Why Daily Time Tracking Wins and How to Make It Effortless

There are two things I don’t mess around with: my love for chocolate marquise and staying consistent with daily time tracking.

One fuels my soul; the other saves it from chaos.

Here’s the deal.

No one likes micromanaging their time. Luckily for you, daily time tracking isn’t about becoming your own manager from Hell.

It’s simply about figuring out where your hours actually go.

You think you work a solid 7.5 hours? That’s cute.

Now, can you tell me how many minutes or hours you spend scrolling through social media, chatting with coworkers, or staring at your screen wondering what you were supposed to do next? ‍

Let's talk about where your time really goes.

Daily time tracking will show you just how much time you spend on distractions, daydreaming, or trying to figure out what task you should be on.

The moment you start tracking, you start solving the mystery of your “disappearing minutes or hours”. Once you know where your time is leaking, you can patch it up without sacrificing lunch breaks or your free time.

So, grab your favorite chocolate cake (marquise is recommended but optional) and allow me to show you why basic daily time tracking can make all the difference.

Let’s go!

What is time tracking?

Well, you know the answer to this question.

It’s a process of noting how you spend your time in the workplace, including specific times on tasks and projects and the total amount of time engaged in work.

Time tracking is usually promoted as a way to determine billable hours devoted to specific clients.

Why should you track time daily?

There are two reasons.

First reason

The first one is that our brains like to play tricks on memory.

The study Memory Retrieval and the Passage of Time: From Reconsolidation and Strengthening to Extinction suggests that our memories change over time, especially when we recall them.

The researchers found that when remembering something soon after it happens (like a week later), it can actually make the memory a bit unstable for a short time. This “instability” gives your brain a chance to strengthen the memory, making it stick better over time.

Now, here’s where things get interesting. As time passes, the memory gets stronger on its own without needing to be brought up again. And when older memories are recalled (like after a month), they start to fade a bit instead of getting stronger. So, the longer a memory sticks around, the less likely it is to get stronger from just thinking about it.

This research is important because it suggests that memories aren’t fixed. Instead, they change depending on how old they are and when we think about them.

Now, let’s put everything from this research in the context of the workplace and time tracking. 

Add interruptions, multitasking (instead of single tasking), context switching, juggling multiple projects and clients to your day and you get… well, mixed memory chaos.

With all those daily distractions, your brain constantly remembers half-formed memories, making it harder to focus and remember details or important tasks. Your brain can end up not strengthening the things that matter, allowing you to forget key information.

That’s why, as Yulia suggests here, there’s a direct correlation between timesheet frequency and accuracy.

Just look at this graph.

The graph suggests that as the interval between logging time increases, the precision of the data decreases

Technically speaking, the accuracy of your notes when you time track daily is between 67% and 95%, which sounds pretty good if you ask me.

Second reason

The second reason relies on the previous one and suggests that you lose when you don’t set a time for time tracking. Lose your time, money (profitability) and energy.

If you don’t rely on automatic time tracking, like an app that tracks time for you, you rely on your own memory. You’ve seen the problem your own brain can cause.

On top of that, if you don’t set a time for time tracking, you will forget what tasks you’ve completed, when, and how long it took you to complete them. The more time goes by, the less accurate your data will be, leading you to distorted and faulty conclusions and wasting your opportunity for resource and time optimization.

As Niclas Preisner, our CMO, said in the 30% method course, time tracking is an all-or-nothing process. You are either going to be meticulous about every detail or let your day flow, abandoning the need to time track “because you’re too busy”. There’s no balanced approach to time tracking; you’re either in or you’re out.

Methods of daily time tracking

Now that you know how essential it is to track your time daily, let's discuss the ways you can do so.

There are three common methods you can use to keep an eye on your time and tasks daily:

1. Using automatic time tracking software.
2. Using your own daily activity log.
3. Using a stopwatch and a bullet journal.

Let’s go through each of these methods.

#1 Automatic time tracking software

Fully automated time tracking software is there to track your hours without any manual input from you. Such an app is highly efficient, and works well for all types of businesses, small or larger, in-house or remote teams.

Automatic time tracking software tracks everything you do on your device(s), like time spent on specific tasks, apps, or documents, without you manually starting or stopping the timer. Usually, these apps can be connected with project management tools so you can log time spent on tasks automatically.

Why did I choose to place this method in the first place?

Because it works:

• Most automatic time tracking apps are cost-effective in the sense that upfront costs can be higher, but long-term savings when cutting admin time and recovering billables make the investment worth it. 
• They are usually easy to implement. Some systems require a more complicated technical setup, but most tools (including Memtime) are straightforward to use.
• The only “downside” of using an automatic time tracking tool is that you have to do your own research and find an app that is transparent about user data collection. After all, you don’t want to worry about your data being compromised or feel like you are constantly under surveillance.

Fully automated systems are highly accurate, and there’s no room for human error or mistakes in calculations. Plus, you also get precise reporting you can share with your team lead, manager, or client upon request.

That all being said, allow me to introduce Memtime.

Memtime = memorize + time

With Memtime, there’s no guesswork, missed hours, and tasks because it captures ALL your activity silently in the background while you work.

Here’s what Memtime does:

If Memtime seems like the solution that can help you stay organized, sign up for our two-week free trial.

You don’t have to type in your credit card details. Just take 10 seconds to create an account and you’ll be able to download Memtime. It’s that easy.

#2 Using a daily activity log

Keeping a daily activity log is a pretty straightforward way to track your time.

All you need to do is open your daily activity log document and write down every activity you engage in throughout the day, along with the time you start and finish each task.

Over time, reviewing your activity log can help you find ways to optimize your schedule, allocate more time to priorities, and understand what your daily habits are.

The downsides of this method? Well, there are a few:

• Ironically, keeping a daily log is time-consuming, as you need to make consistent effort to record every task and its start and end times.
• It messes up with your workflow, because you interrupt your day to log time, lowering your efficiency and focus.
• You’ll over- or underestimate time spent on tasks if you don’t log tasks immediately, reducing the log’s reliability.
• You’ll feel overwhelmed due to the need to keep track of every single task and numerous amounts of data.
• You’ll find yourself overthinking because you overanalyze or obsess over productivity, leading to even more stress or guilt (especially if the log reveals your unproductive habits).
• You’ll find yourself confused at times because a daily log doesn’t capture the context or quality of your work, like how effectively you completed the tasks and how you contributed to your goals.

You can use a notebook, a spreadsheet, or a digital app to maintain your log. If you need help creating an activity log, you can borrow our template. If you need a template for daily, weekly, and monthly time tracking, you opt for this Google Sheets template.

Just keep in mind both of these templates are view-only files. If you want to access and edit them, go to File → Make a copy to create your own copies of the templates.

#3 Using a stopwatch and a bullet journal

As a last resort, you can use a stopwatch to measure the time you spend on each task or activity and a bullet journal to write down those tasks.

This method is pretty easy: you start the timer when you begin a task and stop it when you’re done, writing it all down in your bullet journal.

I’m not a fan of this method, as it:

• Requires SO much effort and attention, like starting and stopping the stopwatch for every task, and then transferring the data into a bullet journal. No one has time for that!
• Interrupts your workflow, making it hard to stay focused.
• Can have information gaps, if you forget to log data into a bullet journal.
• Puts an emphasis on exact timing, making it even more stressful to track every second.
• Leads to micromanagement of time, making the entire process overwhelming.
• Doesn’t really work if you constantly multitask, as activities go untracked.

If you are hung up on using this method (I can’t imagine why you would be, but okay), add symbols or color codes to your bullet journal so you can identify task categories and analyze allocated time at a glance.

Wrapping up

So, let me be clear.

Daily time tracking isn’t about crossing tasks off your to-do list or getting obsessive over each second that goes by. It’s about gaining clarity and stopping all the unproductive habits that don’t serve you.

Tracking time might sound like a lot of work, but it’s really just about letting Memtime do its job so you can analyze the collected data. Once you spot where your time is leaking, you can fix it.

Happy tracking, and may your time—and chocolate marquise—never run out. 🍫