When you’re on a tight deadline, every second counts, and the quality of your work suffers if you don’t have an effective means of tracking how you spend your time throughout the day.
With project management software that tracks your time, you can accurately allocate more of your workday to the most important tasks, and less to the chores that eat up unnecessary hours—all while still receiving accurate paychecks. Want to learn more about how time tracking project management software can help boost your productivity? Read on!
What Is Time Tracking
It’s important to track time spent on projects, and equally important to know how much time you can spend on any given project. Why? There are two main reasons: First, it keeps your team organized by ensuring everyone is working on tasks that fit their availability, skill set, and interest level.
Second, it allows you to accurately forecast when a project will be completed. If you don’t have all your resources assigned correctly, or if there are too many hours allocated to one person or one task, you won’t be able to predict with confidence when a project will finish. If you don’t have an accurate completion date for a client, they might not be able to plan around your schedule—or worse yet, they might hire someone else!
Why Should I Track My Work Hours
I have been a project manager for over 15 years, but only recently did I start to track my hours and realized it was one of my best business decisions. Here are 5 reasons why you should consider time tracking project management software if you’re in charge of your company’s projects.
If you don’t yet have time tracking project management software, here are three questions that will help you decide if it would be beneficial to invest in such a tool. 1. It Helps You Determine Where Your Time Is Going: The first step is to determine where your time is going, so you can plan out how much time you want or need to spend on each project and then manage accordingly.
The old adage time is money has never been more true than when managing your own work hours.
Does Time Tracking Count Only Desk Work Or All Working Hours
There are plenty of articles about how to save time or manage your time but few address how to most effectively track it.
If you’re looking for a productivity and efficiency boost, you might want to incorporate a time tracking system in your daily routine. Here’s why For starters, time tracking is an effective way to keep tabs on your working hours.
It can help you see where all your hours go each day and identify areas where you could be more productive. For example, if you notice that each day between noon and 1pm is particularly unproductive because that’s when you typically eat lunch (or check Facebook), then maybe there’s a better solution than eating at your desk—like taking an hour-long walk around the block instead!
How Can I Use My Data Wisely For Better Decision Making
Let’s say that you’re in charge of a few social media accounts, but you want to make sure all your content is on point. Maybe you have an online store that needs some tweaking or customer service complaints that need responding to in a timely manner.
You can use time tracking software to get a better idea of how your employees spend their day and what they work on when they’re not with customers, so that you can assign more responsibilities and tailor your training to each individual employee's strengths.
This kind of data is invaluable for making smart decisions about your business. For example, if you notice one salesperson spends most of his time answering emails from potential clients instead of working on cold calls, then it might be worth delegating cold calling to another team member who has proven he excels at it.
If you see someone spends too much time looking at funny cat videos during lunch break instead of doing actual work, then maybe it’s best if he goes back to being a full-time receptionist!
Employee Motivation and Productivity Increase When They Know Their Manager Is Monitoring Their Performance Through Time Tracking Data
Research shows that a surprising number of employees are actually unmotivated in their work, even though they’re ostensibly employed for their passion for what they do. However, companies across multiple industries have reported increases in employee motivation and productivity when managers actively use time tracking project management software to monitor how much time their employees spend on certain tasks as well as which tasks they spend more or less time on than others.
This can help managers identify areas where their employees need additional training or direction, and it can also help them see if there are any gaps in their workloads that need to be filled with additional team members. -Employee accountability is higher when managers know exactly how long each task takes: It may seem like common sense, but many businesses don’t require employees to track their own time using time tracking project management software. In fact, some businesses still use an honor system to determine how long tasks take and whether those tasks were completed properly.
Employees Are Happier When They Get To See Themselves As Key Contributors Of Team Success
Even if you have a team of developers, writers, and designers under your wing, don’t forget to make your employees feel like they are an important part of that team. It’s often said that humans are social creatures who thrive off working together towards a common goal. How can your employees help you reach your business goals?
Projects Will Never End If They Are Not Managed And Researched
Without time tracking, projects can easily overrun their budgets and timelines. If you are aware of how much time you have spent on specific tasks, then you can make informed decisions about whether to continue with those tasks or cut them out.
With project management software that has time tracking features, you will always know what stage a project is at in its development cycle.
This means you will be able to plan your future projects more effectively by learning from past mistakes.
Additionally, if a project runs over budget or takes longer than expected, you can pull up your data and see where things went wrong so that they do not happen again. A good way to prevent these problems is to create a schedule for each task in your project plan so that you can monitor it throughout the duration of your work.