While office employees working in a traditional work environment often spend their days staring at the clock and counting down the minutes until the work day is done, freelancers experience quite the opposite. Instead of wishing time would pass sooner, freelancers often find themselves so overwhelmed with attempting to meet important deadlines and utilize their time as efficiently as possible that they hardly ever check the time and end up not knowing what happened with their day. For freelance employees, time wasted is money wasted.
Opting to make use of time tracking software such as Hubstaff can promote a more productive day. This type of software provides effective time tracking functions, to-do lists, task reminders, notifications, and other great functions that can encourage freelancers to manage their time as efficiently as possible. Here are the top 5 reasons why freelancers need to track their work day.
#1 Accurate payment
By tracking your time as a freelance employee, you will be ensuring that you are being paid accurately. Of course, you will want to avoid being short paid on projects and keeping track of the time that you have spent working on freelance projects will also serve as evidence in the event that employers have any questions regarding your billing time.
#2 Eliminate multitasking
Multitasking can be extremely overwhelming and may even result in less productivity. To reduce or completely eliminate multitasking, you should rather opt efficiently managing your time and scheduling your projects for the day beforehand. Creating spreadsheets and to-do lists are effective methods of tracking your productivity on your projects throughout the day and ensure that you are able to meet your deadlines without feeling overwhelmed and trying to work on various different projects all at the same time. Multitasking as a freelancer can also affect the quality of your work and cause a lot of unnecessary confusion.
#3 Accurate estimates
If you are tracking your time spent on projects, you will be able to accurately estimate the time needed to complete similar projects and therefore, you will be able to accurately determine expectations and plan in advance. It will also help to prevent under-quoting on future projects, which can be extremely demotivating.
#4 Fine tune financial decisions
Tracking your workday will help you decide whether or not freelance employment is the right decision for you and it can also help you identify potential changes that could increase productivity and help you better manage your projects for the day. It is crucial to be financially stable in your career choice and being able to determine your financial capabilities can reduce a lot of stress and anxiety. Additionally, by paying attention to your time spent working and your profits received, you will be able to make wiser financial decisions in the long run.
#5 Planning your productivity
As a freelance employee, you will have the benefit of being able to determine your own working hours for each workday and therefore, if you are accurately tracking your time, you will be able to establish at which times of the day you are able to be more productive. While some individuals may be more productive during the evenings because it is quiet and there are a lot fewer distractions, others may feel early mornings are the right time to get things done. By correctly tracking your time you can plan your projects during your most productive times in the day.
Will time tracking promote motivation?
There are quite a few perks to freelance working when taking into account that freelance workers can work remotely, although, there are also a few significant downfalls to not working in a traditional work environment. Not having a supervisor looking over your shoulder during work hours means that you will have to supervise yourself and ensure all your projects are completed in time. As a result, freelancers need to be extremely self-motivated and dedicated individuals who can deliver work in a professional and reliable manner.
Tracking your time spent on projects will definitely impact your motivation as you will be fully aware and in control of your workday, rather than feeling as though you are falling behind. Essentially, the key to successful freelancing is the ability to effectively track working time.
