How Tracking Time Can Change Productivity and Boost Profits

In today’s economy small business owners need solid information on productivity and time spent on revenue-producing tasks. More and more, employers are using tools to boost their profits and raise productivity . Time tracking software is a great asset to assist small business owners in tracking the true productivity of their team members (even virtual team members), both for their work hours in total and to measure time spent on each project.

When we want to get more done, most of us will simply work longer hours, move deadlines around, and multi-task. How effective are these solutions though? Some blocks of time may be productive but many others are just a time suck. For example, being on Facebook and Twitter is a productive time for marketing – but only if you track the ROI and conversion of “relationship” to “client”. If there is no measurement for the time we spend there, we cannot begin to scale outputs, deliverables and profits.

The big elephant in the room is always productivity and ROI. Each small business owner can strategize their own formula for determining their maximum productive time –and even non-productive times – but only if they’re tracking the hours spent on a task. At the core time tracking software provides key information to begin this analysis.

As we stated earlier, as small business owners, most of us, when we want to get more done, work longer hours, move deadlines around, and multi-task. These strategies can provide some short-term results, but they are not sustainable in the long term. No matter how well you may be performing right now, you can almost always improve productivity – and that doesn’t have to mean work more and work harder. Sometimes it means OUTSOURCING and delegating. When you are more productive, you can contribute strongly to the overall success and profitability of your business. When you are bogged down in endless details, working longer and longer hours, that will not be the case. You simply won’t have the focus you need on the profit-driven tasks.

There are many ways to improve productivity, and they all start from a simple analysis of “Times Tracked”. For example, to an individual, productivity will be measured by how much he or she accomplished – not how busy they were. A Time Tracking Analysis could provide information on the importance of the tasks accomplished and answer the question if any of the tasks could have been delegated. The analysis will provide us with additional information on non-productive times which decrease productivity.

The analyzed and timed activities will highlight key elements of possible improvement. The analysis will provide the needed data, right down to the types of the activities and the way they were accomplished. For instance:

• Was each individual’s recorded work time spent productively?
• What else do you need to know about what is demanding attention?• Are all team members and leaders organized?
• Do all outsourced vendors practice prioritizing tasks and track their time?

Using Time Tracking will help you increase productivity and effectiveness. You can literally boost your profitability over the next few weeks.

Donna Marie Thompson, PhD
Creating your best profit solutions is my highest priority. http://www.ExpertProfitSolutions.com