Whether you’re an office worker or freelancer who works from home, if you struggle with time keeping, these online tools can help you keep track of your billable work.
Keeping track of how much time you’ve put into a project can be vital for freelancers. And for those working from home, being able to not only manage your diary, but show your manager or client that you’ve been productive is important.
These online tools, websites and apps can all help you better plan your day…
Use a diary
We’re blessed with an array of diary tools on our computers, laptops and mobile phones. But often they can be disjointed, contain pointless information and are generally ignored.
It’s therefore worth a few minutes of your day to find a diary app that suits you and make sure all your relevant work email accounts are signed into it, that it works over various platforms and that you actually update it.
Once you get into the habit of using it, you’ll be able to better manage your time.
Try this…Google Calendar. This app covers everything and can even add diary entries automatically for flights, concerts and reservations.
Make a plan
Once your diary is filled with meetings, calls and deadline, you’ve got to start making a plan of how to tackle them all. A traditional to-do list is fine, but as we know over the course of a week things can be added, priorities change and the list starts to become a jumbled mess.
Instead, use an online planner to create a dynamic and changeable to-do list that moves with you.
Try this…Week Plan. It’s not free but it’s one of the best allowing you to colour code your week so you can see what needs doing at a glance.
Track your time
Now the work is underway, it’s important to know how much time you’re dedicating to each project – especially if you have to bill clients for it.
Noting down or ‘guestimating’ might be fine for some, but using software for this task can help you provide them with detailed break downs of not just how much time you’ve spent but when.
Try this…TimeCamp. A great way to organise and budget your projects, or Canva which has an extensive library of planner templates.
Share your work
Project management is a big part of managing your time. It’s not always about just doing the work yourself, but finding other people to do it and monitoring their progress.
While there are a number of document sharing sites from DropBox to Google Drive, it’s important to have one that allows you to see who is doing what and how far they’ve progressed.
Try this…MeisterTask allows you to set up teams for specific projects, assign tasks and export time tracking data for each team.
Posted by The Secret Businessman