(Image from www.trackthetime.com)

I’m sure all of us have experienced one of those days where you wonder, ‘What exactly did I do today?’ This question is even harder to answer when you’re trying to remember a week’s worth of time when entering your hours for work. When it comes to logging hours for multiple projects, it can be a daunting task if you don’t have a good system in place. (Especially when you need to measure your life in .25 increments.)

As tedious a task as this may seem, to a Project Manager it’s one of the most important aspects to a job. Not only is entering accurate time vital to keeping the assignment on budget, it’s also important for estimating hours in upcoming/new work. Many times, projects can have similar deliverables and timing; knowing how long a past project took (and if you were close to your hours estimate or over) will help to better scope the new job in the future. Even if you’re working on a fixed bid project, as opposed to Time-and-Materials, it’s important your team members enter accurate hours since this will also aid in providing realistic estimates in the future.

Is it fun to enter hours? No. Is it necessary? Absolutely. No one really enjoys entering time, but I’ve found a few helpful ways of making the process less painful: Read More …