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I’ve driven myself batty over the past year in particular being annoyed with myself about time slipping through my fingers. I’ve realised:
1) I have no concept of time anymore – that’s the passing of it, how long things take etc
2) I sometimes fanny away too much time social networking for work hanging out with my virtual buddies
3) I don’t always apportion the right energy in the right places – see an old post of mine about the 80:20 principle.
I was reading something recently about how we should spend a week itemising what we do to get a sense of how we are using our time. I did a mini version of this when my two and a half year old daughter insisted on staying up past her bedtime. I explained the minutiae of my day and she was practically begging for her bed!
As I pretty much work solo, I realise I have to be accountable to myself and give myself a boot up the bum and you may have found yourself in the same position and wonder where to start.
I’m currently trying out Freckle, which is basically a web based software that helps you manage your time, letting you drill down in the nitty gritty to in essence let you know not only where you’re p*ssing your time away, but also where your energies are needed. Put in a project, add some tags to it, put in the amount of time spent, or even time yourself. I gave myself 40 minutes to do something – it actually took me an hour and fifteen. I also got to see that post editing and writing took up a significant portion of my day. Over time, you’ll not only be able to see the immediacy of your time, but also what your work looks like over a period of time. You may discover that you spend a third of your time on Twitter or something (I don’t just for clarification!).
Mark things as billable and unbillable, plus you can invite clients/co-workers to collaborate and contribute their parts to the project. Pull reports, analyse to your hearts content, and of course use it to make changes and get the most of your work and time. You’ll also be able to tell if you’re overgiving in your time with clients.
It’s really simple to use so you’re not going to get brainache wondering how to use convuluted features that you probably don’t need anyway. Its default setting for time increments is 15 minutes but you can change it to whatever suits. It’s aesthetically pleasing with graphs (I’m amazed how many of us love a graph), and I’m already enjoying it.
There’s a 30 day trial (don’t sign up for personal, sign up for anything from the solo account ($12 a month) upwards. I’m going to go the extra mile and make a note of how much time I’m spending on ‘things that are a pain in the bum’, like housework, so I can really harness my time, and I’ll also be budgeting myself timewise to force me to work smarter and not be distracted. Give it a go! On that note, I must go as my time is up!
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