What’s wrong with a time tracker? If you’re billing a client, you need to know how much time you spent on them. If you’re tracking internal projects, then it’s still worth knowing where your time is spent and if it might be better spent elsewhere. If it’s work hours that are tracked, then that’s a solution for ‘Unregistered overtime.’
I’ve worked in once place where I was support (no projects, all work came from and was tracked in tickets). Since everyone had to use the time tracking system anyway, I had to enter 8 hours every day. I was salaried, so no OT or docked pay for time off; I entered the same 5x8 every week, regardless of what or when I worked that week. Pointless.
Another time, I was subcontracting and had to enter time for the same projects for both my employer and the company that hired us. My employer wanted time submitted twice a month, and the hiring company demanded weekly. Tedious.
Two of these three companies were irrationally anal about pre-filling the time sheets, even when the hours were well planned or functionally irrelevant.
Last time I had to track time it was on a shitty spreadsheet that had to be printed out and signed by my boss. I was salaried. There were usually no changes from week to week.
They also had a digital time tracking solution that they just refused to use because that would involve change and change is bad.
When you work on the same thing for 8 hours a day for years and then suddenly management decides that they need “detailed time tracking.”
They just gave you a new job without additional compensation. New responsibilities, no new title, no raise, etc.
Then—months later—they realize that everyone’s spending at least half an hour, regularly to figure out how they’re spending their time. Some bean counter adds up how much that costs in real money and then—out of nowhere—management decides they don’t need detailed time tracking anymore.
I imagine this is a problem mostly for people who do all of their time tracker recording at the end of the week or month or whatever billing period they have. This requires a lot more thinking and time, and thus becomes a problem, compared to just filling it in at the end of the day.
I’ve a slight manageable case of ADHD and I tend to obsessively hyperfocus on tasks. It’s a good relationship because I get a lot of shit done well, and enjoy my work.
If you start forcing me to plan out my day every day, down to 15 minute increments, my productivity drops by around 60%, because I stop concentrating on getting shit done, and start working to rule. Not because I’m vindictive, but because that’s what you asked me to do.
I meant just writing down what you did and how long you worked on it during that day.
I’m quite lucky, I just have to basically fill in “8h” every day on the same project and then I’m finished. But other people are forced to be very detailed and it sucks.
Might solve overtime since you always record it, or do you? If you record the overtime you spend on internal projects it’s gonna have a bad impact on your ratio of client work to internal work. What you spend 20% of your time on internal projects, your colleagues only spend 10% there - but I work 50h/week instead of 40, but no one looks on this.
Another problem is when your company doesn’t have any work for you and you gonna figure out where to book the 8h of doing nothing but waiting for work that day.
What’s wrong with a time tracker? If you’re billing a client, you need to know how much time you spent on them. If you’re tracking internal projects, then it’s still worth knowing where your time is spent and if it might be better spent elsewhere. If it’s work hours that are tracked, then that’s a solution for ‘Unregistered overtime.’
I’ve worked in once place where I was support (no projects, all work came from and was tracked in tickets). Since everyone had to use the time tracking system anyway, I had to enter 8 hours every day. I was salaried, so no OT or docked pay for time off; I entered the same 5x8 every week, regardless of what or when I worked that week. Pointless.
Another time, I was subcontracting and had to enter time for the same projects for both my employer and the company that hired us. My employer wanted time submitted twice a month, and the hiring company demanded weekly. Tedious.
Two of these three companies were irrationally anal about pre-filling the time sheets, even when the hours were well planned or functionally irrelevant.
Last time I had to track time it was on a shitty spreadsheet that had to be printed out and signed by my boss. I was salaried. There were usually no changes from week to week.
They also had a digital time tracking solution that they just refused to use because that would involve change and change is bad.
When you work on the same thing for 8 hours a day for years and then suddenly management decides that they need “detailed time tracking.”
They just gave you a new job without additional compensation. New responsibilities, no new title, no raise, etc.
Then—months later—they realize that everyone’s spending at least half an hour, regularly to figure out how they’re spending their time. Some bean counter adds up how much that costs in real money and then—out of nowhere—management decides they don’t need detailed time tracking anymore.
I’ll offer a different explanation: After checking for a few months they realized that all’s good and that the tracking isn’t needed anymore.
So they got their feelings satisfied with only a major annoyance to everyone and about a month of work wasted among everyone.
I imagine this is a problem mostly for people who do all of their time tracker recording at the end of the week or month or whatever billing period they have. This requires a lot more thinking and time, and thus becomes a problem, compared to just filling it in at the end of the day.
Just a guess though.
I’ve a slight manageable case of ADHD and I tend to obsessively hyperfocus on tasks. It’s a good relationship because I get a lot of shit done well, and enjoy my work.
If you start forcing me to plan out my day every day, down to 15 minute increments, my productivity drops by around 60%, because I stop concentrating on getting shit done, and start working to rule. Not because I’m vindictive, but because that’s what you asked me to do.
Is that what people mean by time tracker?
I meant just writing down what you did and how long you worked on it during that day.
I’m quite lucky, I just have to basically fill in “8h” every day on the same project and then I’m finished. But other people are forced to be very detailed and it sucks.
Might solve overtime since you always record it, or do you? If you record the overtime you spend on internal projects it’s gonna have a bad impact on your ratio of client work to internal work. What you spend 20% of your time on internal projects, your colleagues only spend 10% there - but I work 50h/week instead of 40, but no one looks on this.
Another problem is when your company doesn’t have any work for you and you gonna figure out where to book the 8h of doing nothing but waiting for work that day.
Yeah working with timesheets sure is fun work.