“Time is the scarcest resource; and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.–Peter F. Drucker”
Getting awarded with a project means you have to be prompt in completing it effectively and on time. It is about managing your work in such a way that you can achieve more than what you had aimed for.
We all have a different working style and our needs, expectations and procedures are also varied. We all must try to inculcate good working habits, and use time management tools to their optimum use for excellent results.
Here, we have put together some useful tips and tools that can help to manage time effectively and hope you achieve your goals faster using them.
Task done on time foster great results
1. Prepare a list of to-do-items: Make a list of to-do-items; plan and prioritize work accordingly as per the importance and set goals for each day.
2. Identify your strong hours: Identify the strong hours of the day when you can really focus on work.
3. Set realistic goals: Set realistic objectives keeping in mind the time frame within which you need to accomplish the task.
4. Focus on one thing: Concentrate on one specific goal planned for each day to increase productivity.
5. Avoid distractions: Recognize and understand the challenges, try to eliminate or control as this will lead to greater efficiency.
We have also collected some of the time management tools to track time, and help you speed up in executing a task assigned on this platform.
This tool is important for providers who work on hourly basis. This helps you track time spent on a different projects. It allows you to create new tasks and switch old tasks in just one simple click. If you are an individual freelancer give access to your customers for online reports. As a team, invite new members to your workspace. Use online version or a Windows-based version to download on your desktop.
Pricing - Toggl has a free plan for basic time tracking and reporting. You can have unlimited number of clients, projects and tasks. Learn more
Review -With all of the Offshore Outsourcing work in play now, keeping tabs on your resources has become even more important. I like the idea that it is web based and inviting others to a project is as easy as sending an e-mail.Review by centernetworks.com
Designed for SMBs, harvest helps you to track time, log expenses on different projects of different clients from anywhere. It also allows you to add other users to your team. If you have employees working for you, they can easily track their time and expenses on projects done for you. You can also get graphical reports to see the distribution of your company’s resources.
Pricing- It offers free trial with a monthly subscription service; solo starts with $12 per month up to business plan for $90. Learn more
Review-”We love the simplicity, the well-crafted interface and the overall concept, execution and support that we get from such a great tool produced by an even better company.” Mike Buzzard, Cuban Council
This tool helps you schedule and keep a track of important issues at one place. You can share your schedule with your clients; customizable reminders to get notified via email, SMS or desktop alert. You can access Google calendar on mobile as well.
Pricing – Free
Review- With an easy-to-use, intuitive interface, and just enough sophistication to keep power users satisfied, Google Calendar is hard to beat. And with a price like free, there’s no reason not to give it a try. Dan Moren, Macworld.com
4. Tickspot
An easy-to-use interface, which helps you to keep track of your time spent on a project and even get an idea about the consumed project budget.
Pricing- Free for first 30 days. Learn more
Review-“Super easy to use, and the budget tracking features are a godsend”- Greg Hoy, President – Happy Cog Philadelphia
5. Todoist
It is a popular online task manager that’s useful, fast and easy to use. It has an inbuilt calendar wherein you can set due dates on your tasks and get overview of what needs to get done today or tomorrow. It also allows you to create sub-projects and sub-items with ease.
Pricing- Sign up for free
Review-But the best feature of Todoist is its full AJAX interface coupled with really, really powerful keyboard shortcuts. vaes9’s Todoist review
Knowing that you manage your time well brings the feeling of control and accomplishment. Hope these tips and tools inculcate the same feeling as you execute your projects seamlessly and on time.
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Interesting stuff guys
i never heard of these tools every before… when explored found them pretty interesting.. specially the Tick.. http://tickspot.com
I use fanurio http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com for time tracking. Fanurio has a few reminders to help you start, resume or stop the timer. It also has idle time detection and it can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux.
hi vidhi,
Thanks a lot for your comment! We would definitely try to come up with more informative blog posts in the future. So stay tuned!
Hi Karen,
Thanks for your input. We will definitely review the time tracking tool suggested by you. In the future when we will come up with a similar kind of post, we would consider including this tool in the list.
Nice blog post – I found your site through Bing.