A quick way to track hourly work
One of the things I struggle with as a freelance copywriter is disciplining myself when I do hourly work. I need to keep track of my start and finish times, but often I just jump in and forget how long I’ve been working.
A quick trick to tracking time: use MS Outlook’s Journal Feature. It’ll show you how long you’ve had certain documents open. This works well for me because as I move from client to client, as I did today, I open a document, do the work I need to do, then close the document. It gives me a sense of completion.
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jenny on 07 Jan 2008 at 8:54 am #
What a cool idea! I do a lot of editing and proofreading on the side and that’s a problem I always run into, which means I often end up lowballing my time. But not anymore. Thanks for the tip!
Beth on 08 Jan 2008 at 7:05 am #
Jenny, any time. I’m always trying to make things easier for creative [read: scattered] types like myself.
Wendy on 08 Jan 2008 at 7:54 am #
Wow, this is an excellent tool. I’m on salary, and I always suspect that I’m spending way more time on things than I should. And when that happens, I end up earning about $1 an hour! Using this Journal Feature would actually give me an answer when the publisher wants to know how much time I spent fixing certain writers work. The information over here on your blog is invaluable, Beth. Your blog is doing such a great service to people, I hope you never stop!