With technology, almost everything is within a touch of a finger. People continue to innovate so they can offer new applications to suit everyone’s needs. Apart from the millenials who continue to enjoy the perks of technological innovation, business owners, project managers and employers are rising to the demands of the benefits they can get from a simple to elaborate software design that can help them with their everyday tasks. A huge example of a perfect task-helper for employers and managers is the time tracking tool. There are a lot of time tracking tools that are now made available to the market, from free to paid, that is tailored to the needs of every employer.
Why Time Management Is Important
Time is the most crucial aspect of any business employers, they lose time, they lost money – it’s as simple as that. But according to an article entitled “8 mistakes that result in not having enough time”, doing things that can result in losing precious time can result to a more serious negative effect. Manage it wrongly and you will face a lot of consequences. Yes, other than money. You have a major advantage, though, if you only know how to manage your time. Time management won’t just make you simply be able to do your tasks efficiently and effectively, it can also make you accomplish a lot of things and still have time for other important factors in your life such as family and friends. For in tracking time, you can check out and balance what are being allotted for business, for pleasure and of course, for family.
What Are the Simplest Steps to Manage Time?
Basically how to we efficiently manage our time? Since we are now living in a world where everything has been developed to suit our needs, there are a lot of tools to help us manage our time. But first how do we manage our time? The best way is by tracking it. Tracking time is the key in making sure that all the time spent is precious and productive. A simple time tracking tool is enough for us to check on our time, what are the time spent doing a certain task and how can we improve it so we can have more time allotted for more important stuff. If you’re an old school, paper and pencil are your essential tools. Simply jot down the time every time you start a new task and when you finished it, the duration and importance of the task carried on. The only down side of the pen and paper method is a journal should always be handy and has the tendency to get lost.
Different Types of Time Tracking Tool: Simple Time Tracking VS Advanced Time Tracking
There are different types of time tracking tool that is essential for your need, classified from the simplest and most recommended to fit your need to the most elaborate design.
- Simple time tracking tool is a must if you only want to monitor and check on the duration of your daily task. It is the most basic tracking tool, designed from the concept of the traditional paper and pencil. It is easier to use and most recommended for people with the basic chores to monitor their task, check on the duration of their work and to manage time at home or in the office. It is mostly recommended for personal use to attain a productive day. Apart from its user-friendly designs, it is the easiest to use. Examples of these are Hours, ATracker, Eternity Time and Timesheet.
- Advanced time tracking tool is a more elaborate in design, a deep list of integration and the most recommended in managing your own time and the time of other people. It is mostly recommended for business employers and project managers so they can virtually assign tasks to their team and monitor the time spent of every person in their circle. It also has a complicated design suited for people who manage a team or freelancers that earn money through time to make sure that every time spent is accounted for. Examples are, Toggl, Paymo, TimeCamp, Time Doctor, and Journyx.
Why Using a Time Tracker Tool Is Convenient and More Efficient?
Industry wise, time is really of the essence, failure to appreciate time would cost money and that is the pet peeve of every industry, losing money when you can avoid lost. But when time is saved, you can earn more money. Now, what are the ways that can help us save time to earn more? In order to be productive, it is best to make sure that every person in a group or every person in the production floor to function in accordance to what is expected from them. Every time spent is considered crucial, one needs to save time if he can help it to venture or allocate it to a more productive situation. But with the use of a time tracking tool, you will be able to monitor everything that has been going on that needs tending. Everything will become clear to you with regards to the things wherein you need to allocate more time. You’ll also find out about the tasks that you need to finish on a given deadline.
A time tracking tool presents them to you in a silver platter whenever, wherever you are, in your most convenient time. If you are a project manager and your team needs convincing on why it is essential to track time, list them the reasons as to why. The 15 reasons why you should be tracking time is an effective way on how to inculcate to your team the efficiency of tracking time and the convenience of using a time tracker tool in doing so. Apart from being convenient, it is also reviewed that saving time can make more money.
How to Choose the Best Time Tracking Tool for you?
You have to be precise on what exactly do you need for your project or business. Don’t get time tracking tool because the reviews for that certain brand is the best or most recommended, go for the software or application that will suit your needs and comfortable to use (some time tracking software have free trials). If you are planning to have a very basic design structure that just track your time so your day can be more productive, it is better to opt for a simple time tracking tool. Something that is a joy to use and to avoid wasting time in figuring out the software or app because of its complicated deep-set drop down menus and list of highly integrated menu that you will never ever use and all that charades.
Sometimes, your cellphone or laptops already have built-in simple time tracking tool, the calendar app, is a perfect way to store events and tasks and managing chores. It is very easy to use and manage. Some has even alarm setting to make sure that you are right in track with your schedule. Most of the time, simple tracking tool is offered free in the market so you can check some right out and see what works for you best. Some even considering still using pen and paper method, where they store all their precious time in a journal and track their daily activities and decide whether their day has been productive or not.
But if you are planning to set up a medium to large scale business (such as managing a team, employees or workforce) or already managing one, you might want to check out a time tracking tool with a more elaborate design structure or as mentioned earlier, the advanced tracking time tool. Equipped with tracking the time of each member, and virtually making sure that tasks are met accordingly and deadlines are set and followed.
Advanced time tracking tool is also the choice of freelancers who considered their time as their bread and butter for majority of them is being paid hourly. The moment they log in to their respective accounts, a time tracking tool begins to track their time and how productive they have been during the hours that they are logged in to their server. So if you are a freelancer planning to work and take job orders that pay hourly, choose a definitive time tracking tool that not only track your time, but can serve as a tool to remind you on other job orders that you have and has the option to be your virtual assistant, your time companion.
Whichever way you want to manage your time, truly time tracking tools have made life easier and make saving time seems like an easy task in the most convenient way.
For a concise and definitive selection of different time tracking software that caters to your needs, you can visit CrowdReviews.com. It has a list of time tracking tool reviews, categorized to make it easier to check out and filter what time tracking tools you need best. It also offers other software-related articles that you can check.
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