Your time is valuable. While you may have punched in using a time clock or signed in to work through a computer while you worked at your traditional job, things may be different now that you are working from home. There may be some home – based professionals who have a time clock in their home office just for fun, and they may punch in and punch out every time they go to work. I do not know of any, though, so I will share some helpful hints for keeping track of your time so that you can get paid accordingly.
Some jobs or assignments do not require that you keep track of time. For example, some freelance writing projects pay by the word, by the post or article, or by some other unit of work. Many projects do require that you keep track of your time, though. If you find your work through freelance web sites like Elance or Guru have helpful time tracking tools that can keep track of your time on various projects and generate bills for you. These same tools also collect information that serves as evidence that you did the work, which can come in handy in the event of a payment dispute.
If you do not have access to a time tracking tool, you can write your time down in your day planner. I do this for my legal work. Every time I get off of the phone, I write down how long I was on the phone and with whom. I do the same thing with meetings, court appearances, and drafting documents. I keep my planner pages and when it is time to create invoices, I just look back through the planner pages.
The exact method or tool that you use for keeping track of the time that you spend on your work matters less than whether you actually use it. It is important to keep track of your time so that you can get paid. It is also important as far as record keeping. How do you keep track of your time for your home – based work?
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