Why time tracking is so important for scaling your business
Effective time management in business is the difference between becoming stagnant and scaling. Time tracking helps you to understand how you currently spend your working days, so you know where to best focus your energy. This blog post gives you an insight into how tracking your time helps to scale your operations effectively and explains how to get started.
Key benefits of tracking time as a business owner
Tracking your time gives you the knowledge to make better decisions and will become your new best friend. Instead of wondering where the week went, you can see exactly how long each task takes – and you can also see which areas of your business are being neglected.
At Virtually Priceless, we use time tracking in our daily business, not only ensuring we accurately record time spent supporting our clients but also logging any time spent on internal activities.
When you start time tracking, you will see the following benefits:
- Improved project management and productivity
- Informed financial management
- Data-driven decisions
- Better work/life balance
- More streamlined workflows
- Higher profitability opportunity
As a business owner, you’re likely doing work within your day-to-day that doesn’t need to be done by you. How many times do you say to yourself you’ll keep doing that 5-minute task yourself because it’s quicker?
Well, when you repeat that 5-minute task 100 times, you’ve lost a full day to that menial task. Instead, you could have spent 30 minutes training someone else to do it for you.
When you remove any tasks that don’t focus on growing your business and delegate to a VA or another team member, you have more time for scaling operations and winning more clients.
How a business can improve time management by logging time
Tracking your time might sound like a tedious task, but the short-term effort will pay off tenfold in the future. You should log everything you do, even if it’s a ‘small’ task that takes you 10 minutes… because those small tasks add up over time.
For the best results, include the type of work you were doing, which part of the business it relates to, and how long it took you. Don’t forget about the hidden time costs. For example, if you have a meeting, log the prep and travel time, too. The more granular detail you go into, the better.
You may need to go back to complete entries retrospectively to gather a realistic insight into your working weeks. But if you can, it’s a great way to see where the time in your day goes and increase the amount of time you have for growing the business.
Depending on the way you prefer to work, we have a few different approaches you can take to start tracking your time as a business owner…
1. Log everything in your digital calendar
You can use your calendar to log everything you actually do across the week, adding accurate time blocks and descriptions. Common digital systems include Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, and iCal – they all work well for this.
Adding a colour-coded system to your calendar allows you to see quickly what you’re doing. For example, you might have blue for internal meetings, yellow for admin, and green for business development or marketing-related activities. When you use this system, a glance at your calendar shows you’re spending more time on one than others.
2. Go old school with a pen and paper record
Not everyone enjoys using a digital diary. If that’s you, instead write down every task you do in your notebook or paper diary. For each task, jot down a description and the time spent. This can be a great option for people who always have a trusty notepad on their desk or in their bags when out and about.
It may be harder to summarise the data afterwards with it being on paper, but you can still introduce the colour-coded system with highlighters or different coloured pens.
3. Use time-tracking software
One of the most efficient ways to start recording your time is to use time-tracking software. The Virtually Priceless team uses a paid-for version of Minutedock, but there are tools such as Toggl and Clockify that are available for free.
Using dedicated time-tracking software makes compiling the data afterwards super straightforward. You can create categories for different tasks and write short descriptions in each time log, then afterwards you get a detailed, searchable report. Plus, these systems have built-in colour coding and add up the time records for you!
Virtually Priceless: Giving business owners more time for growth
When you track your time, you can understand the true value of your time and improve business productivity. Most people find that much of their day is being frittered away on tasks somebody else in the business should be doing, and this comes with cost implications.
So if you need help using your time more wisely, this is the perfect time to partner with a trusted VA. With Virtually Priceless, you can focus on developing your business with the knowledge your day-to-day operations are being handled. Get in touch to discuss your needs or take the quiz to see what level of support you need.