Do you really know how much time you spent in your business today? What if you could track that time to use a payroll service to pay yourself?
Maybe you may find that you need to charge more for your products or services.
You may be shocked to learn exactly how many hours you are putting into your business. Not only payroll for you but if you have any employees or freelancers to pay as well.
Maybe you want to know how many hours a project takes.
You want to be sure you are paying a fair amount of money to them, so they continue to provide quality work for your business.
When I first started full-time at Inspire To Thrive, I had put in some 18 hour days. Yes, those were the first of the month days that I had to do my social media reports and invoicing. (Thankfully, today it takes me less time! The more you do something, the less time it may take.)
That really made me stop and look at where my time was being spent.
Table of Contents
Estimating Your Time and Their Time
To be sure you are paying others properly you really need to estimate the time spent on each project
For example, I have broken down by each social media post and how long it takes to produce.
Some social media posts take 5 minutes and others can take up to 10 minutes. That includes creating graphics with Canva as well. But if I need ideas, that can take 30 minutes each to research and come up with content.
Next, I must figure out how many social media posts are needed per month. Most of the time it is around 12 posts per month for most clients. 12 posts x 5 minutes = 60 minutes or 1 hour.
That is the least amount of time, but it can also be 12 posts x 30 minutes = or 6 hours! That is a huge difference in time. So, I then estimate 3 hours per month for each of these types of clients.
If I need to do more or am posting on different types of social media, i.e. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter X then I need to allow for more time.
To take your time management to the next level, you will need to develop time tracking reports, including specific activity details.
The graphics made in Canva have to be resized for each social media network which is easier than ever.
Finally, I need to schedule them with a tool like Agorapulse or Missing Lettr. All these different tasks do take time.
Oftentimes, a client will ask for more posts than 12 as things change from day to day. Or they will ask for changes on a post. Hence, it’s best to add more time for those “unknown” events.
Have you broken down your projects like this to manage your business’s time spent on work?
How To Check How Much Time You Spend On Apps
To check how much time you spend on apps, start by using the built-in tools on your phone. For iPhone users, open the Settings app, scroll down to “Screen Time,” and tap it.
Here, you’ll see a breakdown of your daily and weekly app usage.
Android users should go to Settings, select “Digital Wellbeing & Parental Controls,” and then tap “Dashboard.” This section shows detailed stats on your app usage.
You can set limits for specific apps if you need to cut back. Third-party apps, like RescueTime or Moment, can also give you insights and detailed reports.
These tools help you stay aware of your habits and manage your screen time effectively. Being conscious of how much time you spend on apps can help you make better choices and improve your productivity.
Paying for Other’s Time Spent on Your Business
Paying for others’ time they spend in your business is of utmost importance. You don’t want to keep hiring new people and training them if you have qualified employees or freelancers today.
By knowing how much time is being spent by them on your business will help you to pay them better and retain them for their services. People just wanted to be paid fairly for their time. You can’t blame them, right?
It is much easier to retain current employees than having to hire new ones. It takes more time and often more money to find new help. By not being shortsighted you can save yourself both time and money by retention.
You may have to fill in until you find a new person to take over the projects someone else was doing for you.
Growing Your Business Through Time
Once you know how much time your business needs to accomplish tasks you can decide from there if you want to grow it or not.
You may need to hire more people to grow your business, but you may also need to charge more for your services or products to expand it. By knowing how much time each task takes you can make a better and solid decision about growing your business.
If things get a little complex, the best employee scheduling software can help you identify shift patterns, regularly respond to issues that occur, as well as develop a more comprehensive solution should an issue persist.
Passive Income: Time Well Spent
Another way to expand your business may be through passive income sources. Passive income does not require any more of your time. Once it is set up correctly you can earn money while you sleep or go on a vacation.
Be sure to include the time it takes to set up your passive income stream prior. Then, you can figure how much that passive income is producing for your business.
Today passive income is one of the hottest methods of making money online.
Some people may think that blogging is a passive income stream but as Ryan Biddulph points out, blogging certainly is not passive. You may use passive income streams on your blog but your blog is not a passive income stream.
Selling an eBook on your blog or selling affiliate products on your blog are considered passive income streams. But the time you spend in your business to drive traffic and sales from the blog must be counted.
In Conclusion: Tracking The Time That You Spent in Your Business
I’d love to know in the comments below if you are timing all of your business projects piece by piece. If so, what type of tool are you using to track your time?
Are You Afraid to Know How Much Time You Spent In Your Biz? Share on X
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 12 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
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Hey Lisa,
Time is really very very precious thing so we should always need to think twice while investing it.
Business require time to establish but question is at which point we invest more or less, if you done correctly really you have success to your door.
Passive income is really a innovative step to earn money without investing your more native time.
Thanks for sharing these potential ideas with us.
With best wishes,
Amar Kumar
Hi Amar, time really is precious! I can’t wait to generate more of that passive income because I do put a lot of time into the business right now. Thanks for your input and sharing Amar. Have a great rest of the week!
Yup. This is the truth that most is scared to see. Great post. I’ve tried several things before including rescuetime. And doing it manually can be a pain. It is especially you have a practice for employees to ensure effectiveness.
Hi Craige, yes, many are scared to know exactly they are spending their time. It can be an eye opening experience! I haven’t tried Rescuetime yet, sounds interesting. Thanks for that. Thanks for your input and have a great weekend ahead Craige.
This was very insightful! Thank you! I have come to realize that I do not spend nearly as much time as I should be in my own business. The bulk of my time is spent making money for other people, something that I intend to change come next year.
Also, take it from me, never underestimate the power of automation! A simple plugin or some other software automation tool can save you countless hours, allowing you to grow your business even faster!
Hi Mel, you are most welcome. I can understand how that happens, I’ve done the same here for years! I do love some automations as long as they don’t slow the website down. It’s quite the balancing act Mel. Welcome to Inspire To Thrive and have a great weekend ahead.
Your article worth reading! Most of us don’t measure the time that we invest in our business. An ordinary person spends 8-9 hours a day at work. But, if you are a freelancer or entrepreneur, then you have more than 12 hours a day to work. But, your point is valid to calculate income based time spent at work because it will increase your productivity to invent time in multiple things, instead of on a single task. It is a great tip to follow if someone believes in diversity and creativity.
Regards,
Hi Faizan, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. You are right about how many hours we do spend vs a regular 9-5 job. I’m all about increasing productivity in 2020 and finding how to do more in less time while not cutting any quality. Sometimes less is more. Thanks for coming by on this one and have a great day Faizan.
Hi Lisa
Good advice to track the time you spend on your business.
People put a lot of effort into assessing their results, but frequently not enough assessing the time they put into attaining the results they want.
The fact is, you have NO control over the results you get (although you might think you do)…
… but you have TOTAL control over the amount of time you invest in your business every day.
Focus on consistently spending productive time in your business, and forget the results… they will happen.
-Donna
Hi Donna, Oh yes, knowing how much time everything takes is so important. I like how you mention about the control, – great insight! I have to follow that advice Donna. Thanks for taking the time to come by and providing that valuable insight. I hope things are going well your way. Hope to see you in our travels up north this coming winter.
Hi Lisa, This is indeed a thought provoking blog post. In order to estimate the correct amount of time spent on a project. It is important that project is divided into smaller tasks and do effort estimation for each task. Each business project i handle. I make sure to break down the project in smaller measurable task and calculate the time required to finish the task.
Whether i am going to hire a freelancer or I am managing the project in-house. By breaking down the project into a smaller task i am able to correctly estimate the amount of time. I was able to better manage the time and save a lot of time and money.
Hi Sajan, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. Yes, making things into smaller tasks will really help you understand where your time is going. It will save you time and money in the future. You can better price your products and services going forward too. Have a nice weekend.
Hi Lisa,
I like working on my blog and any moment I spend on it is an investment. It’s exciting really because I know I’m building towards success.
I also have client work so it sucks away time quickly but I can’t and won’t complain. Where there’s a will-there’s a way!
Hi Nikola, oh yes, I’m in the same boat as you with client work and balancing the blog which oftentimes takes a back seat. It surely is an investment in time and money that will pay off. It just takes time Nikola, Thank you for coming by and have a great weekend.
Hi Lisa,
The time you spend on your business and how you spend it will tell if your business will go to the next level or not. One need to adopt new technologies, let go outdated habits and optimize everything according to the latest trends.
Thanks!
Hi Gaurav, thank you! I like that “let out outdated habits” – that’s the hard one for many to follow. Appreciate your input. Have a great weekend Gaurav!
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for these helpful tips. Actually I have started blogging some time ago and from the beginning I was confused how to manage time for everything in blogging. But here you solved most of my problem. Thanks for the time you spend to write this helpful post.
Hi Ankit, welcome to Inspire To Thrive. Oh yes, blogging can take up a lot of time. It’s good to know exactly how much time you are writing, commenting, finding graphics, and then of course promoting on the web as well. That often takes the most time. Many think it’s the writing but it is more on networking and promotion. Thanks for coming by on this one and have a great day ahead!
Hi Lisa, It is very hard to estimate your time that you are giving to your business.I am a freelancer and I give my most time to my work. but giving much time to work is not good for our health and we must to be care full of our health otherwise our business won’t be beneficial for us.
Hi Jacob, Welcome to Inspire To Thrive. Hmm, I thought so at first but if you can be diligent you can keep better track of your time. What time of freelance work do you do? You are so right about our health, without it, we cannot do anything! Thanks for your input on this and have a fabulous day!
Hi Lisa,
Glad to be here after a while.
Yes, TIME is a precious commodity out there!
We all in a way struggle to manage this out, as we know its just 24 hours a day available! Alas, often I think if it would have been more we can do more! LOL Then again that won’t be sufficient enough to do or fulfill the day’s task. You very well presented your time management from beginning to the present. I could very well relate to many of the areas you touched.
Keep up the good work.
~ Phil
Thanks
Phil
Hi Philip, yes time is a commodity, our most precious one I may add. Do you keep track of your individual tasks Philip? Thanks for coming by and have a great day.
I work a full-time job and do the blogging thing part-time of at least 6 hours a day. Somedays, I would extend this time for even 10 hours If I get any paid freelance work. Everything on my own: I find myself continuously thinking about updating older articles or new blog post ideas, networking, sharing other’s posts, or monetizing tactics I had heard or that I knew would help me succeed.
For bloggers like me, it’s a bit hard to keep the track of time since we need to manage full-time stuff and part-time blogging thing. However, I don’t deny the fact of being organized helps us to gain more clarity and become productive.
Hopefully, articles like this pushes me a bit to become more organized. Thanks for talking about this, Lisa.
Hi Mudassir, I did exactly like you up to those 10 hours per day as part-time. You can still break it down since 6-10 hours is a good chunk of time. I spent about 80 hours updating old blog posts here, I did a little at a time, about 2-4 hours per day. Keeping track of your time is an eye-opening event. You may find yourself spending too much time on social media as well. I sure hope it will help you Mudassir. What do you do full time? Thanks for coming by and have a great day.
Yes, Lisa. These days, I’m spending more time on social media just to check out stuff related to blogging, reading and sharing those.
I run an online A2P messaging company full time along with my other partner here in India. So it became a bit easy for me to look after my blog anytime I want.
I hope you are excited about the Christmas celebrations.. Have a great time!
Hi Mudassir, I hear you! It’s not easy having to write and promote. They say you need to spend 80% of the time promoting though I’m not sure I quite believe it’s that high. If you do some paid promotion you can write more. Wow, I can’t believe you are doing that as well. I used to do that though for 8 years. Looking back I’m not sure how I did it either! I’m not excited yet, a little stressed but once my granddaughter comes by I’ll be excited! Thank you. Have a great day there Mudassir.
Oh yes Lisa. Passive income appears to be passive but the creating and connecting we do to boost that income takes plenty of time and energy. The upside? Eventually, when you put in thousands upon thousands of hours promoting passive products like courses and eBooks, by creating helpful content, you will be in so many places that you can pull back and watch those sales grow more and more passively. But even then, you will still be work. Thought-provoking post here.
Ryan
Hi Ryan, thank you. I’m glad you say thousands of hours because it does take time! And after that, you still need to be put in some amount of time. I guess there is not way of getting around that Ryan. I hope you have a great rest of your day there.