My favourite time management tool – The Timesheet!
Written by Julia Bickerstaff // September 14, 2015 // Daily Juice // No comments
I keep a Timesheet! And it’s my favourite time management tool! Sounds a li’l crazy but really, it’s been so super-helpful for me!
Six years ago, when I was new to running my business, I was astonished at how little I seemed to get done! So in a spell of frustration I decided to start keeping a timesheet to see what was going wrong!
In my old job at a big professional services firm I’d had to keep a timesheet every day. We used it to track the amount of time we were spending on different clients. I actually hated logging all my time and couldn’t believe I was really going to CHOOSE to do this. But choose I did!
The biggest surprise was that I wasn’t doing as much work as I thought! TRUE! I kinda thought that I was fitting in a 40+ hour week around my (four) children but I wasn’t at all! (School holidays, after school activities, sick kids, assemblies….!) All up doing a little Timesheet has helped me in more than 10 ways! Amazing!
Eleven ways keeping a Timesheet has helped me
1 It showed me how many hours I *really* had available to work each week. I must be an optimist as I didn’t have as many as I thought!
2 It helped me make better choices as to how to spend my time. Knowing how many hours I had made me focus more on the important stuff and less on the “urgent”
3 It stopped me procrastinating! Well, let’s say it’s HELPED! When I realised how much time I was spending faffing, it hurt!
4 It taught me that I was spending way too much time on admin-y things and not enough time on useful stuff, like marketing!
5 It showed me I totally underestimated how long tasks took to do! I had the Planning Fallacy big time!
6 It helped me value my time. When you have a lot to do and not much time to do it in you stop giving your time away sooooo cheaply! [ Think pricing!]
7 It added a bit of discipline into my day. When you work from home it’s easy to not quite get going on the work-y stuff….!
8 It showed me I *needed* to outsource some of my tasks. Especially the admin!
9 It helped me say NO to things I didn’t really want to do but felt kind of obliged. I could say, hand-on-heart, that I *really* didn’t have time!
10 It helped me see how much I was actually accomplishing! When I looked back at my old Timesheets and saw how much work I’d done I felt a teeny bit proud!
11 It forced me to work out quicker ways to get things done. And I did! And it worked!
♡* Timesheets for YOU! *♡
Fancy giving the Timesheet a go too? I’ve put together a Timesheet Workbook and three printable Timesheets (The Daily Timesheet, The Weekly Timesheet and the Weekly Record) so you can start your Timesheet right NOW!
You can get the Timesheet Workbook and Printable Timesheets right here for a ridiculously teeny A$10!
Our Timesheet has been used by over 7000 people (in the Healthy Income Program or as this Workbook). Here’s what Claire said:
“I do solemnly swear that from this day forward, I shall fill in a timesheet every day when I’m working. I cannot believe how much time I waste faffing about! This is the first time I have tried using a timesheet and I’ve had the most productive day ever! So happy right now. I’m now a timesheet convert”
You can get your Timesheet Workbook and Printable Timesheets here.
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