Time Keeps Ticking: Five Tips for Tracking Your Time

I’ve often joked that, since I began working in an agency environment (and particularly since I’ve been on my own), I have a hard time justifying an afternoon at the movies. When you track your life in 15 minutes increments it becomes difficult to sit in a darkened movie theater for two hours when I could be billing a client. Sick, I know. I’m not claiming that it’s normal behavior.

A student mentioned to me this week that when I talk about billing in 15-minute increments in classes, it makes him nervous that maybe he’s just not suited for agency life. And that’s not a bad thing to realize. We’re not all suited for agency life. (Thank God! What a strange world that would be.)

However, the billable hour is a reality for many entry-level PRos. It is often the most difficult to master but, as the crux of the agency’s business model, a vital skill to have. Learning to track your time and do so ethically, responsibly and transparently will help you avoid the pitfalls (more here and here) of doing otherwise.

So here I offer five tips that, over the years, have worked for me.

1. Get a planner. Paper, electronic, binder, spiral bound… doesn’t matter. Get one that works for you. And just jot notes down during the day about what you worked on and for how long. I’ve found that the key for me is to have a paper planner and to have at least a one-page-per-day format. You need enough space to make good notes.

2. List & Prioritize. Making a clear task list will keep you on track. Nothing feels better than ticking things off a to-do list. As I’ve mentioned before, Stikkit is an awesome tool for doing just this. And prioritize – which tasks should be tackled first? Karen Sams at the Media Relations Blog has a great post on this topic.

3. Do it daily! Nothing is more difficult than trying to rebuild your time at the end of the week or the end of the month. It’s difficult to do – and it’s been shown (by who, I don’t know, but it’s always made sense to me) that you will tend to underestimate your time if you don’t keep track every day. And that costs you and your company money.

4. Practice. It may seem a little bit silly to track your school time, your study time, your work time or even your travel time. But if you plan to go into agency work, it wouldn’t hurt to practice. Use your planner (see #1) and track in 1-hour increments to start. This is a great tip to just simply get a handle on how you spend your time and manage all the tasks in your life.

5. Use the right tools. I finally found a Web-based tool that I just LOVE and helps making tracking (and therefore, billing) a breeze. An individual account is next-to-nothing a month. Of course every agency will have its own system you’ll need to learn, but this is a great, simple way to start.

Bonus: I’ve asked some of my agency friends to give their best time-tracking tip. See comments section.