I’m really not the worst person when it comes to tracking my time at work. In fact, I consider it a vital factor in keeping my business profitable and tracking the time on clients’ projects has become an everyday habit.

What I’m not that good at—or what I often just forget for that matter—is tracking the time I spend on administrative tasks such as doing finances, dealing with tax returns, chasing invoices and so on. Everyday there’s time I can bill a client for and then there’s time that I have to factor into my rates because there’s no client paying for it. Therefore, it’s key to know how much time I actually spend on those non-client work tasks.

Today I reminded myself again to track the time on everything, including my “internal projects”. In addition to recording a lot more working hours today (which was quite satisfying), I hope to gain valuable insights on how my working hours are split between client and non-client work. That’s what I learnt today.