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Time tracking is an instrumental process to enhance work productivity. By tracking the time you spend on tasks throughout the working day, you can gain valuable insights into how time is allocated and utilised.
Tracking my time has been a game changer for me and the way I run my business. It’s helped me to become more aware of how I’m spending my time so that I can make effective changes to prioritise and work more efficiently.
Time tracking in Excel has been so helpful for me, that I decided to create a time tracking sheet that could help others see the same benefits as I have.
In this article, I’ll quickly talk to you about what I mean by time tracking in Excel and why you ought to be doing it, as well as show you how to make use of my ACE Time Tracker sheet in your own business.
By systematically recording and analysing the time you spend on various tasks, you can identify inefficiencies, prioritise important activities, and optimise their workflows.
This practice fosters a heightened awareness of time management, enabling individuals to set realistic goals, meet deadlines, and make informed decisions about task prioritisation.
Additionally, tracking time in Excel promotes accountability and transparency, as it allows for a clear understanding of where time is being invested and whether adjustments are needed to improve overall efficiency.
Ultimately, by gaining a comprehensive understanding of how time is utilised, you can implement targeted improvements, leading to increased productivity that will help you to successfully achieve your goals.
Whether you’re a solo business owner, are managing a small team, or work for a large corporate business, tracking time in Excel is a simple and effective way to enhance productivity.
I created my ACE Time Tracker sheet to help you save time, while tracking your time (it’s a win-win) – and it’s completely free to download.
Download the FREE ACE Time Tracker sheet here.
Watch the video, or follow the instructions below to learn how to use the ACE Time Tracker.
When you first open the ACE Time Tracker you’ll see a handful of different sheets. I’ll go through each of these one by one to walk you through what they are and how to use them.
The first sheet that we’ll look at is the ‘Lookup’ page.
The purpose of this file is to help you track your time so you can see where it has been spent throughout the week and so that you can make informed decisions about how to optimise your time spent on tasks moving forward.
To populate the Lookup sheet, you’ll need to think of the types of tasks you’d like to track and insert them into the green cells under the ‘Type’ header.
NOTE: Throughout this tracker, any green cells can be freely edited. These are the only cells that can be edited so that the formulas throughout the tracker are not accidentally broken or disturbed.
Once you’ve added your tasks, you’re then ready to progress to the next step of time tracking in Excel.
You’ll find five sheets, each of which is named after a day of the week from Monday to Friday (a typical working week). Each sheet from ‘Monday’ to ‘Friday’ has exactly the same layout.
Starting on ‘Monday’, at the top of the sheet you’ll find a cell containing the date. You can edit this cell to include any date you like using the dd/mm/yy format.
Once you’ve inputted the starting date for the week on ‘Monday’ you can then click into the other days of the week and you’ll see that the date has automatically updated to follow the starting date. (You won’t be able to edit the date on any other sheets as they are linked by a formula to calculate this information for you.)
To fill in the rest of the data throughout the week, you will need to make manual changes to each day’s sheet, as this is now where you’ll track your time and this will need to be inputted as you go (so can’t be controlled by a formula).
On each of the sheets you’ll see a column of yellow cells under the heading ‘Time’. Yellow means that these cells have been locked for editing.
You’ll also find a yellow table on the right hand side of each sheet, which shows a summary breakdown of your tasks (pulled through from your ‘Lookup’ sheet), and the time spent on each task in minutes and hours. This is also locked for editing, so the formulas cannot be disturbed accidentally.
The ‘Time’ column includes time slots spaced at 15 minute intervals from 7am through to 11:45pm. To fill in the sheet, you will need to make a note of the details of your tasks throughout the day under the ‘Task’ column, alongside the relevant times.
For example, if I had spent 30 minutes sending emails from 9:45am to 10:15am, I would simply type ‘Emails’ into the ‘Task’ cells next to ‘9:45’ and ‘10:00’.
The far right column of the table (‘Type’) is green, which means that it can be edited. In this instance this column contains a picklist, which is populated with the types of tasks inputting in the ‘Lookup’ sheet. For each activity you log in the table, you will need to assign a ‘Type’ from the picklist.
As you populate this information for each day, you’ll see that the Summary table on the right of the sheet automatically updates, outlining time spent on each type of task along with the percentage of time this task took from your entire working day.
At the bottom of the summary you will also see a sum of how many hours and minutes you spent working in total for that day.
As well as seeing a summary of each day, you can also gain an overview of each week on the ‘Summary’ sheet.
This sheet summarises the information for all five days and provides a summary of how much time has been spent on each task throughout the week, as well as how much time you’ve spent working throughout the week.
These overviews will allow you to see, at a glance, how much time you are ACTUALLY spending on tasks, and what percentage of your day and week is spent dedicated to which areas.
You can use this information to adjust your working schedule to prioritise more important tasks, cut back on time that’s been over dedicated to tasks, and optimise your workflows.
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