Time tracking is one of the best ways to boost your productivity and improve it across the board. It’s a great way to make sure you are getting the most out of your work hours and know where you could stand to improve. After all, what good is knowing how many hours you’ve worked if you don’t also know how productive those hours were? Here are eight key ways time tracking can help you be more productive at work.
1. Time Tracking Helps to Manage Focus
How attentive we are to the work we do is affected throughout the day by highs and lows in energy and focus. Time tracking helps us to be more aware of when we are most focused during the workday so that we can appropriately schedule tasks for times when we are the most attentive.
In short - Scheduling work according to when your focus is at its peak improves overall productivity.
2.Time Tracking Helps to Identify Inappropriate Uses Of Your Time
When tracking each hour of the workday, it is easier to identify tasks that are an inappropriate use of your time. For example, if you spend half of your day making copies and opening mail when these are tasks that you can hand off to an office temp or secretary, these tasks are a drain on your time and keep you from more time-worthy jobs.
In Short: Identifying time-draining activities that can be delegated to others can help to free up productive time in your workday - time that you are better spending on more meaningful tasks.
3. Time Tracking Helps Establish Healthier Working Patterns
Time tracking forces you to pay attention to the number of hours you have worked during the week and the hours during which you are working. Analyzing your work hours this way highlights overworking, which can cause health concerns related to stress. Breaking down work hours this way also highlights your work schedule and allows you to identify unhealthy working schedules. For example, are you working sixteen-hour days, three days a week, when it would be more beneficial for you to work a more traditional workweek?
In Short: Time tracking helps highlight unhealthy work schedules!
4. Time Tracking Helps to Ensure You Take Breaks
Time tracking is not just beneficial for identifying unhealthy work schedules; it is also helpful for building healthy habits into your work schedule. Far too many of us sit at our desks for hours on end without so much as standing up to stretch these days! Using a time tracking tool allows you to build breaks into your daily schedule to remind yourself to stand up for ten minutes of every hour!
In Short: Time tracking enforces healthy break times during the workday to reduce sedentary habits.
5. Time Tracking Helps to Identify Unproductive Work Patterns
Time tracking helps identify productive work patterns, but it is equally helpful in identifying unproductive work patterns. Looking at your schedule now and looking at your schedule after implementing time tracking, do you notice where you waste time when comparing the two work schedules? For example, have you been spending hours checking email at work rather than being productive?
Identifying unproductive habits allows you to shorten days where you find yourself working overtime, and it increases your overall productivity.
In Short: Time tracking helps to identify the time that you are wasting at work, and what is wasting that time!
6. Time Tracking Allows For Better Time Management
When you can determine your average labor time for specific tasks, you can better manage those tasks and optimize your workday. For example, if you are a dressmaker and it takes one hour to custom fit a dress, you can now use that estimate to set up future appointments for dress fittings. Timing jobs like this is a much more accurate method of scheduling the day, so it incorporates so much less “downtime” between dress fittings and does not lead to a backup in appointments which may make customers angry.
In Short: Time tracking allows for better time management.
7. Time Tracking Allows You To Prioritize Tasks
Time tracking also allows you to prioritize daily tasks better. So, time tracking can identify how long it takes to complete a specific task without interruption. With that timeline in mind, you can better arrange your daily schedule and complete tasks uninterrupted. Uninterrupted work means fewer errors which is a benefit to your business! For example, if weekly invoices take three hours, it is best to schedule a block of three hours for the job rather than working for an hour and a half before lunch and an hour and a half after lunch. If you were to split the job in two this way, you are more likely to miss an invoice, double send an invoice, or get confused.
In Short: Time tracking allows for uninterrupted tasks and fewer errors.
8. Time Tracking Helps You Identify Profitability
When you better manage your time with time tracking tools, you can more accurately identify how long it takes to complete specific tasks. For example, if you make and sell tacos, time tracking can help you determine how long it takes you to make a single taco. Then, with this information, you can set price points on your products to ensure that you make a comfortable profit on each taco you sell.
So, if it takes you one hour to make one taco and you charge $10 per taco, your profit margin after supplies and overhead is going to be pitiful. In this instance, you would want to reassess your business – are you selling your tacos for too little? Or are you taking too long to make your tacos? From here, you can determine what your next step should be to make your business more profitable.
In Short: Better time management means more accurate profit margins.
Be more productive with Rize
Time tracking with Rize is a great way to improve workplace productivity by identifying less optimal work patterns and building healthier work habits. With this better understanding of workplace habits learned from time tracking, you can become more efficient, have healthier habits, and stop wasting time.
