Track your time. Stop working for free.
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Table Of Contents
Do you get the feeling that you are serving some clients for free?
You might be, if you are dedicating more time than you think. You cannot know for sure unless you start track your time how much time you spare for each client...
Whether running a law office or an advertising agency, you have to know how much time it takes to finish the job.
However, when calculating that time you can't simply rely on your memory to reconstruct the different stages of the project.
You most likely put in extra hours for this job. What did you get as a reward of your efforts unless you track your time?
The following scenario without a pay:
Health issues have increased
Working excessive hours is detrimental to our physical and mental well-being. Increased backaches because of poor seating habits, insomnia as a result of a non-stop working mind, hair loss as a result of business crises...And remember that you did all this for free!
Productivity has dropped
Due to overtime, you have almost no personal time. Without a decent night's sleep and interests, it's unlikely that you'll be effective at work. Have you ever had a non-business activity that allowed you to be skilled and innovative at work? If not, ask yourself how much time you have outside of work.
Absenteeism is on the rise
Excessive overtime might result in absence due to health problems, exhaustion, or people simply having to rest. Absences are frequently covered by substitute personnel, who typically work extra too, contributing to the problem. Frequent overtime can create psychological issues, which can reveal itself as low productivity, absenteeism, and turnover.
You want your efforts to be recorded even more now, don't you?
Also, this calculation might easily lead to errors, damaging the client's trust. More importantly, you might be leaving out billable hours and thus failing to calculate your actual cost. I might be boasting to myself about designing a home page in, say, 50 hours, but it might be taking up much more time than I imagine.
According to Frederick Winslow Taylor (The Father of Scientific Management), the time that employees spent on working efficiently was determined by the previous experiences. And of course by the nature of the job.
Face the facts and track your time
Do we believe that everyone can deliver the same work simultaneously and in the same way?
It will not be possible for the managers to control every job of each employee individually with their pocket watches.
Employees may also be under pressure. It would be more reasonable to establish or purchase a system for consistency and time calculation mathematics to save time.
Time tracking is the solution
In order to track your time, the time-keeping software BeforeSunset could be a game-changer for you here. As it helps you visualize how much time goes to which task while distinguishing between billable and non-billable hours, as well as different clients.
Time tracking software gives you the chance to filter all entries for a specific client. Thereby helping you calculate your internal budget based on the hours logged in by your employees. You can see how much budget you have allocated to a specific client, and how much of that has actually been spent.
Helpful Reports
At the end of the billing period, you can craft weekly, monthly or quarterly reports to your clients. You can clearly indicate how much time you've dedicated to which component of the project. Naturally, this transparency of information and attention to detail will have a favorable impact on mutual confidence.
Furthermore, the software visualizes your non-billable hours and their cost to the company. This is very beneficial for freelancers, but also managers.
In the latter case, your staff might be dedicating a large portion of their time to non-billable jobs. That time could be better spent on delivering project objectives and providing work billable to clients.
BeforeSunset can thus help you understand whether too much time is spent on administrative, red tape, or unproductive tasks. So that you may sit down with teammates to better organize their day.
Time trackers also help you filter entries per team members. You can get a better idea about how much time your employees need to get things done. And make a comparison of their performances. The aim here is not to lay bare anyone's shortcomings of course. However, such a comparison can pinpoint individuals who might need your support or motivation to thrive.
Alternatively, you might realize that you need to recruit another team member to elevate overall performance.
The bottom line is obvious: You must have a clear idea of where your time is spent to get compensated for your hard work.
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