Time-Tracking Tips

Becoming good at tracking my time was one of the most difficult transitions to becoming a successful Virtual Assistant. In this episode of The RocketGirl Show I'll share tips, tricks and answer your questions about best practices for tracking time.

TRANSCRIPT:

My name is Belinda Wasser also known as RocketGirl and today we are going to talk about time-tracking tips for Virtual Assistant.

When I became a Virtual Assistant ten years ago, tracking time is one of the most difficult things for me to learn. It was the most difficult new skill more than any thing because even though I had a job for decades and I was productive and was able to manage projects and get work done, tracking my time minute by minute was not something I have ever thought about. So this was a big transition for me.

But today, I want to talk about some time-tracking tips for Virtual Assistants. Keep in mind that our clients are paying for, in my mind, our expertise and also our time. So think about that as a product and make sure that you're getting paid for every minute that you work.

Here's a couple ways to do that. You want to use an online time tracking system. I use Toggl. There are plenty of options out there. I use the free version. So it's not necessary to spend money on time-tracking software but just make sure that you have one that you like and that you'll use regularly. I keep it open all the time. So I 'm never hunting for it or wondering where it is. It's pinned in a tab in my browser on one of my screens. And I always know where it is.

It is important when you're tracking time to do work for one client at a time. So here's how this works in my mind. I sit down at my desk and I say, "Ok, I'm going to work on Laurice's newsletter." So, I look at the time, I make a note of it, I open up everything that I need. I'll get my notes. I'll open the Word document she sent or scan her email and I'll get to work. Then, what I do is, I keep going with all of her work until I finished and then I close all my application, get everything organized again and then look at the time and then I put that time into Toggl.

Now, sometimes what happens is you're waiting for sensitive piece of information. Let's say, you got a project that's going out tonight, but you're just waiting for one email with the detail from your client. So what I'll do in that case is I'll continue to work with one client's work. But then, you know, from time to time, every fifteen minutes or so, I glance over to my email and if that information comes in what I'll say to myself is "Ok, I'm stopping this, I look at the time, I'll put it into Toggl. I start the other task, finish it, put the time in Toggl and then go back to the project that I was working on before. So, really keeping in my mind that it's straight. You know, the time belongs to.

You want to round your time. So, I have seen, sometimes sheets for Virtual Assistants, they have this like 10, 40 minutes and 15 seconds. You just want to round that up. And the other thing is, we can spend a whole day doing things, 5 minutes things all day long. You could easily lose the day just answering quick questions in email. So here's the scoop of thought that I have on that. If something is a yes/no email. That's five minutes. If it's a yes/no email and it's part of another part of the project, you know like, charge for the actual time.

But if it's a one thing that they need, it's 5 minutes. If I start to have to do research, look in a folder, look at my notes, something like that to answer the question, that becomes 10 minutes. And as soon as I open applications, start moving things around, making changes that's 15 minutes or the amount of time that it actually takes. So if I open it an application and do that work and then I work for 25 minutes, that's how much I charge my client for 25 minutes.

And then I mentioned this earlier, but I want to really bring this point home. You want to clean your desktop app and your desk if you have papers before you stop the clock. So let's say, I've opened a Word document, my emails' opened. I've got my notes open, you know, the sort of mess on my desktop. I close everything down before I look at the clock and finish up because closing the work down is just as important just as opening it up and I charge for that as well.

So I'd love to hear what you think about this. I'd love to hear in the comments which tip resonated with you. And I also would like to know what time-tracking software you're using. So whether you're watching us on Periscope, Facebook, LinkedIn or in our YouTube channel, just drop your comments, your thoughts in the comments.

Before we go, I would like to invite everyone who's here in my free online classroom. In order to find it, go to Facebook, put in the search bar, 'The Virtual Assistant Connection'. You'll be brought to our group, our private group. You can click the join button and come on in. We have over 8,000 members, tons of content, an amazing community and we love to have you join us. So come on over and check us out. Until the next episode, I'm Belinda Wasser, RocketGirl signing off. Bah bye.