Billable Hours

At lunch this week, I sat next to two gentlemen discussing billable hours for their company.

They talked about the importance of knowing how each employee spent their time, not just the time that would be billed to the customers.

They also discussed how hard it was to get many of those employees to turn in their time.

I do know that it's a pain to keep track of what you do all day, but I also understand the importance of knowing this information.

I realize that my own work load might improve if I keep track of how I spend my day.

It would be nice to know:

How many hours I spend on a particular project?
How many hours I spend organizing?
How many hours preparing for a school visit?
Cleaning? Painting? Watching movies? Writing correspondence? Updating my website?
etc. etc. etc.

This information will be valuable to me.

Why?

By seeing where I spend my time, I can change things that don't make sense in terms of where I want to go in my career and life.

Perhaps I will see ways to save time so I have more time to do the things I enjoy.

By having my activities and time written down, I can also give myself credit for all that I do do.

(I love it when do do ends up in a sentence.)

So, starting tomorrow, I'm going to insist that all my employees...well...me...start keeping track of billable hours.

After I master keeping track of hours, I'll move on to keeping track of money. : )