United States | Timesheets

Penny Theodoulou - 09.12.201920191209

Timesheets

United States | Timesheets

I’m sure I speak for many when I say we all love to hate them. In fact, I think I can hear the groans from here!

Time recording seems to be the bane of existence for many, yet so few people really sit down to think of a way to overcome this daily or weekly hurdle. We just seem to accept it’s going to be painful and have the same emotional reaction (usually a groan or a facepalm) at the thought of completing them. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

If like me, you work in a company that requires you to time report, it’s non-negotiable so you must get it done. Daily or weekly, whatever the frequency, we need to submit timesheets, and we consider it a chore, but love them or hate them, they are vital to the successful running of a professional services business. Personally speaking, asking me to figure out what on earth I did today when I juggled 12 independent streams of activity is like asking a 5-year-old what they did at school that day. Errrrr dunno?!?

If you don’t make notes as you go, the memory of an elephant is required to remember how much time you spent and where. Especially when you work in a fast-paced IT environment with multiple projects on the go.

So, how DO you keep this under wraps? What can you do to avoid that moment you realise your timesheet shows 28 hours, but you know you worked much longer hours every day this week? What can you do to make it as easy and efficient as possible to avoid putting the time down as “doing my timesheet”??

You need a system. Something that works for you and fits in with the way you work. Me personally, I’m a list maker. I like to make lists, so I don’t forget things. If it’s not on the list, it gets missed! That might not work for you of course, and that’s okay. You just need to really think about this. What tool do you use most in your day? Is it email? Teams? Skype? SharePoint? Notes on your phone? Your calendar? Whatever it is – use it! One of my colleagues likes to create a task for each half-hour block in his calendar, as a reminder of how he spent his time. It works for him and that’s great. I also know someone who doesn’t track things at all well, and then spends an hour trawling through sent and received emails to remind themselves of what they actually did that week because it flew by in a blur – as it often happens when things get busy.

Here are some of my tips for keeping on top of timesheets:

  • Set a reminder: Be realistic, there’s no point setting the reminder for 4:45 pm on a Friday when you’re desperate to beat the Friday traffic and know you need a good 15 minutes or so to complete your timesheet. After a while, once you have this practice embedded in your daily routines, you won’t need a reminder. It will become second nature and a much less daunting item on your to-do list.
  • Figure out the easiest way of recording time FOR YOU: For me, it’s a template in my draft emails folder. I have a prepopulated list of all the projects I’m running, columns for the day of the week, the hours against each day and a comments field.
  • Here’s my very basic table sitting in my drafts folder. On a Monday, I take a copy and call it this week’s timesheet, so it creates a new draft email. Then, twice a day (if not more) I enter in my time. At the end of the week, I have a summary I can copy and paste into the notes and a tally of hours. It’s quick and only takes 5 minutes of data entry

Project Name

Day/Hours/Description

Total hours per week

Project name / Timecode / other

Mon – 2h attending onsite customer workshop

Tues – 3h Project initiation tasks

Wed – 1h schedule creation

Thurs – 1h project status reports, calls with customer

Fri – 0h

7

Project name / Timecode / other

Mon – n/a

Tues – n/a

Wed – 4h project setup

Thurs – n/a

Fri – n/a

4

Project name / Timecode / other

Mon –

Tues –

Wed –

Thurs –

Fri –

0 – on hold

  • Give the right level of information: Find out what that is from your manager! There’s nothing worse than spending 30 minutes creating a timesheet with extensive notes that no one will ever look at or having to go back and find out more information later if it wasn’t enough.

A Final Note:

Give it time! Adopting a new habit isn’t going to happen overnight. Take your time to figure out a method that works for you.  If you don’t find success the first time around, that’s okay!  I’m willing to bet that by simply trying something out, you will take a step closer to understanding what really works for you.  Failure isn’t a negative thing, it is an opportunity to reevaluate and come back stronger and you will be well on the way to finding the system making timesheet reporting a quick and easy item on your to-do list.  Good luck!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSION!

United States | Timesheets

The form was submitted successfully.

Join the Insentra Community with the Insentragram Newsletter

Hungry for more?

If you’re waiting for a sign, this is it.

We’re a certified amazing place to work, with an incredible team and fascinating projects – and we’re ready for you to join us! Go through our simple application process. Once you’re done, we will be in touch shortly!

Who is Insentra?

Imagine a business which exists to help IT Partners & Vendors grow and thrive.

Insentra is a 100% channel business. This means we provide a range of Advisory, Professional and Managed IT services exclusively for and through our Partners.

Our #PartnerObsessed business model achieves powerful results for our Partners and their Clients with our crew’s deep expertise and specialised knowledge.

We love what we do and are driven by a relentless determination to deliver exceptional service excellence.

United States | Timesheets

Insentra ISO 27001:2013 Certification

SYDNEY, WEDNESDAY 20TH APRIL 2022 – We are proud to announce that Insentra has achieved the  ISO 27001 Certification.