As a small business owner (or even big business) one of your most valuable assets is your time. I would even go as far as to say that time IS your most valuable asset as a human being. It is, after all, the only thing we have.

 

By starting your own business you are taking ultimate control of your freedom by deciding to use your time as you see fit, instead of spending your time making others rich. The problem is that once you become self employed, you probably end up working a lot more hours than you would if you were employed. That is why structure is critically important. You need to "work smart" more than you "work hard". What this means, amongst other things, is that you need to keep track of your seconds, minutes and hours and invoice your customers regularly, on time and make sure the billing is correct. Your time system is made up of two parts.

 

  • The first step is to make time for bookkeeping or hire a bookkeeper if you can afford one. ( Set a sms reminder if you need a push to get started)
  • The second is regularly keeping track of time while you are doing your business tasks.

 

 

 

 

 

Time tracking has become extremely easy and manageable thanks to mobile telephones and web based time trackers. Usually one has to carry around a paper based time sheet or diary. If you have to ask "what is a time sheet?" then you still have a few things to lean about how to track time for project management and for financial purposes, but you are in the right place to learn. Anyway, these paper timesheets get lost or damaged and result in double data entry. Double data entry occurs since at the end of the billing cycle all the info needs to be captured again and totaled in some sort of billing software or spreadsheets. Double data entry is very poor time management and is certainly not "working smart". Unless you add up the totals manually every-time you make an entry, you have no real-time overview of your business or projects at a glance.

This is where the cell phone or smart phone enters the picture. Since they are with you all the time, they allow you to enter events as they happen so that you don't need to revisit the task again to capture the details. They also allow you to transfer the info into your billing software, sometimes via offering a .CSV ( comma-separated values ) export file or Open Office / Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

 

 

 

 

There are loads of mobile apps out there that do what you need too. For Android users I suggest you take a look at Time Recording app by DynamicG. Even the free version gives every startup the tools it needs to get started. The pro version allows synchronizing with Google calendar and DropBox. The Time Recording app was tested on a Samsung Galaxy S2 and worked wonderfully. If you have a customer who always questions how much time you spend with them then you can let the customer click the "Check in " button when you start your session and then on the "Check out" button when you leave. Nice! It offers multiple trackers by allowing you to install up to 9 instances of the software on one device. It can function as a employee time tracking software too if your employees install it and have it automatically send backups and exports to a specific email address. Now one great thing about the software is that you can even set time targets too. This, if used correctly can incentivize you to perform tasks. Eg. "I must dedicate x hours of my week / month to writing articles for my blog " or " I must spend x hours working on customer ABC's project". The app will let you know when you reach your time target.

Currently I have not seen a version of the application for iPhone and have not seen a free app that give all the same features as Time Recording does, for iPhones. Feel free to bring some contenders to my attention.

 

So, mobile phones afford us the opportunity to use the device as a means to effectively run and manage huge parts of our businesses. You can't change what you haven't measured so use the technology that is available to you, keep focused and in time you will reach your goals.

 

 

 

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