Tracking Time | Why It's Important For Your Business

Are you tracking your time when you’re working either on or in your business? If you’re not, I recommend you start. I know, I know. Adding another task to your never-ending to do list is never fun. It’s another thing to remember to do. But I promise, it can actually help you become more productive (and it’ll likely even become second nature!). So why not give it a shot this month and see if you find it helpful!

Why should you track your time?

• Knowing where your time is spent is key. You won’t be able to do any business analytics, unless you have data to actually know how long tasks are taking.
• It’ll help you with pricing. Whether you’re a product based or service based business, track your time working on products. Knowing how long certain tasks take, how much time you want to spend on your business daily, how much you want to make per hour, etc. is key to accurately pricing your projects.
• By knowing where you’re spending your time, you can start to assess if there are certain tasks in your business that you might be able to let go of - whether eliminating completely or by delegating.
• You can actually start to see how productive you are. You might think writing a blog post only takes an hour and be surprised that it actually takes two. Or alternatively, you might think scheduling social media takes hours on hours because you’re doing it little by little, but you might find that when you sit down and batch it out, it might only take a couple of hours.

What are the easiest ways to track your time?

• If you’re a pen & paper type of gal, start a little journal.
• Use a program like Toggl. It’s a free online program, that allows you to simply click a start and stop button when it’s open in your browser. Quick and easy. And it even has some functionality to run some analytics for you. Win-win right there.
• Looking for another program? Maybe one that works seamlessly with your iPhone? This article discusses a variety of them!

What type of data should you track?

I’ve found that tracking the following has been the most helpful:

• Date
• Start time & end time
• Total time
• Task or project
• Client (if applicable)

Do you track time in your business? Have you found it to be helpful?