpose.

Austin Baker (a designer I’m friends with) shared a cool link with me for an interesting calendar that has a match for every day. Photos are below or click here for more information.

I really like this Singletasking concept. It’s a simple idea, but nice to see someone wrote it down. See more here and here.

End of last article: Some freelance professionals who track their time are clearly more productive than other freelancers, who also track their time, so what gives?

In previous blog entries, we learned:

1. Time is real. It’s not a metaphor.
2. Time moves forward, in front of you, never behind.
3. People who track time uncover lost bits of time along the way. They are called Time Pursuers.
4. People who don’t track time lose track of it and wonder where their day went. These are Time Followers.

It’s elementary, Watson.

By definition, if you track time during a project or throughout the day, you’re a Time Pursuer. While this is better than being a Time Follower (someone who doesn’t track their time), it doesn’t automatically give you more clues about how to better keep up with Time in the future.

Time clues are a messy thing. The more you take note of this time clue and that time clue – Yes: physically stop what you’re doing, write down what time of day it is, consider how far you’ve come and look ahead to how much you’ve got left to do – the more evidence you’ll have when you later review the clues you discovered.

Inside each time clue is an opportunity to make more money. The trick is in knowing how to open the clue and take advantage of that opportunity. The only way you can do that is track your time.

Some Time Clues & What They Mean.

Clue: For any given hour of billable time, you habitually spend a few minutes distracted. For example, hopping online and chasing down your latest Internet fancy of the moment. You do this often. You’re okay with this. It’s not like you’re losing sight of the Time path, just stepping off for a little rest in the shade.

Meaning: Add up those little moments here and there and you’d find passing on earning thousands more dollars a year.

Apply it: Forget about yourself for awhile. Spend 100% of that hour on your client. Schedule a break for later. You’re enjoy not working more and you’ll have made more money.

Clue: Checking emails always takes longer than you expect; Travel time to meet a client rarely includes packing up your things, getting out the door, finding a parking spot, etc.

Meaning: You’re relying on your expertise or ability to focus to do its magic “in the moment”.

Apply It: Track un-billable time as much as you track billable time. If an email can’t be replied to in less than five minutes, make a phone call.

Clue: A project or task took twice as long as expected.

Meaning: You overlooked something. Most likely, you didn’t include “Transitional Time” between phases of a project or task. For example, Drafting the initial Agreement, phone discussions, answering emails where a phone call would have been better, travel time to meetings, etc.

Apply It: Make a checklist of all the steps required to complete this type of project or task, including transitional items. My father has a formula for what it looks like: “Take your estimate. Double it. Add a third. And hope you’re half right.” Knowing how long it really takes to do a project or task will make new estimates creation much easier and more accurate.

Clue: At the end of the day, you don’t know where the time went.

Meaning: You prefer to be blissfully ignorant. 1. Imagine being able to show a prospective employer your billable efficiency. When a clock is running it helps you focus on the task at hand. Distractions like chat and web surfing tend to be pushed till later.

Apply It: Routinely review your time use. Experiment with tracking your time in different ways. Imagine being able to reduce client complaints because you include how your time was spent on a project with your invoices.

Here’s a personal example of my experience in pursuing time by tracking it (spurred on because I’ve been thinking about it much more as a result of writing these blogs).

Clue: Tracking Time is easy and makes me more productive. I’m a writer, so I track my time with the Mac version of Microsoft Word. It has a “Notebook” option that allows me to create tabs along the right side of any project. The very top tab is “Minutes”, which is where I track my time. The tabs below it are where I store my various drafts.

Meaning: I’ve got a method for keeping track of time that is easy, intuitive and doesn’t get in the way of getting the project started or transitioning from one phase of a project to another or to a different project altogether.

Apply It: Continue to use my particular tool for tracking my time, but keep my eye out for something more robust; a way to pursue time that is still easy and “instant”, but that yields far greater time clues than my current method.

NEXT TIME: In preparation for the next blog, I’ll be taking a closer look at the time tracking tool I’d most like to see.

(Phoenix wordsmith Joey Robert Parks is primarily a non-fiction ghostwriter. In the last six years, he’s written five books for successful, entrepreneurial types; including: a fashion designer and stylist who got his start working for JFK and Oprah; and a book on creative innovation for a high profile, multimillionaire philanthropist. To see how productive Joey is this very moment, follow him on Twitter or visit www.joeyrobertparks.com)

This clock looks really cool! It’s a cylinder that simply rotates and the position of the red line (which doesn’t move) indicates the current time. Brilliantly simple. I really want one.

You can buy the Lexon Around Clock online.

I think it’s a trend! More and more web design, development, and marketing companies are learning one of the best kept secrets in the business. Charging by the hour can be incredibly good for business.

A marketing / web design firm we’re friends with in Phoenix just switched from fixed-fee project rates to an hourly rate and wrote an excellent blog post about the switch.

They tout flexibility as one of the biggest advantages of charging by the hour. I would agree. It gives customers way more leeway in making changes, and doesn’t create a problem every time the scope of the project changes. This also frees staff up from writing detailed change orders, and revising estimates.

Our company, Tornado, made the switch to billing by the hour about 3 years ago and we haven’t looked back since! It’s a big relief on so many levels compared to billing by the project (fixed fee). I wrote about our experience a year ago in a post called: Two Years of Tracking Time: It’s worth it!

Which way do you bill your customers? By the hour or by the project?

For the low, low price of $159 you can have this retro inspired clock which has a rotating board for each hour and minute of the day. How cool is that. Buy it here.

Here’s an excellent reminder to say important things in person or over the phone. This video (3 min long) tells you why.

Only 7% of what we say is conveyed through words, the rest (broken out below) is voice inflection and visual cues.

• 38% Tone
• 55% Visual
• 7% Words

I’m not sure how many of you read Slashdot? I don’t read it, but a long time ago I subscribed to the Slashdot Poll because I found it entertaining and at the time it was one of only a few polls used online.

The current poll asks “How many hours do you REALLY work each day?” Fascinating question! At this time, 21,364 people have answered the poll. Here are the top 3 responses:

• 5-6 Hours – 24%
• 3-4 Hours – 19%
• 7-8 Hours – 16%

Anyways, I doubt that many of the responders actually definitively know the answer to the question. Nobody can constantly produce 100% efficiency every day. It’s probably impossible to do that with all of the distractions we have today. Hence the importance of limiting distractions in your day.

So I decided to conduct a little bit of research into how people track time with a simple poll.

Honda created a commercial (probably aired online only) called Failure: The Secret to Success. Not only is this brilliant because it shows the human face of Honda, but it encourages its employees to try new things and not be afraid to fail. Genius.

I saw it on the teehan+lax blog.

Cabinet Magazine brings us this amazing Timeline of Timelines. It is really more of a list, but I enjoyed reading it.

While perusing the new Undrln web site (think of it as Digg for designers), I came across this sweet concept clock designed by a student. It’s called the Clock for Identity Designers, and appropriately so! It’s a clock with logos. Here are a few photos I grabbed, but check out the post for more.

Ran across this sweet conceptual clock and had to share it. It’s called the Time Tuner and it is based on the linear flow of time. Apparently the designer is looking for a company to manufacture the clock. If they were for sale I’d buy one right now.

This month I’ve stumbled across two really great improvements to every day products. The stapler and the highlighter. Nothing beats a photo, so here goes:

A precise stapler

This stapler has an indent so that every time you staple a piece of paper it’s the same. How freaking brilliant.

Kukuyo highlighter

This highlighter makes it easy to circle or just highlight — fantastic and simple.

Schott Solar had a great idea for promoting their 20-year warranty. They made a tear-off calendar that included every single day for 20 years. Stupendous! Via the Likecool blog.