– and 3 good reasons why you should start tracking your time
Time is money and as an independent consultant, it’s a saying that can be taken literally. Many customers will pay you on an hourly basis, regardless of whether you work on-site or remotely, so you’ll probably need to track and document how many hours you’ve worked on their project.
Perhaps you think that time tracking and the administrative procedures that it entails are just something you have to do to be able to hand in a time sheet and document your working hours when billing your customer. But actually, there is real value to achieve from time tracking, also for yourself and your business which you should not miss out on.
Download time sheet templates in Excel
1. Timesheets provide valuable insights
When you register your time week after week, you know how much time you spend on different types of tasks and individual projects. If you sometimes find it difficult to write an offer because you do not know how long it would take to finalise, then checking your timesheets from similar former projects can help you estimate how much time it will take. In this way, you can improve your ability to align expectations with customers and give realistic fixed price offers where you don’t end up cheating yourself.
2. Tracking your time helps you plan ahead
Although time tracking is a retrospective discipline, you can easily utilize it for planning ahead. Your timesheet shows you what you’ve already finalised and makes it easier for you to prioritise which tasks that should now be at the top of your to-do list. Tracking your time can also make you more aware of which projects and tasks you are actually spending most of your time on and can help you prioritise what kind of jobs you take on in the future. This will help you create the professional profile that you are aiming for or to spend more time on tasks that you are truly passionate about.
3. Time registration makes your work visible
If you work with IT, it can be hard for others – including your customers – to understand what you are actually spending your time on. By registering in specific categories, you will be able to document how you spend your working hours and thereby make it easier for the customer to see the value you bring.
It goes without saying that time tracking is also a good tool for yourself to see how much you are actually working. We therefore strongly recommend that you also register the hours you use in your own company too, meaning the hours you don’t invoice to customers but where you are working on developing your own business, writing offers, marketing yourself, administrative tasks, develop your skills, etc.
In other words, time tracking is more than an absolute duty for the sake of customers. A time sheet template is a great tool, and as a self-employed, you should not cheat yourself for the structure, insight, and optimization that filling in time sheets on a regular basis can give you.
We created different timesheet templates, some that are ideal for internal use, some that are suitable as an appendix when invoicing customers. Just take a look at the different timesheet templates and select the version that suits you best and customize it to create your own standard time sheet template.
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