Super Productivity offers a variety of optional features to support you to become better at this. A pomdoro timer helps you to focus if needed. A break reminder, tells you when to step away and an anti procrastination page helps to waste less of your time when it is the hardest to do so. Join 25 million people and teams that organize, plan, and collaborate on tasks and projects with Todoist. 'The best to-do list' by The Verge. There are all kinds of apps and software tools for keeping track of tasks. If you like using Excel, we have many different to do list templates for you to try. If you prefer the tried and true pen and paper method of listing your to-dos, we have some new printable to-do lists for you to download and print for free. Use the To-do list in your tracking time app, of course. Organize your main projects. Such as Work and Personal, then start listing tasks. You don’t have to do this in advance. Do it while at it. Let’s say I have my work list and I am writing an article about the to-do list (sorry for the inception-like example).
Part I: Types Of Time Tracking Methods
1.1 The paper method
For this time tracking method, all you need is a pen, paper, and your phone (or a stopwatch).
You use the phone or stopwatch to measure the time it takes you to finish an activity and then simply write down your time results on the paper.
Pros
- This method is easy to use anywhere.
Cons
- If you want to send someone a report of the time you’ve spent on a project, you’ll have to scan the report or take a clear picture of it, and this can be time consuming.
- You can lose or damage the paper, in which case you are left without the report completely.
1.2 The honor system
The honor system of time tracking relies on an employee’s rule of thumb estimate. You report the time you think you’ve spent on a project to your project manager, and they create a rough estimate of the amount you should be paid based on the hours you’ve worked and your hourly rates.
![Onenote todo list with time tracking Onenote todo list with time tracking](https://zappy.zapier.com/74BD7E46-59DC-4F65-B47C-523A65411C5A.png)
- This time tracking method is the easiest.
Cons
- Inaccuracy. You may underestimate or overestimate the time you’ve spent working, so your compensation may be less or more than what you actually earned.
- If you wish to provide a client or a project manager with detailed reports on the assignments you completed and the time that went into them, you can’t because you don’t have one.
1.3 The spreadsheet method
In the spreadsheet method, you use a spreadsheet template to manually add the time when you started working on a project and the time when you finished the project. Pixa 1 1 10 download free.
Spreadsheet templates in Excel are a popular choice, and the best practice is to add the following columns: Activity, Client, Start Time, End Time and Total Hours Worked.
Pros
- You can easily send reports to clients or the project manager
- It’s more accurate than the honor system method.
Cons
- Time consuming, as you have to manually type in the data for your every move during work hours.
1.4 Time tracking software method
With time tracking software, you use an app to record your time automatically.
The main appeal of time tracking software is its accuracy as you’ll know how much time you’ve spent on an activity down to a second.
However, some employees may find time tracking software to be an invasion on their privacy. That really depends on the type of time tracking software you use. Some tool take screenshots of employee's desktop and some don't.
Still, it's important to highlight main benefits of tracking time:
- The project manager will know how team members have spent their working hours
- The team members will always have proof they have actively worked on their assignments, and they’ll be paid accordingly
There are several types of methods and types of time tracking software:
- Automatic time tracking software
- Manual time tracking software
- Part of a larger project management solution
1.4.1 Automatic time tracking software
This method is the quickest, as it is the only one that doesn’t need your participation at all: automatic time tracking software automatically records the time you spend on any computer activity.
But, the main issue with this effortless method is that, although it is accurate in the amount of time you spend on a computer activity, it doesn’t show whether that activity was work-related or not.
For example, the app indicates you’ve spent 20 minutes on Facebook. But, it doesn’t indicate why you’ve spent 20 minutes on Facebook. Were you promoting your company’s services, or were you idly browsing your feed?
Although your automatic time tracking software report will show all your computer activities and the time you’ve spent on them, it cannot be used as a proof to the client that you’ve been working on your assignment, because it shows what you were doing, but not why you were doing it.
1.4.2 Manual time tracking software
Time Tracking System
With manual time tracking software, all you have to do is start the timer, indicate the type of assignment or the name of the activity, work on it, and stop the timer once you’re finished.
Unlike automatic software, manual time tracking software allows you to indicate why you’ve spend those 20 minutes on Facebook, or other computer activities.
This makes manual time tracking software especially useful when it’s time to send a detailed, accurate report to your client, which indicates that even though you've spent 20 minutes on Facebook, you’ve done actual work.
1.4.3 Time tracking as a part of larger project management solution
This method of time tracking involves a more sophisticated approach to typical time tracking software as you also have full access to tasks, files, collaboration, and other things typical to project management software.
These additional features can help create better estimates, capture all billable hours, create detailed reports, track attendances, set budget limits, allocate resources or time to projects quickly, and almost anything you need to make the project management process smooth and easy. You can track time, collaborate, and manage projects from the same place.
The problem with this integrated type of software is that:
- You may not like the project management or the time tracking aspect
- It’s more difficult to use
- While good at each thing (jack of all trades), the software isn’t as good as a dedicated, standalone project management or time tracking tool
Feature List
- Projects, Tasks, Events Organize and categorize your work
- Document Storage Upload and attach files to tasks and projects
- Shared Calendar Overview of your team events in one calendar
- Selective Sharing Permissions Share with specific team members, choose who can modify or complete tasks
- Time Tracking Track time spent on tasks, generate spent time reports
- Mobile Apps Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android
To Do List With Time Tracking
- Email Tasks Create tasks by sending email to Hitask account
- Notifications Email and mobile push notifications. Multiple reminders per task
- Assignments Assign tasks to your team mates, get notified when task is updated or completed
- Repeating Tasks Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly repeating events
- Reports Progress and spent time reporting
- Team Chat Exchange messages without leaving your workspace
- Issue Tracking Numbers Reference items by unique number, used in issue tracking
- Sub-tasks and Hierarchy Hierarchical nested task lists
- Task Comments Add comments to tasks, get notified when comment is added
Tracking To Do List Excel
- Color Tagging Tag your tasks and projects with colors
- Tags Categorize items by contexts
- Deadlines and Due Dates Get notified about missed deadlines
- Multi - Lingual Support for Spanish, French, Portugese, Russian, Chinese and many more…
- Outlook Integration Synchronize with Outlook calendar
- Google Calendar Integration Google Calendar and Tasks synchronization
- Data Export Export to Excel and other data format for external processing