How to Track Time When Working from Home

With many of us now finding ourselves working from home for various reasons, it pays dividends to invest in tools and software designed to increase productivity. This is true both from an employee perspective, and an employer’s perspective.

For some people, working from home is no different to working at the office. For others, who are perhaps not used to it just yet, finding the motivation and energy required to manage your time wisely can be tricky.

This is where time tracking software can prove to be so useful. For people that are struggling to utilize their time working at home productively, a time tracking solution could pay dividends.

Here’s a look at a few tips on how to manage your day as well as track time when working from home.

Use the time tracking software as a guide

One of the most effective ways of using time tracking software at home is to use the software as a guide. By this, we mean that you should utilize the software to determine how long each task takes.

Focus on the task at hand and use the software to see how long it is taking you and how far along you are.

By doing this, you can estimate roughly what time to start, what time to finish, and how much time to dedicate to each task in order for you to meet your deadlines.

Focus on one task at a time

In order for time tracking software to be effective, you need to ensure that you focus on one task at a time.

Rather than doing a little bit of one job, and then flitting onto another, and another, sit down and focus solely on one task at a time.

This will help with your focus, and an extra bonus is that in this way the software will show you how far along you are and you will be able to use it to determine when you will finish.

Split your day into chunks

One of the best ways of tracking time at home and boosting productivity in the process, is to split your day into chunks.

For example, from 9am – 10am you could designate this hour to answering emails. From 10am – 12pm these two hours could be dedicated to working on that big project you’ve got due in next week. 12pm – 1pm should be for lunch, and so on.

By splitting your day into chunks, you can create an equal balance and work on multiple tasks during the day, without being overwhelmed.

Time tracking software is again very useful here because you can use it to see how far along on each project that you are.

For best results, choose a software that integrates with Outlook so that you can use tools and features such as the Outlook Calendar. This will help you to plan and prepare in advance and get a head start on upcoming projects.

Set reminders

Another useful thing about choosing time tracking software that integrates with the Microsoft Outlook calendar is the fact that it allows you to set reminders.

If you have a deadline to meet in two weeks’ time, you can use the calendar/software combo to set reminders in advance, to ensure that you don’t forget.

You can even use the software to give you reminders on what you’ve been working on lately, and how far along you are on each job.

Reminders help ensure that you meet deadlines with plenty of time to spare.

Reporting

One thing is getting your time reported, another is to also get an overview of this time. With the right kind of solution, your time entries will be stored centrally so that you can easily get an overview of how you’ve spent your time, and if you are a manager, you can also see how your people have used their time, even when not being in the office together.