The Weekly Timesheet is the most silly, over-patterned productivity tool ever used in the history of the business world. We tried to keep it fresh by reincarnating every few generations – from paper timesheets, Excel spreadsheets and desktop widgets, to its latest incarnation as an online time tracking software. Although weekly timesheets are a Universal boring tool did not like, Are still the most practical method we have to measure time.
Whether your goal is more accurate hourly billing or improved productivity, the weekly schedule is just a tool, not a solution. If we want to make more informed decisions and grow our business, we need to find significant ways to analyze the data we have collected. Tracking time is like wearing a fitness tracker. It gives us a baseline of our current health that we can use to bring about positive change. Here are five helpful simulations for getting more than just numbers from your weekly timesheets.
#1
Project-focused schedule
Most timesheets focus on capturing the number of hours a person has worked each day of the week, but not much more. When we add one more data point, like the project and / or task they worked on, we get a clearer picture of what each person is doing with their time.
Why it is useful:
The project-focused weekly schedule provides simple accounting of where our time is going. This is most useful when used to look back on recent days. In the context of Agile development it becomes a necessary tool during a daily standup when answering the question “What did I do yesterday?”
# 2
Weekly bar graph
We are creatures of habit and routine, and when we visualize a person’s weekly timesheet as a bar graph, we see recurring patterns from week to week. In the example below my week is loaded front, with Monday being the heaviest and Friday the lightest. Once I have identified a pattern I can start asking why.
For our company, there are two reasons why the weekly schedule is pre-loaded. One is that we are working on the smaller leftovers that have accumulated over the weekend. The second reason is that many of our customers are international and in later time zones, so by the time our Friday starts they are already going out for the weekend.
Why it is useful:
Now that we know this, we can schedule certain tasks for the rest of the week when we know they will not interfere. More importantly, we know to avoid accumulating too much work at the beginning of the week that could overwhelm us. Your results will be different.
# 3
Weekly Summary Report
The weekly timesheet is usually a snapshot of one person’s time, but it’s also helpful to bring up a summary view of the entire team. The weekly summary report provides a total of each person’s weekly, as well as a weekly total for all staff.
Why it is useful:
A team-focused weekly timesheet shows us how the team is progressing during the week. If you happen to use time tracking alongside Agile methodologies, this report will show the team speed in the current sprint and indicate whether the sprint is on schedule or not.
# 4
Cake chart
Viewing a pie chart of the weekly timesheet will reveal the amount of time invested in each project as a percentage of the person’s total time. The focus is less on the number of hours and more on the quality of each hour. Time is a non-renewable resource – we only have so much of it to give – and the pie chart is the best tool for prioritizing our work time.
Why it is useful:
One of the biggest benefits of time tracking is not that it shows us the number of hours a person has worked, it shows us where he spent his time. The pie chart tells us if someone is spending too much time (or too little) on a given project. And because it shows the percentage of time a person goes to each project, it can reveal a need for better time management.
# 5
Axis table
The pivot table provides an easy and efficient way to summarize data of a week alongside a detailed analysis of time. In the example above we see the total number of hours our team has invested in each project alongside the time breakdown of each person. We can see in which projects most people worked, and which projects were neglected.
Why it is useful:
If you find yourself juggling a lot of projects, this report will reveal early on the projects that slip through your fingers. It will not tell you why this is happening, but it will tell you where to look.
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