How To Keep A Time Log Advice For Entrepreneurs

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Advice For Entrepreneurs On How To Create A Simple, But Effective, Time Log

Subjects > Business > Time Management

December 16, 2004 By [Garnet R. Chaney]

If you look into it, you'll find that there are many different softwares on the market that help the small business owner to track their time. Some of these programs are designed to run on PDA's, others run on desktop systems, some are web based applications, and some include components for all of these platforms. What should you choose?

I still have not found the perfect time management and tracking program. For me, here are some of the things I would like:

• I want it always with me, and easily accessible
• It probably needs to run on my PDA
• I want to easily interrupt my current project to put some time into something else, like a phone call from a second client while I am working on something for a different client.
• I want to have a hierarchy of tasks and subtasks, and have time tracking for a subtask contribute time to it's super-tasks
• I want to track billable vs. non-billable time.

I have a few other requirements, I'll add them later. I'm writing this as I am on vacation, and I've decided to give myself a break from the time tracking I was using before my vacation.

I tried several different PDA time sheet programs, but wasn't too thrilled with most of them.

So what time tracking system did I settle on?

A Pocket Excel spreadsheet running on my Pocket PC HX4700 .

Here are the columns I track:

• Date
• Client (sometimes just myself, or a major project name)
• Start Time
• End Time
• Tally columns:
  • Billable time - This is time I can actually bill to a client.
  • Nonbillable time - Time I spend on my business on miscellaneous activities
  • Time spent developing new projects - Like the few hours I've spent on creating my own custom time tracking PDA based app
  • Time spent writing wiki articles
  • Time spent on church activities
  • Personal Time
  • Sleep - Yes, I think entrepreneurs should track this, so that they are sure to manage their health properly. I take naps a lot, so tracking this time helps me make sure I'm getting a proper total amount of sleep. See [My Sleep Center] for more information about sleep, and improving rest.
• Description

The description field sometimes includes things like my mileage, and which vehicle I drove for a particular task. At some point, I need to make those mileage numbers live in their own column. Also being able to track and total business expenses might be a good reason to add some more columns.

What kinds of things do I track:

• Time spent in phone calls
• Time spent in updating my financial spreadsheets
• Time spent in tracking and analyzing my web traffic
• Time spent writing wiki articles like this one

Other articles about Time Management :

• Why Should The Self Employed Keep A Detailed Timesheet ?
• Using A Wiki To Maintain Time Logs And Time Sheets

Check out [Facts About Trees]

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