Freelancing
How to track billable hours without thinking about it
A simple system for freelancers: one folder per client, a timer you start without opening anything, and a weekly five-minute check.
Most freelancers lose billable time in small pieces: a ten-minute call, a quick fix after dinner, the email that took half an hour. Each piece is too small to write down, and together they add up to days a year. You won’t fix that with discipline. You need a system where recording time costs less effort than forgetting it.
This is the system I recommend, and the one Timelogger Plus is built around.
1. One folder per client, one task per kind of work
Create a folder for each client and give it the client’s hourly rate. Inside, add a task for each kind of work you’d list on an invoice: “Design”, “Meetings”, “Revisions”. Keep it to three or four tasks. More choices mean more hesitation, and hesitation is where time gets lost.
2. Start the timer where you already are
The best timer is the one you can reach without thinking. Put a widget with your main tasks on the Home Screen. Add a complication to your watch face. On the Mac, keep the stopwatch in the menu bar.
Starting then takes one tap from wherever you are, and the running Live Activity on your Lock Screen reminds you it’s on.
3. Track everything, bill what’s billable
Track the non-billable work too: admin, proposals, learning. It doesn’t go on the invoice, but it tells you something important. If you work 40 hours and bill 24, you’re 60% billable. That ratio decides what your hourly rate has to be (see how to set your hourly rate).
4. Fix gaps the same day
You’ll forget to start a timer. Everyone does. Fix it the same day, while you still remember. Change the start time of a running stopwatch, or add an event for the hour you missed. A week later, you won’t remember.
5. A five-minute review every Friday
Open the Dashboard on Friday afternoon and look at the week:
- Do the hours per client match what you remember doing?
- Is anything missing, such as a call or a site visit?
- Is the billable amount where you expected it?
Five minutes on Friday means no reconstruction at the end of the month. When it’s time to invoice, filter the Dashboard to the client and create a PDF report from the same numbers.
The short version
- A folder per client, with its rate.
- Three or four tasks per client.
- A timer within one tap: widget, Watch, menu bar.
- Track non-billable time too.
- Fix gaps the same day; review every Friday.