How to Easily Track Your Time

As a Virtual Assistant, there are many ways to bill for your work – I charge by the hour.

That means keeping track of time, of course, so when I first started out, I kept everything in a spreadsheet. I quickly realized, though, that spreadsheets are not the right tool for the job!

If you get paid by the hour, you need a rock-solid approach to tracking your time. It needs to be accurate, of course, but it can’t require too much effort either.

That’s why I love (LOVE) Toggl. I have been using it now for about seven years and it’s terrific.

Toggl is a cloud-based application and it costs just only $9/month for a single user. You can use it on your phone, tablet or computer so it’s always with you, no matter where you’re working. There’s even a browser extension that works with tons of other applications.

To get started, I set up my clients and assign projects to them. Since I “lump” my work according to the client, I look at the clock when I begin working, make a note on my scratchpad, and get working.

When I’m finished, I look at the clock, calculate the time I’ve worked and record it in Toggl, along with a description of what work was done. (You can use the Toggle timer as a stopwatch for tracking your time if you prefer.)

The reporting is great and I make a habit of reviewing my billable hours at the end of every week to see how productive I’ve been. Also, since I’ve assigned a billable rate to each project, I can see at a glance how many dollars I’ve earned.

Finally, for those clients who like to have an accounting of how I spent their hours, I can easily create a report just for them.

Check out Toggl. You won’t be disappointed!