Setting up Time Blocks and Making Their Effective Use

Being an entrepreneur, you realize that time is money. Therefore, devising strategies to make more intentional use of that time facilitates creating an atmosphere that drives success. However, business owners must understand that they don’t need additional time; rather they require learning the art of making its strategic use. For businesses, time is an invaluable resource, and business owners have every reason to protect, organize and be calculated about it.

In order to encourage clients and employees to make effective use of their time, time blocking is a crucial step towards it.

Important Steps to Take for Time-Blocking

Determine Priorities and Goals

Analyze your weekly or yearly goals, and put the largest time blocks aside in order to particularly work towards attaining that target. Unless and until you achieve this objective, everything else will seem like an interruption.  

Put the Activities into Categories

Prepare time buckets for rest of the objectives in your list. Put similar activities in one group. Here’s how you can categorize all the duties:

· Customer Work,

· Marketing,

· Business Management,

· Team Management,

· Goal Setting,

· Dealing with Personal Secretary,

· Personal Duties.

Arrange Them as Consistent Appointments

Get a calendar and schedule all these activities. This will help you come up with a weekly or monthly structure. For instance, every Monday morning, you have to get in touch with all the clients, every Wednesday afternoon you’ve to handle financials, and so on.

By practicing this (bucket time), you will be better able to schedule activities and handle them during the blocks every week with maximum amount of concentration.

It is imperative that you follow your time blocks regularly; else they will not provide desired results.  Success lies in honoring your calendar and working systematically.

Now that you have setup blocks, practice one or more of these techniques:

Task Batching

Group all the activities that you need to get done within a single time block. This will provide you with some organization and structure. Let’s say you’re working in a ‘Marketing’ time block. You have to systematically shift from one component of the marketing strategy to another, instead of haphazardly working on various components.

Time Tracking Solution

Whenever you begin working on a new block, kick start your timer. However, not all time tracking software and apps will provide you with user-friendly and seamless time tracking.

There are myriad benefits of using a time tracking solution. This software keeps you accountable, while maintaining the integrity of time blocks. Moreover, time tracking solutions also provide reports on how each minute was spent over the entire week. If you’re on the lookout for making efficient use of your time, time tracking apps and software is just what you need. Time tracking solutions also help you determine areas of work that can be delegated, saving you more productive time.  

In essence, you need to come up with solutions that balance your time and work. Chrometa provides time tracking software and apps for PC, Mac, Android and iPhone to help users track time passively. Visit http://www.chrometa.com/ to learn more about their time tracking services. 

Improved Time Management with a 3-way Strategy

It is true. We’re getting increasingly addicted to screens – be it mobile, TV, or laptop. And unknowingly, this habit is turning into procrastination. Result? We are becoming more unfocused and distracted than ever.

The internet is filled with countless tips on time management, maintaining productivity, and getting maximum amount of work done in least possible time. At times, it seems like the world wants you to save time. And guess what you’re doing: skimming through these articles while almost dozing off.

Consequently, that’s why we often recommend adopting the non-management approach towards managing time. Or more appropriately: a lethargic take at this rising trend.

Consider these time management tips for people who fail at managing.

Plan to be Interrupted

To stop procrastinating, you have to take out time for procrastination. The idea is to schedule interruptions, because somewhere you know you will be distracted.

 Take out some time and stay focused on work. Realizing that you’ll get time for your break, you will be more productive in a timely fashion – of course, without any procrastination.

In essence, you have to eradicate it from your system.

The same holds true for interruptions. Quit the habit of consistently checking e-mails and social networking platforms. There is nothing called, ‘urgent’. Schedule your time in a way that you check them after a few hours, not after every 10 minutes.

De-cluttering

Nothing can kill your productivity more than clutter.

Most people end up cleaning the mess, leaving no time for actual work – thinking, preparing and working.  More than occupying the physical space, clutter takes up your mind, attention, and concentration away from work. Whether you work from home or office, it is a good practice to keep your work space clean. This will surely help creating a productive working environment for your mind.  

In essence, de-cluttering helps, physically and mentally – saving lots of time.

Tracking Bad Habits

What is it that distracts you? May be you’re a chain smoker, or an avid social media user. When managing time and improving productivity, these habits can prove to be obstructions.

Take a week’s time and track these bad habits using a time tracker. Make sure you show consistency throughout the week. The idea is to track time for bad habits you need to get rid of.

Would you be willing to watch an assumingly interesting 5-minute video on Facebook, knowing that it counts for 5 hours for the whole week?

Similarly, if you start tracking time for your unimportant work for a string of few weeks, you may find out that you waste most part of the week in doing unproductive stuff.

As you follow these crucial steps, investing in a personal, passive timekeeper is a good move. Chrometa is a time tracking software and app that captures time as you work on PC, Mac, iPhone and Android. It passively records time and puts on a timesheet for easy viewing.

Click to download its free 30-day trial. 

Work Harder Not Smarter Time Management Tips

How Time Tracking Benefits The Construction Industry

There’s a lot at stake in the construction industry. The client has invested a lot, you have a deadline to meet and have limited resources. So, you just can’t afford any production gap or wasted time. But, how would you ensure this? A time tracking program can help!

For the construction industry, time tracking software helps improve operations, makes work processes more productive, and ultimately increases profits for the company.

Here are more benefits of the software:

Creates Better Workflows

How much time is being utilized for the completion of a single activity? Are all employees investing the required time to complete various phases of construction? Will the entire project be completed on time? A time tracking program can help seek answers to all these questions. It reveals the true information regarding the working process of employees and if the project is progressing or not.

Ensures Compliance and helps in Sharing Information

Complying with the industry standards is essential. You need to make sure that your construction process is legal and in accordance with the procedures and standards. Accurate time tracking helps companies stay in compliance with standards. The software also helps create and share reports and other information with members.

Helps in Better Planning

Planning in the construction industry changes frequently as compared to others. There are different phases of a project that you’re working on and completion of each phase requires you to change your planning.

With the detailed information provided by time tracking software, you can improve your decision making.

Offers Off-Site Tracking

Working in the construction industry means that many of your members will be working off-site. So how would you communicate with them? Or how will you know if there are production gaps? Are your workers dedicating time towards the completion? There are time tracking apps that help you keep track of all your members. All the employees have to do is to install this app in their smartphone and they’re all set to track time and create timesheets.  

Looking to implement a construction time tracking app in your business? Get Chrometa – one of the best time tracking apps! The app tracks time and all your work activities in your smartphone and also helps you create billable time entries.

4 Ways How Time Tracking Software Makes Information sharing Easy

Do You Do Most of Your Work on Your Smartphone?

If yes then you need a time tracking app to help you keep track of things, and here are some features a perfect time tracking app ought to have, watch video & visit for more details: http://www.chrometa.com

Time Tracking Benefits for your Company

According to a small business survey, a meager 20% of small businesses are expected to invest in tools that improve employee productivity this year.

Furthermore, another anonymous survey of retail and service industry employees asserts that an incredible 80% of workers admitted to “time theft”, which is a grave concern for businesses.

Just as technology consistently revolutionizes the way business is conducted, small business owners time and again overlook a central aspect of their model: their employee time tracking system.

Whether or not an employee is billing by the hour, it is imperative to understand that time is one of the most valuable and limited resources for any organization.

So, does tracking time produces any benefits for businesses? Keep reading below to find out:

1.    It Reduces the Time Spent On Making Payrolls

The most primary benefit of time tracking to your business is that it reduces the time spent by employees and the HR department on preparing payrolls. This further reduces the time for tracking, recording and processing the payroll each week and month.

By making advancements, some businesses have been able to cut back their time calculating payroll by 70% every month. This way, employees can divert their focus on their respective and important jobs, rather than the added task of bookkeeping for themselves.

2.    It Prevents Buddy Punching

Time theft can range from taking a longer lunch than prearranged or signing attendance for a friend when they arrive late for work. This is known as ‘buddy punching’. According to The American Payroll Association, more than 75% of businesses lose money from buddy punching. Whether deliberate or not, time theft can be costly for businesses. Therfore, by installing automated time and attendance systems, buddy punching can be prevented altogether.

3.    Reduces the Likelihood of Human Errors

No one is perfect; even if they have a calculator, spreadsheet and other computation device handy - they still can make mistakes. Even the most precise typist makes 1 mistake for every 300 keystrokes.  An omitted digit or misplaced decimal can incur huge accounting errors that demand a lot of effort to be corrected, or worse, if left uncorrected can affect your profits tremendously.

With time tracker software in place, you can stop the bleeding, and make sure you get compensated for all the time you put in on every client you have.

4.    Being On the Law-Side

Typically, the State and federal labor laws, like the Fair Labor Standards Act, standardizes things like overtime pay and record keeping, both of which are complicated to track if you have a physical time and attendance system.

Instead of increasing your vulnerability to potential lawsuits, which can upshot millions of dollars awarded in back wages, reside on the right side of the law with precise time tracking software.

No need to manually enter your time sheet into the office software packages you use. Chrometa mechanically transfers your time sheet into Clio, QuickBooks, and other practice management and accounting software, saving you time, money and effort. Visit http://www.chrometa.com/ today to learn more about this online time tracking software.