I am working on an article on personal finance for the self-employed, and have decided to share my tips with you, one at a time–I would welcome your feedback!
Tip #1: Keep track of your time.
Somewhere my boyfriend (also self-employed) is reading this tip and laughing his head off. I am famous for losing track of time, so famous that when someone we know is late, we say that person must be on “Bonnie time.” But I am working on this and so should you. The first step is to record the time you spend working on different projects. My first method for doing this was the post-it method–I looked at the clock when I started working, looked at the clock when I stopped, and recorded my time on a post-it note. I had one post-it note per project, and woe unto me if I lost one…
In this technological era, however, I am sure that you can do better than the post-it method (although the post-it method has one advantage, which is that you don’t lose your timekeeping records if you have to reformat your hard drive). Online, you can find free timekeeping software, such as Toggl, Zen Tracking, or Task Capture. (You should always look for free software online before you spend money on something new, especially if the software is intended to do something simple like keep track of time.) If you are using Elance, you can use Elance’s timekeeping software, which is built right into the Elance website.
If you forget to open your timekeeping software, however, there is a way to reconstruct when you worked on something and the amount of time that it took–although it is cumbersome. If you are using a PC, you can use Windows Explorer to find out what time you last worked on a document. At least that can tell you the days you began and ended a project. You can use the history function in your web browser to find out more, if you did Internet research as part of the work. If you used your cell phone to make calls related to the project, your cell phone history should be able to tell you exactly when the calls took place and how long they took. If nothing else, taking time to reconstruct your schedule should impress upon you the need to keep better records in the future!
Now that you’ve got records of your time, what are you going to do with it? For some of us and for certain projects, those records are essential to billing. Even when you don’t need time records for billing purposes, however, keep those time records! You should budget your time as carefully as you budget your money, and, like the receipts that you should be keeping for all your expenses (especially business-related expenses), these records will show you how that time (your most precious commodity!) is being spent.
Next time: tip #2: reducing your overhead (eliminating unnecessary expenses).
No Comments