Is Time Tracking with Screenshots really Helpful?
Although time tracking with screenshots is relatively new invention, it has turned into obsession for many freelancers. For people who are getting paid per hour it is very important to know exactly how much time they have spent working during the day. Yes, it is curious to know which the sites that are wasting your time are. Also, it is incredibly beneficial to check how much time you have spent working on a specific project. But don’t turn time tracking with screenshots into habit. You should check the time tracking results occasionally. Don’t do it more often than you should be. Imagine there was software that tracked how much time you spent on time tracking. You don’t want the final result to be: Two hours a day spent on time tracking!
Laura Stack, a famous author and speaker advises not to waste time calculating how much time we are wasting. She says people are spending far more time on checking the results from time tracking with screenshots than they should be. Both, employers and employees should use this time to work on the projects instead of focusing on screenshots. According to Stack it would be much more productive to have an organized, prioritized task list. This means when we wake up in the morning to make a list of things we should focus on during the day and decide what is the most important in this list. Laura Stack doesn’t neglect the importance of using time tracking with screenshots for those who charge clients on hourly basis.
Dave Seah who is a designer and blogger, developing productivity tools, says we should use time tracking wisely. There should be a clear motive to turn on the time tracking software. If we are working on one or several projects for different clients, using time tracking with screenshots is a necessity. But using time tracking software for tracking anything is useless!
Ari Meisel who is famous productivity experts says that time tracking can have negative influence on our work. For instance, if we are writing an article, and the phone rings, we have to turn off the time tracking software. Once we end the phone call and come back to work, we have to turn on the tracking software. However, sometimes we forget to do that because we hurry to write down a thought. Ari Meisel says that time tracking software has its disadvantages when it comes to productivity work.
The idea when you are using time tracking with screenshots is to be focused on your work. So if you know you are wasting hours a day on Facebook, just don’t log in that website. You don’t need to use time tracking software to see exactly how much time you are wasting on this site. Checking the screenshots to see how you waste your time is also a waste of time.
