The Case for Keeping Track of Your Time: Why It’s Necessary

We are all running on limited time, no matter who you are. From work to school to how much time we watch TV and what time we go to bed and wake up, it’s all about time.

While working and carrying out our professional duties, we have to always punch in and out with a time clock; no matter what it is, we punch the clock. In business, you have to keep track of how your employees, freelance workers and partners are using time in the workplace.

All this time monitoring can be exhausting. Fortunately, there is a newer, more effective way of tracking time for all your employees, clients and partners. With a time tracking tool, it’s possible to easily track time no matter where you are in the world and what time zone workers are in.

Some time tracking tools can even capture automatic screenshots of how you and your team are spending time, which means you don’t have to keep checking and punching the clock again.

Should You Use Time Tracking Tools?

Time tracking software have revolutionized workforce management and productivity. They can help both you and your team keep track of your daily working hours, vacation time, time off with pay, and more. All of this is easily possible from the software’s dashboard.

If someone needs to switch hours or take a day off, they can also easily indicate it from the time tracking tool’s dashboard. And having up to date screenshots of your day to day business operations is key to maintaining efficiency in the workplace.

But there are some subtle disadvantages of using time tracking software to keep track of time. For example, it’s easy to fall into the trap of excessive workforce monitoring. There is also the possibility of time manipulation if entries are made manually. Moreover, there can be reliability issues because not all time-tracking tools are perfect.

With that being said, however, if you are aware of the potential pitfalls of time tracking and management software, you can easily mitigate them and make the tools important resources in your business.

Whichever way you choose to keep track of your time, the benefits of doing so are many.

Benefits of Good Time Tracking and Management

Good time tracking and management improves your efficiency overall, and helps build trust regarding your reliability and effectiveness at work. It helps move projects along more smoothly, and can help workers make better and more valuable use of their time. You are also able to work more structurally and free up time to focus on other important things in your business.

Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx accounting software, identifies other benefits of proper time tracking and management that are worth highlighting:

1. Ability to properly track project costs.

When you know how much time projects take to complete successfully, Finch says, you can more accurately predict the cost of future projects. This, in turn, helps reduce the risk of you and your business going over budget or losing money on a project.

2. Better resource allocation.

An often-overlooked benefit of proper time and project tracking is better resource allocation, adds Finch. For example, he says, a company may have a customer that seemingly hogs resources, ties up the best personnel and generally makes a pest of themselves. With proper time tracking, you can easily identify such a person and take the appropriate action.

3. Streamline payroll and billing operations.

Rather than manually processing timesheets, the right time tracking software can automate the whole process, says Finch. This can be a significant savings as the payroll personnel don’t have to waste valuable time running down mistakes or reminding employees to submit their timesheets.

Conclusion

As you can tell, honing your time tracking and management skills is an essential part of being a professional no matter which field of specialty you operate. Serious business owners, entrepreneurs and creative professionals should not take this lightly.

Remember, time is a limited resource just like other resources in the workplace. If you manage your time properly, you will increase your chances of success overall.