I am handling 20+ projects at the same time. There are always 2-3 new ongoing projects and there is also a huge number of clients who want upgrades.
I am jumping from task to task, from email to phone and trying to be in the loop with the developers.
The number of tasks I held in a day may vary from 10 to 30.
Previously, I have tried to use pen and paper to record what I am doing and for how long. That was okay, but I had a problem with the accurate time tracking. It was very hard to track time when someone disrupted me.
After that period, I completely abandoned time tracking for 3 months. This was another mistake. We estimated my project management time based on our guts. Sometimes, real time has been higher 3 times of the estimation. This was lost money.
Then I’ve decided to use Toggle. An application which I have used before, during one freelance project.
My top 5 reasons for using the Toggle app:
- Apps for Windows, OSX, iOS, Android, Chrome extension
- Nice widget for starting, stopping and history
- When you do not track time there is a reminder not to forget to track.
- When you’re tracking time, but your mouse is idle, Toggle will ask what to do with that idle time. It can be added to a current task, deleted or added to some new task.
- Toggle will remember previous task names and it will suggest them within the next entry.
- Weekly reports
- Pomodoro timer helps you to stretch and have a walk from time to time.
- You can edit an ongoing time, name of a task or minutes you have spent.
Those are the options I am using. I hope you will find these information helpful to decide which tracking app you will use.