Time Management Tools

Time tracking is essential for freelancers, and I’ve been doing a little exploring in the last couple months to find an effective time management system for myself.

There are to-do list programs like Tracks that are free, and are very good for what they are, but I needed something with more of a stopwatch feature built in, so that I could track not just my projects, but the billable hours I spend on them.

A freelancer friend of mine uses and is happy with Time59, which is a time management and billing program. It’s free for the first 30 days, and then charges an annual subscription fee. While the seamless integration of time tracking and billing looks very nice and is very useful to freelancers who bill by the hour, it seemed a little much for me. (I use the basic, free edition of Express Invoice, and it’s more than sufficient for my needs.)

For time management, I’ve started using Toggl, and I’m very happy with it so far. It’s free for individual use, it’s simple to use, and it offers a variety of reports to reinforce productivity and show me how I’ve been spending my time. I can use it on the web and access it from multiple computers, or download a local widget. I’ve been using the web-based version so that I can access my numbers from my desktop or my laptop.

It’s as simple as creating a project and assigning it a name, and then clicking on the project to create a “task”. Toggling the timer on and off helps me to keep track of just the time I spend on a given task, and enables me to get a clear sense of my pages-per-hour pace on any given manuscript or project, as well as letting me see how I’m spending my day, and how my time allocation spreads out between projects in a given day, week or month.

The premium version offers more detailed and personalized reporting, and more options for groups and teams, but as an individual I find the free edition suits me just fine. I can stop the clock when I get up from my desk, or switch projects and tasks if I take a billable call.

The obvious drawback to a web-based system is that it requires an internet connection. If I end up working online, or I forget to log my time on a project, a simple edit adds the task and the time spent, and includes it seamlessly in the tracking reports. This is good if I forget to click off a project, too. As much as I might like to impress a client with the fact that I worked all night, I’m not going to charge for those hours in which I was only dreaming about the manuscript!

A good time management tool is a must for freelancers, and is useful for writers as well. If you’ve been looking for a time management program, or you’re interested trying one out, give Toggl a try.

If you’re interested in browsing the range of time management and invoicing programs available, Mashable‘s 85+ tools for freelancers and web-workers may be a good starting point.

Tagged as: freelancers, freelancing, time management, websites