Well, let me introduce you to Alyssa Lang, the Workflow Queen, who grabbed the time tracking bull by the horns and expanded her time management knowledge into a flourishing business in just under two years. She started off making workflow processes to improve her own time management, and now teaches bookkeepers and accountants how to save time and scale their practices. She’s been using Clockify since 2020, and knows how to make the most of it to get her workflows to near-perfection. With a track record of many satisfied students, we at Clockify knew she would have great advice.

And so Alyssa, along with Jennifer Curfman, the Workflow Queen’s content creator, had a sit-down with me to discuss all things Clockify and time management.

Who is the Workflow Queen?

Alyssa Lang is a full-time educator and Asana Certified Pro who helps bookkeepers and accountants in her Kickoff with Asana for bookkeepers and accountants course. Her students learn how to implement specific processes and tech to save time on daily work, so they can focus on scaling their practice. Since accounting and bookkeeping have their own set of challenges, Alyssa does her best to show her students how to wrangle time management, prioritize and learn the tricks of scaling their practice the smart way.

Today, Alyssa has a team working with her, after successfully growing her business and brand in just two years’ time. And, since Clockify has been with her every step of the way, I was intrigued to hear just what about the app made her stick around for so long, and if she has any time tracking wisdom to share.

Why the name Workflow Queen?

First and foremost, I was extremely curious about the name “Workflow Queen”. It’s not a title someone earns so lightly, much less forms an entire brand around it — she had to have done something great.

As Jennifer describes it, before starting Workflow Queen, Alyssa had already had a bookkeeping and tax firm for 5 years. At the time, she was creating systems and processes for herself, to help streamline the workload in maintaining her clients. And, as she created her own systems, Alyssa realized how useful they would be for others in the bookkeeping and accounting industry — so she started doing individual consultations for Asana set ups.

Realizing this could be turned into a business, Alyssa mulled over possible names, Jennifer says with a chuckle:

“She really wanted to be the workflow ninja”, because that’s how she felt! She was going in, setting it all up, and changing the trajectory of a client’s practice. But the name was taken.”

She continues:

“Then someone randomly messaged her on Facebook, wanting to do a one-on-one Asana set up for their bookkeeping firm, and he said: “Hey, I heard you’re the workflow queen?” And she knew — that was it.”

How the Workflow Queen team uses Clockify

Alyssa focuses on teaching her students how to keep their bookkeeping and accounting business sustainable, and lay the groundwork for smart and responsible scaling. And one lesson she always insists on is using a time tracker for everything.

Alyssa and her team work like a fine-oiled machine.

They have systems in place that help them take on great workloads and handle them without a hitch. And according to them, one of the big factors why those systems work is time tracking.

What made the Workflow Queen choose Clockify?

After being curious about the unique name, I wanted to know why Alyssa chose Clockify as her team time tracker. Especially after learning she has been a Clockify user since 2020. There had to be something she was happy about.

“When Alyssa was originally time tracking, she was using a different tool, but the interface wasn’t what she wanted, it was missing some features she was looking for. She soon found Clockify, and hasn’t changed from that since”, Jennifer says.

Alyssa prefers Clockify’s user interface due to its ease of use and simplicity. But her favorite part has to be that it integrates so well with Asana, seeing how her work revolves around the software.

What time tracking features are vital?

The Workflow Queen team is very specific about the features they like and use the most. I was really curious to see how their time tracing needs would differ from say, those of owning a design-oriented business.

Tracking tasks

“Basically, how we use it in a daily structure is… we clock every single task that we do”, Jennifer laughs as she responds, “Literally, my description would be something like: Responding to messages”.

This comment will actually come into play later, because it actually plays an important part in their larger business strategy.

Tagging everything for future analysis

The team’s use of tags was also different from what I was used to seeing, but really innovative!

“We use tags to categorize everything. At the end of the week we will analyze how much time we’ve spent on each task, and decide: “Is this something we need to figure out how to minimize”, “Maybe that can be more efficient”, etc. So we’ll use tags to label tasks like minimize or keep doing, for example.”

I found that their use of tags — not as project or task indicators, but as signals about what to do or what not to do — really smart. That way, they serve as an instant reminder of how efficiently something can be done, or if it’s a waste of time.

Integrations

“We integrate Clockify with Asana and it’s… “chef’s kiss”. It’s so good. It’s so helpful, because we use Asana to tell us what to do throughout the day, and when you can just start the timer right there, it’s such a time saver. Plus, it’s easy to remember to track your time, because it’s right there.”

Jennifer also notes that, aside from Asana, she as a content creator for Workflow Queen, uses Clockify’s timer with web-based apps like Google Docs or Sheets.

Should you track everything you do?

Another topic we touched upon was tracking the time spent on every task. And we mean, every single task. No matter how short it was.

How to tell employees it’s good to track everything?

One thing that really caught my attention was Alyssa’s practice to log everything she did, and how it was woven into her team’s mindset as well. As a part of that team, Jennifer quickly got used to tracking every task, even if it was just answering chat messages. It’s a practice they’re advocating for everyone to try.

But, even if it’s well-mannered advice, the truth is that we’re all put off by the idea (myself first). It makes us feel like robots, slaves to our timers. So, how did Alyssa manage to show her team and students that tracking every little task is actually good for you? Here’s what Jennifer had to say, from the perspective of an employee:

“Upon getting hired, you are told — “listen, you’re going to track everything that you do”. And it doesn’t come from an aspect of micromanagement, but from the aspect of “our number one goal at this company is to be efficient.”

Just like Alyssa informed her new hires, every manager and team lead will be better off setting clear reasons why everyone should track their time. Jennifer continues:

“Time tracking isn’t about: “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you took this long to do X or Y”.

It’s about: “Okay, if we analyze this, is there a way we can help you to streamline this better?” Or, is the person new at a task, so they take longer?”

What she said next I thought was crucial for all of us to hear:

“It doesn’t mean that you’re terrible at your job. We analyze that data to make the company better.”

So, be transparent on why they should be tracking so much and so often. You need the bigger picture, and you need to invest that analysis in something, otherwise, it’s just time wasted.

What are the benefits of tracking everything?

Since the practice seemed to work so well for them, I wondered what it was about detailed time tracking that paved the way to the success of Alyssa’s business. Here’s what I found out.

1. You get insight into your own (and others’) productivity

If a lot of tasks take a lot of time, and there’s a pattern that you can identify, then maybe that particular person isn’t the right fit for that particular task. That becomes a basis for a conversation and identifying what exactly creates a problem.

2. You minimize distractions

I also found it interesting how for Jennifer, tracking everything was another way to combat distractions. In her words, when you decide to log each task, you start to second guess whether you want to move on to a new task or not.

For example, if you want to reply to some messages in the company chat, it may take you longer to actually make the time log, than to reply. Asking: “is this task really worth taking the time to log it at all?” can help turn you away from the distraction.

3. You get rid of the stigma

One thing I learned from talking to Alyssa and Jennifer was that detailed tracking brought one huge advantage over-generalized entries. When they tell their students that they should track everything, they usually respond: “Oh, you mean log it under ‘client work’?” The answer is yes… and no.

With ‘client work’, you’ll get information on how much time a specific client requires. However, if you break down your client work into detailed entries, you’ll be able to see how much of that chunk of time goes into emails, meetings, actual deep work, collecting documents, etc. The latter gives you much more room for improvement.

4. You know where to delegate/outsource (and how to scale)

The biggest reason why Alyssa advocates detailed time tracking is to help you get an upper hand on your workload. With the detailed information on where your time went, you will know exactly what tasks you should delegate (or outsource). And for practice owners, it’s precious information on who to employ. One example Alyssa and Jennifer gave was:

“Let’s say that your hourly rate as a CEO is $100 an hour. If you track time and realize that you’re spending 10 hours a month answering emails, you’re not getting an ROI on that time. You can pay someone to handle your emails, while you use that time on tasks that actively make you money.”

It all comes down to being smart about your time. As they pointed out, time tracking should always be about efficiency.

How entrepreneurs and businesses should use Clockify

Alyssa works primarily with accountants and bookkeepers, but I’ve found that the core of their advice can also apply to a broader audience. Here are some tips, all with the purpose of improving your efficiency. The goal is to get more time to focus on scaling your practice.

Track time for 30 days

When asked about how to start detailed tracking Workflow Queen-style, this is what Alyssa and Jennifer had to say:

“We recommend — at least do a solid 30 days. Because that’s a full accounting cycle, and you can really see the start and the end of “okay, where does my time go in a month”. And that is the minimum amount of time to get a good analysis.”

So, in line with their advice, you could use Clockify’s timer plugin to track your daily tasks for a month. It may be tedious in the beginning, but Alyssa has been doing it for years, and she increased her productivity exponentially. Plus, her students often come out of those 30 days shocked by the data:

“They’re really surprised at how much time they’re spending on more administrative, data entry type of work. We call it ‘being stuck in the weeds’, where you’re down in the muck, doing everything to survive. And that makes it impossible to scale and grow the business, because you’re constantly doing all of the things.”

Analyze the data

Since you track your time for 30 days, you can decide to analyze the data weekly, or wait for the month to pass. With a weekly analysis, you can change your workflow as the “trial period” moves along. However, we would advise an analysis at the end. You’ll get a more realistic image of your workflow.

Once the data is gathered, you can condense it into an easy-to-read report, like this:

You’ll get to see how many hours you’ve spent emailing and meeting, how many hours on distractions VS deep work, etc. It becomes a unique insight into your monthly workflow that you can’t get from anywhere else but your own willingness to stay consistent and track your time.

Scale according to results

Depending on the results you get (and how you want to scale), you’ll know what the next move should be.

If you spend too much time on tasks that cannot be billed, and take away precious hours you could be spending getting new clients, it’s time to hire an assistant.

Or, you notice that it takes too long for clients to send you all the necessary documents, you can set earlier deadlines for them, or find a way to communicate it better.

Most of the time, we’re unaware of how much time we’ve actually spent on some tasks, because there are just too many of them, or we underestimate their scope.

Time tracking can help you unplug long term

Last, but not least, I wanted to touch upon something very important. To Alyssa, balancing work and life is vital. She loves traveling, spending time with her dogs, driving off-road, and just enjoying everything outdoors.

And believe it or not, when she goes away on vacation, her team works just as efficiently as if she were there. According to Jennifer, it’s all thanks to the data collected by time tracking.

“Alyssa’s goal is to fully remove herself from the company, eventually. She can just travel full time, whatever she wants to do, and know that we’re safe without her,” she chuckles.

“And I think that’s 100% achievable, because of the amount of data we were able to capture with time tracking, and the systems we have in place.”

As they logged time, identified their rough spots and strengths, the Workflow Queen team has managed to put in place systems that act as pillars of their workflow. Their communication has improved significantly, because there is no stigma around tracking every single task. They know how each of them works, and are able to find solutions faster. Thanks to that, Alyssa was able to take vacations as long as 3 weeks, and the team was running perfectly smoothly.

So, try to think of time tracking as an investment into early retirement, or at least detachment from the tedious work. This way, you can focus your energy on bigger and better things.

There are plenty of other benefits to tracking time, but the ones listed here will do the best job of rooting time tracking as a habit.

The moral of the story: Track your time!

To echo both Alyssa’s and Jennifer’s sentiments — as tiring as it may seem on occasion, they are adamant about the process of time tracking everything.. You will become a more disciplined and efficient person. But alongside it, you open the door to:

• creating a better work-life balance,
• scaling your business much smarter and faster, and
• eliminating time wasters before they get a chance to wreak havoc on your productivity.

Now, we may think we are completely aware of how we come across to the outside world. But the truth is, there are nuances in our behavior that we’re absolutely oblivious of. The Johari window aims to point out these nuances so that we can learn how others see us, and how we can use this knowledge to advance in our careers.

In this article, we’ll be taking a look at what makes the Johari window so successful, why it’s a must for every working person, and how you can use it for self-improvement.

How do others see you?

Storytime: At my former workplace, my team lead and I had just finished a meeting with some other team leads, where I was pitching a few ideas on an ongoing project. As we were walking back to the office, he pointed out something interesting:

“You really can’t show insecurity like that, you know? They’ll eat you up.”

I looked back at him, wide-eyed, and asked what he meant by that. Sure, I felt a little nervous in the meeting, but I was convinced I did really well for a junior in a room full of seniors.

“Every time you were unsure about something, you would cross your arms and cover your mouth.”

And then I remembered how, at one point during the meeting, he even bopped my elbow gently because I started talking through my hands. At the time, I chalked it up to him correcting my unprofessional posture, but it turns out the gesture meant something else.

“Never cover your mouth. There was nothing to be nervous about, you were good and well-argued. But others can catch that and see you as unreliable, or worse — use it to push you around.”

That stuck with me. Even six years later. And it will stay in the back of my mind for years to come. It’s fascinating how we can see ourselves one way, and believe we are projecting one image, when in reality… the little things give away a whole different picture about us.

What is the Johari window?

My feedback was unplanned, and came about due to a situation I normally wouldn’t find myself in — the Johari window basically emulates this kind of encounter. At its core, it is a model that helps us understand more about how we see ourselves and how we present ourselves to others. Through this model, your coworkers can give the kind of feedback you normally wouldn’t get.

While researching group dynamics, American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham created a method to help self-reflection. The research was published in 1955 (almost 60 years ago!), but it’s relevant to this day.

The exercise is simple: it includes a four-square table, and a list of 57 adjectives. You and a few other chosen coworkers work on filling in each square with all the adjectives that can be used to describe you.

What are the 4 areas of the Johari window?

Upon searching through images for this method, the first thing you notice is that it looks like a window with four panes, hence the name.

Each of these panes or areas has its purpose.

The Open Area — What is known to us and known to others

The Open Area is the area of our personality we willingly show, and that others can see. For example, the qualifications from your resume, or how you perform on your daily tasks.

In my case, my coworkers know what my style of writing is like, they know I’m talkative and open for feedback, and that I’m willing to take on an odd task every now and then, just to learn more.

The Hidden Area — What is known to us but hidden from others

The Hidden Area is the area that is known to us, but not known to others. It’s things we don’t usually willingly share with others, unless prompted, or a situation comes up. For example, our marketing team didn’t know that one of our coworkers had a great sense of humor, until one day we were playing a board game during team building.

She never had the opportunity to show that side of herself in the office, but once she did, everyone loved it. Her humorous side made everyone realize she was much more approachable than they thought.

So, in this case, our coworker knew she was funny and sociable, but others didn’t until a situation came up, and she was able to share that.

The Blind Spot — What is known to others but hidden from us

The Blind Spot is the area with information others have about ourselves, but we most likely aren’t aware of them. It’s the real outside image we are projecting. Sometimes, our perception and outside projection have things in common (we think we are extroverted, and people see us as such), but oftentimes there are small traits or patterns of behavior that reveal things we’re unaware of. Like in my story, the hand on my mouth showed insecurity, to which I was completely blind.

This is essential outside information for our personal and career development. What we don’t know, in this case, can kill us. Figuratively. Or at least, kill our career opportunities.

The Unknown — What is hidden from both us and others

The Unknown area contains all the traits and skills we don’t know we have, and neither do those around us. For example, you can’t know how you’d deal with a tight deadline, or if you’d be able to handle an unproductive team as a lead, unless you’ve been in such a situation.

Now, of course, you won’t start sabotaging your work just to see if you have hidden skills or talents, but you can expose yourself to situations outside of your comfort zone. In addition, ask more people, or friends and family to do the exercise so you can gather more information.

How does the Johari window help with my career?

The main question remains: What does the Johari window tell us?

Taking my story as an example, the team lead (who’s worked with me a year by that point) was able to notice a behavior pattern I was unaware of. He pointed out a Blind Spot which I reflected on. He pointed out I looked insecure and doubtful, when I actually didn’t feel that way.

This is how the Johari window works. It aims to show you what you think you project vs what you actually project. And what you do with that information can bring about many benefits:

• You learn of weak spots in your skillset you could improve;
• You can identify behavioral patterns that could be damaging your professional image;
• There may be positive traits you’re unintentionally displaying (but others spotted them);
• It’s great positive feedback for those less confident in their work persona;
• You can identify which skills you need to share more openly to get noticed;
• You can lessen the tension within teams, etc.

How to use the Johari window

If the benefits of the Johari window seem appealing to you, and you feel like doing the method, we’ll break up the exercise into easy-to-follow steps and offer guidance on how to interpret the results. The Johari method itself is fairly easy and even entertaining to do, as you’ll see.

You can download our free Johari window template, along with the adjective list, courtesy of our HR manager, Biljana Rakić.

1. Set up the exercise

Find any number of coworkers willing to help you out. The only conditions are that they know you for at least 6-10 months and have worked with you to some extent.

If you are a team manager wanting to conduct this exercise with employees, then you can organize the exercise with your HR manager.

2. Fill out the four areas of the Johari window

When you’ve gathered enough people, you send them the list of adjectives, and then do the following:

1. From the list of given adjectives, you select six that you feel best describe yourself in the workplace;
2. Ask your coworkers (or a supervisor or team lead) to choose six adjectives that they feel best represent you;
3. After everyone makes their choices, you can start filling out the four areas:
   1. In the Open Area, you write the same adjectives you and others selected. For every person who chose the same, you put one notch (for example, I chose extrovert, and one more person did the same, so I put one notch next to it).
   2. The Blind Spot area is all the adjectives others chose for you, but you didn’t choose for yourself.
   3. The Hidden Area contains all the adjectives you chose, but no one else did.
   4. The Unknown holds all the adjectives that neither you nor others have chosen.

To get a better idea of what the end result looks like, here’s how my Johari window turned out:

I asked five coworkers who worked with me the longest to choose six words from the original Johari list. Let’s take a look at how you’re supposed to interpret the list, and how great it actually is for career development and self-improvement. You can decide to do the original Johari window (although it’s old), or our updated version, courtesy of our own HR manager.

How to analyze the Johari window

To get the full benefits of this exercise, you need a discussion after the window is completed. In my case, we came to some interesting conclusions.

1. Read the Johari window

Of course, the first step is to read the window itself and then each individual area. While you can do this exercise alone, introspection can be tricky, since we’re very subjective. If possible, consult your HR manager to help you reach the most accurate conclusions.

Pay attention to the window size

The window itself can give you the first overview of your situation. Before you start placing the adjectives, all four areas of the window are of equal size. As you fill them in, you will notice how the sizes shift. At first, odds are that the Unknown area will be the largest. And the goal is for the Open Area to be the largest, and for the Unknown to be the smallest. After all, you want the image you have of yourself and the one you present in the workplace to be the same. If there are damaging habits or behaviors you’re unaware of, you would want to change them, no? In short, the window sizes point to:

• What is the most dominant area currently;

For me, it is still the Unknown, which shows me I need to put myself in more diverse work situations and ask for feedback from other coworkers.

• Which traits you think you are projecting but aren’t registered by others;

Again, for my example, I was convinced I came off as helpful. But thinking about it, no one ever outright asked for help, nor did I have an opportunity to mentor or answer someone’s requests. It could also be that others perceive me as helpful, but it’s not prominent enough to choose it.

• What direction you should go in to improve your self-image;

If your Blind Spot area is also much larger, then you can get an insight into unique qualities you may not have known are there. That way, you can decide on making those traits more prominent by consciously employing them.

Notice which adjectives repeat the most

I was surprised to see that 3 out of 5 people saw me as “adaptable” because I didn’t know if it showed. Like everyone else, I’m not made of stone, and big changes can be scary. Oftentimes, I’ll be mortified at the idea of failure when a change is introduced, and most of the time, I’m self-conscious about it showing. However, I do my best to power through, and I was glad to see my doubts were unfounded.

On the other hand, a whopping 4 out of 5 saw me as knowledgeable, which shocked me, as funny as it sounds. I don’t consider myself particularly knowledgeable, just as a “jack of all trades”, so this was a nice confidence boost.

But, how can you use these repeating adjectives in the context of self-improvement? Let’s find out in the next section.

2. Draw conclusions from the adjective lists

Now, the best kind of reflection would be done with an HR manager present, as they can guide you through the whole process. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t do some introspection on your own. With the courtesy of our own HR manager, here’s a list of questions to help you analyze the information you’ve gathered.

• My personal traits that are well-known are:
  • (here, you reflect on the Open Area section)
• Other people think that I am:
  • (here, you reflect on the Blind Spot section)
• I would prefer it if people saw more of:
  • (here, you reflect on your Hidden Area)

Writing out the list of adjectives in a longer form can immensely help in sorting out your thoughts. It will also provide you with a starting point for improvement. These can range from building and improving on time management skills to learning how to be more trusting with others.

3. Use the findings to make an action plan

Since the goal is to expand the Open Area of the Johari window, you should focus on making the Blind Spot and the Hidden Area smaller.

Use the Blind Spots to find places for improvement

This area of the Johari window gets progressively smaller as you ask for feedback. However, it’s crucial for identifying things you don’t see, but are evident to others.

To bring back my former work anecdote, holding my hand near my mouth was an obvious Blind Spot that I’ve since rectified. You can do the same by asking your coworkers to elaborate on their choices of adjectives. For example, If you find out someone perceives you as an introvert while you consider yourself extroverted. This will make people less likely to approach you, resulting in missed opportunities. If you ask coworkers to elaborate, you could find out you have some habits that send the wrong signals:

1. You always sit in the back at the office or in a meeting;
2. You have headphones in at all times;
3. You never get past a mere “hello” in the kitchen when other people enter the room.

Fixing that habit would include being more mindful of where you sit in the office, or in meetings, starting a conversation every now and then, or taking a break from headphones at set hours in the day.

Use the Hidden Area to learn what you can share

The Hidden Area is all about what we think we are projecting to the outside world. It’s both the things we want to share, and also those we keep to ourselves (like ideals, political beliefs, etc.)

To make our Hidden Area smaller, we need to be ready to willingly share information with others. This can be done in several ways: offering help, asking for different types of tasks, or even asking to hold a presentation or class on a skill you think will be useful to others.

In my Johari window, I’ve noticed that Independence was an adjective no one used. After some planning, I’ll probably look for tasks that are slightly out of my safe zone, and do my best to rely more on myself and my own skills, and less on guidance. That way, I can project the independence I originally wanted.

Use the Unknown area for self-reflection and future planning

Anything that remained in the Unknown area is… well, unknown. No one noticed those traits about you, nor can you with certainty say you possess them. In order to make this area less of a mystery, you can expose yourself to new challenges — like signing up for courses, trying out new tasks you’d normally turn down, and so on. Alternatively, you can spend some time thinking back to old work situations (or even those in your personal life) and recall how you’ve acted —situations like conflicts, reprimands, pressure (both work and personal), specific achievements, and so on.

Jennifer Porter, Managing Partner of The Boda Group, wrote a great article on self-reflection and the right questions to ask to draw useful conclusions.

What are the benefits of the Johari window?

This exercise makes it easier and more accessible to reflect on ourselves and our coworkers. Since its premise is simple (choose six adjectives), people are more likely to share feedback. We all get apprehensive when we’re given an empty page and asked to fill it in with appropriately written opinions, or answer dozens of questions. But with Johari window:

• It’s easier for people to find the words to describe you;
• There are no negative adjectives, making the feedback more constructive;
• For managers and HR, it works like a simpler version of 360-degree feedback.

Not to mention that the Johari window can be spotted even in casual conversation. When I asked my HR about the method, she gave me the funniest example:

Jamie: You just got a puppy? I have two dogs myself. //Hidden area

Hank: Really? I had no idea! Although I did notice you sometimes have hairs on your cardigans. I thought they were yours. //Blind Spot

Jamie: I genuinely didn’t notice that.

Hank: No, it makes more sense now.

In this exchange, we can see both Jamie disclosing something about herself (that she’s a responsible dog owner), and finding a Blind Spot (she doesn’t check her clothes for dog hair before leaving the house).

This particular Blind Spot can also help Jamie reflect on a deeper level. It may make her realize:

• That she rushes through her morning routine before leaving the house;
• That she doesn’t pay that much attention to her physical appearance;
• That she’s not getting enough sleep lately (therefore missing details);

Of course, depending on the situation and the person, conclusions will be much different. So it’s probably best to have an HR manager conduct this kind of exercise, as they can guide people through it and ensure you get the most accurate readings.

Conclusion

When implemented correctly, the Johari window can be the most valuable tool in every employee’s and manager’s toolbox. It provides information about our workflow and personality that would normally go under the radar. These insights are useful, as we can use them to build on our existing professional persona — we can fix our flaws, enhance our good qualities, and maximize on skills that seem to be most prominent. It can help you find better work, focus on learning new things and help you understand better how others see you.

But, all these praises seem to blur the fact that larks aren’t as perfect as the media portrays. I myself being one, don’t feel I get all the benefits they list. In fact, most times, I’m tired, and finding out what time of day works for me, even as a lark, proves to be tricky. So it’s time we looked at how and why exactly are morning larks more productive, and what are the often missed downsides this lifestyle brings.

Who are early birds/morning larks?

Early birds (or morning larks) are people who wake up with the morning sun and find that they do their best work in the morning. They tend to reach their peak productivity in the early hours of the day and see it slowly decline in the afternoon and evening. Early birds are usually in bed by 11 p.m. when their counterparts — night owls — reach their peak levels of productivity.

The morning lark/night owl division is based on the circadian rhythm — the 24-hour inner clock, governing our sleep and wake cycle. When we feel our most energized self will determine which group we belong to.

Why are morning people more productive?

There isn’t one specific reason that makes morning people more energized and adaptable to the 9-to-5 workday. Many websites list all the scientific benefits that come with this lifestyle, but I wanted to find out how exactly those benefits affect productivity.

They have better mental health

Morning larks are less likely to suffer from mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Experts have found that this comes down to sleep patterns and exposure to natural light. And, with mounting research that vitamin D is a mood booster, it becomes clear why larks report being happier in the day.

So, the daylight provides that additional boost in vitamin D, which makes larks more productive? Or is it also the feeling of having the entire day ahead to do what we had planned? I’d say a little of both.

They’re more physically active

With more than enough time in the day, early birds tend to pick up hobbies that involve moving around more. Be it sports, taking long walks, or commuting to work, even. Occupying our bodies means relieving stress, giving our brains a break, improving focus, and boosting our mood. All of these benefits together are intrinsically linked to an increase in productivity, as greater personal satisfaction makes us more eager to take on challenges.

However, research suggests that morning larks aren’t exactly genetically predisposed to be better at physical activities. It can also be attributed to the fact that, when night owls’ energy peaks (8 p.m. – 2 a.m.), there simply aren’t enough opportunities for physical activities. As night falls, there are fewer and fewer options for outdoor activities. Another example where nature is better tailored for early birds.

Early birds eat healthier

Now, early birds are absolutely just as susceptible to eating junk food. I am the first to admit that. But I will usually stay away from heavy foods at night, because I know I’ll be going to bed soon. If my stomach is too busy digesting all night, I’ll probably sleep poorly.

For night owls, scientists observed diet choices are less favorable. Their energy levels can go all over the place when working at night. The body requires more fuel to stay up and functioning, which causes people to snack, or consume drinks that are unhealthy. For larks, this isn’t an issue, as they’re long in bed.

The world is one big early bird

With a lot of stores, gyms, clinics, and everything else being open during the daytime, larks have an easier time managing their schedules. Of course, they will see more career success in life, since everyone conforms to a mostly 9 to 5 world.

Their productivity is affected by how often they’re able to cooperate with their teammates/coworkers, how quickly they can receive and respond to feedback, and it’s easier to set personal life and work boundaries if your job is done before the sun goes down.

The downsides of being an early bird

Despite the research-based benefits listed above, not everything is peaches and cream for morning larks. There are some consequences to this lifestyle that are often neglected in mainstream media.

You always wake up at the same time

I started off as a night owl in my teenage days, and all throughout university. There was something energizing in studying at night, when the house would fall silent, and dark was all around me. Without the hustle and bustle of my family, I could focus.

However, it all changed when I started working as an English teacher. I had to be at school by 7:30 a.m. After just a few weeks, I’ve converted fully, and to this day I can’t imagine staying at work past 5 p.m. My bedtime shifted to around 11 p.m. — if I’d stay up past that time, I’d feel exhausted. Unfortunately, this transferred over to my weekend sleep cycle as well. No matter how tired I am, or how much I want to sleep in… my mind snaps awake at 8 a.m. at the latest.

And this is a struggle many larks face. Even if we try to stay awake for social events, or if our children exhaust us, or if unforeseen events force us to stay up… more often than not, our bodies will rigidly stick to their internal clocks, even when we want to sleep in. And, it can go on for days, until we almost pass out.

Socialization is more difficult for early birds

Did you know that night owls have a more bustling social life, and are more often the center of attention?

Talayeh Aledavood and her colleagues at Aalto University conducted an experiment that revealed something unexpected about larks. They gave 1,000 volunteers phones with an app that measures their social activity through texts and calls. The results were presented as a network with all the links between the volunteers. The more links — the more popular the person.

Lo and behold, night owls had significantly more connections. They would reach out more often and organize gatherings. What’s more, night owls quickly found other owls. To Aledavood’s surprise, larks were sorely lacking in this aspect. With their schedules revolving more in the morning and early afternoon, they were more likely to spend their social media time alone.

And as Aledavood herself said, this was the first research ever to confirm that night owls have bigger and stronger social networks. The working world may be tailored to morning larks, but the owls rule over socialization.

The hypocrisy of an alarm clock

As early birds, we take pride in waking up with the sun (or even before it). But, one forum post about this topic was enough to make me question this pride: how are you a morning person if you need an alarm clock to wake you up?

This got me thinking about the circadian rhythm and how it’s supposed to dictate our bodies’ sleep-wake cycle. Are larks’ bodies really built differently, or are we just forcing them into a lark schedule? I mentioned before that I wake up at around 7 a.m, and accepted it as me being an early bird. But, I also have an alarm clock (of which I’m now ashamed), and a small dog whining by my bed for a morning outdoor-bathroom-run. Sometimes even as early as 6 a.m.

To find out your true circadian rhythm, experts advise going to bed and waking up when you feel tired, and without an alarm. Do this for a week, and take note of the hour you usually wake up, and the hour you feel ready to sleep.

Health repercussions

No matter how much I’ve searched, there are just no conventional “downsides” to being a morning lark.

But, before you take pride in that, it’s important to note: while there are no health issues that come from being an early bird, sometimes, waking up early is a symptom of some health issue.

This may especially be the case if you don’t really feel the energy surge in the morning. Or, if you are constantly tired, and if it takes a lot for you to get going. Sometimes, it’s not your body’s internal clock waking you up, but a sleep disturbance. Waking up early could also be caused by:

• Insomnia from stress, mental illness, side-effects from some medication, etc;
• Physical conditions such as sleep apnea or thyroid dysfunction;
• Changes in work shifts, or
• Your sleep cycle is simply changing with your age.

It is probably a good first step to check if any of the mentioned conditions might be causing you to wake up early.

Productivity tips for morning larks

Just like night owls need their routines to stay productive in the wee hours of the night, so do morning larks. There are numerous ways to prepare you for the day ahead, and I’ve singled out some we don’t talk about as often.

Start your day in a way that suits YOU

Whether it’s through a workout, a hearty meal, or journaling.

Just because early birds have this one common denominator, it doesn’t mean they function the same way. Some of them wake up at 7 a.m. while others like to rise and shine at 5 a.m.

Similarly, your morning routine is going to be much more different and unique. You may draw energy from exercising right as you freshen up, or listening to the morning program on TV, walking the dog, or meditating. Some even find calm in the ritual of putting on makeup and getting ready for the day ahead. The best part is finding your productive morning routine, and sticking to it, for maximum happiness.

Leave a clean workspace for your morning self

When you’re done with work for the day, do your best to leave a nice, clean desk for your future self.

It’s an end-of-workday routine that helps boost your productivity by a little. Having a mess around your workstation leaves the impression of unfinished work, and reminds you of the day before. In contrast, a clean desk is a clean slate for the day ahead.

Have a post-it with urgent tasks

Not everyone can work with a to-do list. And, if you are an early bird who has a problem “booting up” in the morning, a simple post-it note with the first morning tasks written down is a great start.

Avoid making long bulleted lists, as they tend to feel overwhelming when tackled so early in the morning. With one post-it saying “reply to XY email”, or “check feedback”, the morning seems more manageable.

Mind your diet

While morning larks are already labeled as making healthier food choices, there is one thing you can improve. Due to your circadian rhythm being morning-oriented, your energy levels are expected to drop sometime in the afternoon. Since the goal is to survive work until 5 p.m, you should choose lunches that won’t be as filling. Heavy, hearty food will only make you sleepier as blood rushes from your brain to your stomach to help it digest the meal.

This leads to a loss of focus. You’d much rather take a nap or a break than work, of course.

If such a lunch is unavoidable (for example, you’re off to a business meeting), then schedule easier tasks for the afternoon. Something mundane that requires low effort.

Additionally, try to avoid processed sugar in large quantities. You may be tempted, because it gives you a boost in energy, but the inevitable sugar crash is going to make you beyond tired.

Can a night owl become a morning lark?

Let’s take a second to address our night owl readers here, who wish to make a change. Maybe you realized that it’s easier to try and adapt to the world of larks than to resist it. Before you do that, make sure your priorities are in check, because adapting your sleep schedule takes a lot of patience and time.

While being an early riser is healthier, we have to note that it’s not always possible, nor should you force your internal clock to change. Genetics dictates everything about us, and it also plays a role in whether we’re an owl or a lark. So, if you can’t completely transition, don’t think you’re lazy or incapable. There’s more at play here than motivation.

Even the smallest changes can improve your quality of life significantly. Here are some things you can focus on:

Stick to a sleeping schedule

Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Night owls usually look to fill out a “sleeping quota”, rather than stick to a routine.

When deciding on a schedule, be more mindful of your body. Introduce change gradually. If you usually get up at 10–11 a.m, then you want to aim for waking up 15-20 minutes earlier than that. Most people start strong, setting their alarms for 2 or 3 hours earlier, and then either get frustrated they snoozed through it, or manage to wake up, but feel awful all day.

Your body needs time to adjust to a morning routine, so treat it with kindness and patience. Wake up 20 minutes earlier for a week, give it time to get used to it, then move the alarm for 15 or 20 minutes more in the following week.

Limit blue light exposure at night

In the past few years, there’s been research showing that our digital surroundings made it almost impossible to go to bed early. LED lights, blue screens of monitors and smartphones, having all lights on in the house at 11 p.m… they all confuse the body it’s daytime.

Fun fact: our bodies still haven’t evolved from the prehistoric age, where our lives depended on the sunlight. The sun dictated when we woke up and went to sleep. And, since technology works faster than evolution, our bodies started interpreting all these artificial lights for the sunlight and kept functioning until near exhaustion.

Try limiting your screen times after 8 p.m. and have only the necessary lights on. Help your body keep its usual rhythm, and you’ll soon be able to readjust.

Do more physical activity

The age-old advice works, anyone who’s tried it will confirm. The more physically taxing things you do in the day, the earlier you’ll go to bed and sleep better.

So, do some sports activities, find more demanding hobbies like gardening or hiking, or simply spend over an hour in the park with your family, pets, or friends. Walking can often be enough, too.

But, it holds true that night owls can be more creative, attentive, and intelligent than morning larks. If you find that this lifestyle suits you just fine, then maybe you just need a few tweaks. Try following some productivity tips for night owls, and you probably won’t need to change your sleep schedule.

Conclusion

Morning larks truly are better equipped to handle the rhythm of the modern world. Until we completely abandon the 9-to-5, they will continue to find more success at work and with health than night owls. That being said, we shouldn’t neglect that being a morning person has its own setbacks, like sacrificing sleep for a rich social life. But, just like night owls, larks have to make some compromises depending on what they’re after. In the end, they too have weaknesses, and have to learn from them in order to make the best out of their body’s natural rhythm.

How night owls work

Night owls are people who find their most productive hours after some people have done their bedtime routines. They can work late into the night, sometimes even until morning. And for such a long time, I couldn’t understand them. I’d be dead-tired by 11 p.m.

But, in researching night owls, so far removed from my own lark-y self, I ran into a captivating article by Kathryn Schulz. One particular part had me smiling, and instantly understanding these strange “night birds”:

“It starts, as I said, around 10 p.m., when something ticks over in my mind, as if someone had walked into a shuttered cabin and flipped all the switches in the fuse box to “on.” For the first time all day, I get interested in writing. As a corollary, I get a lot less interested in everything else.”

It was Schulz and this quote that set me on a path of researching night owls and becoming less misinformed about them. So, one would say this article is mainly a spotlight for them, while giving the rest of us some much-needed slap on the hand for thinking they’re lazy.

Are night people more productive?

Contrary to popular belief, one group isn’t better than the other. The working world is currently better suited for early birds, which is why you hear more about them.

In fact, numerous research on night owls and morning larks (another term for early risers) focuses more on the differences in other aspects of life. To compare them more casually, both groups are like ice cream flavors — vanilla or chocolate. One isn’t inherently better than the other, they’re both sweet, but people will always choose one or the other.

It’s the same with productivity and people’s biological clocks. Both owls and larks are equally productive, just at different times of the day.

Why are some people more productive at night?

Night owls are a mystery that has garnered quite a bit of attention lately. An article by Rachael Rettner is among many who can answer the question of nighttime productivity. She examined several different studies to draw the conclusion that when we are most productive depends on:

• Genetic predisposition;
• Our brain’s “wiring”;
• Circadian rhythm — owls’ and larks’ bodies function on a different wavelength;
• How our lifestyle and circumstances shape our habits.

Let’s take a closer look at each factor and how they come together to form a night owl’s unique work habit.

Genetic predisposition for late-night work

Fairly self-explanatory, if someone in your family is or was a night owl, especially one of your parents, odds are that you will be one as well.

Scientists Satchidananda Panda and Luciano DiTacchio have managed to locate the gene that basically functions as an alarm clock for our bodies. And since they’re part of the genetic material, they can be transferred as easily as eye color from the parents to the child.

Brains that are more functional late in the afternoon

Aside from genetics, neurological studies and imaging have shown over and over again that early birds’ and night owls’ brains just work differently.

Night owls reach their peak in the afternoon and evening, while the larks find that productivity boost earlier in the morning.

Circadian rhythm and metabolism’s role in a night owl’s routine

Circadian rhythm as a word comes from the Latin words “circa” meaning “about”, and “dies” meaning “day”. It is used to describe the way our bodies function through the day: when we wake, go to sleep, eat, when we’re most energetic, etc.

It’s the main way of distinguishing between the night owls, early birds, and — believe it or not — the intermediate type. Science tells us that out of the three types, the vast majority of us actually belong to the last one. Early birds would be considered really early risers (say, between 4 and 6 a.m.), while the night owls would be those going to bed long after midnight. But the extremes are rare, as studies have shown.

How lifestyle and circumstances shape the night owls

Some people become night owls due to some changes in their lives. For example, some parents find themselves more productive only at night because, for a long time, they had to be. Their kids would go to bed at 8 or 9 p.m. and only then was it possible to focus on their own work.

In contrast, my mother, who had three of us, has become a light sleeper and can’t stay in bed past 8 a.m. She even says how having to get up frequently at night, and prepping everyone for school (including herself, as she is a teacher), she got used to being an early bird.

Lastly…. Some people just love the nighttime. There are fewer distractions, everything is silent and more peaceful. Night owls with ADHD have even reported their brains are less stimulated at night, and can actually focus.

It’s worth taking a look at your own lifestyle, family, and living conditions in general, to see just which ones shaped you into the night owl you are today. Maybe therein lies the secret to improving your work habits as one, unlocking their full potential.

Is it okay to be a night owl?

Our personal conclusion? Absolutely.

You can’t go against your genetic makeup, or how your brain is wired.

And as we’ve seen, whether you’re an early bird or a night owl depends largely on those two factors. However, we can’t deny that the world is tailored to early risers. Statistics favor them when it comes to success, even if night owls are seen as more adaptable and creative.

Unfortunately, having a different biorhythm to your peers is still, in a way, stigmatized. Night owls can be seen as lazy, inadaptable (ironically), or simply as victims of bad habits, despite them trying to fit into the conventional workday mold for years.

Till Roenneberg, author of Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag and Why You’re So Tired, put it best:

“Once enlightened, they [night owls] started to understand themselves (and others) much better, began to appreciate their own individual time, and were suddenly relieved of the weight of prejudice ridiculing their temporal habits: for example, being called lazy if you don’t wake up fresh as a daisy by seven o’clock in the morning; or being called a boring person only because you don’t enjoy going out with friends after ten at night.”

This is why it’s crucial for every night owl to establish boundaries with the early birds in their life and at work. The real victory is in overcoming the stigma and downsides that come with it. Namely, how working later at night affects your body and mind in the long term.

Being a night owl comes with health risks

The bad news is: night owls have increased risks of numerous illnesses precisely because they work late. This is mostly due to those who can’t and don’t structure their work, and end up sleeping too much or too little.

Our bodies are designed to follow the sun’s rotation cycle throughout the day. It’s something deeply embedded in our genes, because the daytime is meant for work, hunting, and socializing, while the night is for sleeping. And even though we don’t live in hunter-gatherer societies anymore, it is still evolutionary early for our bodies to catch up to our modern society. In short — we’re modeling life and society faster than biology can keep up.

This is why the human body hasn’t yet fully adapted to the night owl lifestyle. Researchers have found that among those risks, sleep apnea, depression and anxiety, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension are among the worst offenders.

Source: SpringerLink

Though it looks bleak, this is no cause for panic. In fact, this information can help night owls become better at structuring their time and taking care of themselves better. After all, knowing the risks can help you avoid harmful consequences. And in the next part, we’ll be sharing some tips on how to get the most out of late-night work, while staying healthy.

Productivity tips for night owls

“Owls are at best, extroverted artists and intellectuals, or at worst, people who engage in dark arts and exert evil powers”

– T. Roenneberg, Internal Time

Succeeding as a night owl is possible. For freelancers and business owners, that’s not going to be a problem. They make and manage their own schedules. But for knowledge workers, those tied up in crowded offices, and shift workers, it can be a challenge.

Find your most productive time of night

You need structure even if you’re super productive at night. Otherwise, you’ll easily slip into overwork and potentially ruin your sleep schedule. Burnout is a very real thing.

Try timeboxing to introduce some linearity to your workload. Track your time and tasks, just like a morning person would (if you’re not doing so already), as accurate data is your best friend. Soon, you’ll begin to notice what times of evening or night are your best times to focus. Then you can use moments of lower concentration for rest and recharging.

Keep to a consistent sleep schedule

When I shared all the findings about night owl health risks with a couple of friends, I almost got a unanimous and loud: “Sleep is sleep! So long as you get enough hours in, what does it matter when you go to bed?”

Surprisingly enough, for those who agree, it does matter. In the above-mentioned research on health risks in night owls, Timo Partonen noticed that, even if the night owls they tested slept a consistent amount of hours, the risks were still there. The whole problem was the body needing sleep at night.

So, trying to go for a consistent sleep schedule could help immensely. And it doesn’t have to be a huge change. Deciding to go to sleep no later than 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. every night, despite your energy levels or amount of work, is good enough.

Automate your morning tasks

For night owls who need to be at work bright and early, and have no way of avoiding a 9-to-5, try to automate as much of your morning workload as you can. Make an easy-to-follow to-do list of some mundane tasks to do before your brain kicks into gear.

This could be archiving emails or sorting your inbox, doing some digital decluttering, preparing data or research for more demanding tasks later on, etc. Help your brain out by starting slow, and letting it wake up on its own terms.

Ask for a later start

There is no shame in asking your boss for a later start. Many companies allow their employees to get started earlier, so it would only be fair to try and vie for the same treatment.

However, My Hub Intranet statistics suggest that you should articulate it, so your boss doesn’t think you want to be lazy. If possible, you can discuss it first with HR and see if you can find a compromise. Arrangements like these are not unheard of. Organizations like BSociety with its founder, Camilla Kring, fight for the night owls’ place in the workforce, and for companies to hear their needs. Do keep in mind that a lot of companies still depend on synchronous work. So if your peak hours are at 10 p.m. when most of your coworkers are asleep, getting that late a start will be difficult.

Other options would be to work from home a few days a week, if you’re not already, negotiating things like flex time (thanks to labor laws), or a 9-80 work schedule. And if you manage to rally a few more night owl coworkers, odds of success are greater.

Journal your night-time experiences

We’ve mentioned that learning how to manage your night-time energy would greatly help in reducing health risks. This includes spending a few minutes every day (or night), journaling details that affect your routine. These can include:

• Foods that give you more energy, or make you sleepier;
• Noises that help or disturb your concentration;
• Lighting;
• Distractions.

Consolidate the information after a week of tracking. Are there any habits that could help you start work earlier? Which ones leave you groggy after waking up? What does your bedtime routine look like?

In some of those habits lies the answer to shifting your schedule just enough to keep your productivity, while conforming to the daytime work hours.

Manage bedroom lighting

Night owls can be notoriously difficult to get up. They sleep through several alarms and wake up feeling groggy and dysfunctional.

One research included their subjects camping out in the woods without electronic devices and lighting. They noted a whopping 69% shift in circadian timing, meaning that night owls were affected by their environment. Take away indoor lights, phones, computers, and TV screens, and the body clock slowly resets. They felt refreshed and more energized after waking up, even if they weren’t completely morning larks.

To try and emulate this, you can get a sunlight alarm clock. Instead of noises waking you up, it is a lamp that illuminates gradually, based on the actual sun. As a waking method, completely darkening your room and having only a sunlight alarm clock, it achieves better results than a loud noise out of nowhere.

Take extra care of your health

Clinical psychologist Dr. Michael J. Breus wrote for HuffPost about the downsides of being a night owl. While they are more creative, can be productive longer, and generally have more energy, Breus finds they’re also more vulnerable to substance abuse (alcohol, nicotine, medication), poorer diets, and less exercise. All of this is arguably an even bigger factor in the health complications than being a night owl per se. This is why you need to take more care of what you eat and drink, even more than morning larks.

Eat brain-boosting foods, train or start a sports activity, or even just take longer walks every day. Drink enough water and steer clear of alcohol and carbonated drinks, especially in the late-night hours.

Avoid overeating

In the same vein as the previous tip, keep serious late-eating at bay with emergency snacks. I think back to my university days, and how staying up late to study meant getting really hungry around midnight, or 1 a.m. Getting a full meal back then would definitely send me sleeping, or later waking up feeling queasy. Not to mention I packed a few additional pounds.

If you decide to swap meals for snacks, don’t take anything high in carbohydrates and sugars. It may fill you up faster, and more easily, but it will also lead to a sugar crash. This includes processed foods like chips, most candy bars, and energy drinks.

Consider shifting to an intermediate routine

The aim of this article is not to preach how “early bird is the road to take”, but I would be remiss not to mention that shifting your circadian rhythm can actually bring numerous benefits. Dr. Elise Facer-Childs of Monash University in Australia conducted a research with her co-authors, and found that night owls who reset their routines over time to a more intermediate one reported better mental and physical health, as well as improved performance.

Her research, among others dealing with chronotypes, hope to pave the way towards battling depression, anxiety, and many other mental issues plaguing the modern human.

I think the most fitting end, however, lies in Kathryn Schulz’s words at the tail end of her article, which inspired my search:

“In darkness I am freer, less weighted down, my perspective wholly altered: a kind of noctonaut. I wouldn’t trade my schedule for the universe. Or rather, I have traded my schedule for the universe. You early birds can keep your worms.”

Conclusion

In the modern workplace, night owls are a force to be reckoned with. Their habits may be unfathomable to the rest of us, but somehow work, and they can be more productive and adaptable than most of us. However, this gift doesn’t come without its side effects. Night owls can be plagued with a myriad of health risks, due to these habits. Learning how to structure their time, staying disciplined with their schedules, opting for sleeping at some hours during the night, and avoiding all-nighters seems to be the saving grace.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the risks digital clutter brings with it, and how to start cleaning out your digital workspace.

What is digital decluttering?

In short, to declutter your digital space means to clear out your computer, phone, or tablet (or all three) of all the apps and files you’re no longer using.

It means learning to accept that a lot of your programs, apps, and extensions are optional, while only a handful have an actual purpose, both in your work and personal life. But I can already hear you wonder: “Do I even need a digital declutter?” Maybe you’re managing just fine because you know exactly where everything is.

But, what about all those files you’ve forgotten about, that are collecting dust in your disk space? Just because you don’t use them doesn’t mean they’re harmless.

Why should you do a digital declutter?

Digital clutter can actually have adverse psychological effects on knowledge workers. In this day and age, we’re encouraged to gather vast amounts of information and store them for future use, potential career opportunities, learning materials, etc.

Additionally, there is another type of digital clutter masking as a beneficial thing every knowledge worker should possess.

While we know that overexposure to social media and digital content overall can be damaging to our personal lives, we often overlook its impact on careers. Knowledge workers rely on digital spaces for growth, staying updated, and connecting. We’ve perpetuated the idea that being online is the only way to never miss a career opportunity. And that includes countless social media accounts — LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium, Quora, Facebook, Instagram — be present everywhere!

However, Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, who’s become a household name by now, proved that this is simply not true.

The damage digital clutter brings

In his TEDx talk, Newport reveals that having all these accounts causes fragmented attention and leads to permanent damage in concentration. Our ability to focus lessens the more we distract ourselves or multitask. And with everything online being designed to feed our short attention span, of course we’ll be doomed to such a fate.

Newport claims that this multitasking nature we’ve developed is in direct contrast with what the modern economy values — deep work, and focus. The technology we were taught helps us progress at work is actually working against us, without us even noticing.

So you could argue that for digital workers, the need to be on all platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and others can contribute to the “always-on” mentality that impedes daily work. It’s additional clutter we give our attention to, that takes too much from us for little benefits. We inherently put so much pressure on being visible to other influential people, brands, or companies online, that we don’t even notice how our most valuable assets — focus and energy — are deteriorating.

How digital declutter saves your life

Now, getting rid of digital clutter applies both to your online presence, and how you manage your work (and personal) files, how you organize things, what your desktop looks like, and even how often you remember to empty the Recycle Bin. It’s about regaining control over your workflow, and picking up the pieces of your fragmented attention.

Just like in real life, a messy computer makes for a messy mind. And, going back to Newport’s mention of fractured attention, it makes sense why an emptier disk space would do you good mentally.

Try to recall every time you wanted to download a file, only to find yourself scrounging for an appropriate folder:

Downloads is packed with everything but the kitchen sink.
There are several similarly named folders on your desktop.

You can’t find a suitable place that’s in-your-face enough so you don’t forget about the file.

And you end up either saving it on the desktop, or making an entirely new one-time folder that you forget to delete later.

Saving yourself the frustration, time, and energy on these small things adds up over time.

Which digital spaces should you declutter?

Let’s consider how you can declutter your work computer, but also your phone and personal digital space.

Decluttering your work computer/files

We’ll start with cleaning up your digital workspace, as it is the place where your focus is most needed. Let’s take a look at the little changes you need to introduce, to ensure your attention doesn’t get all over the place.

Don’t be lazy with naming files

Make your filenames “make sense”. Yes, we all want to download files faster and get on with our work, but it comes at the detriment of our future selves.

What will happen when you need to scan a packed folder for that particular file, but can’t find it among all those variations of “17253933625” or “H02QL6-PDF-ENG.doc” or, my favorite, “IMG_20200728_161623.jpg”. By the way, those are real examples, from my own downloads folder. Don’t get me started on screenshot names.

The advice I plan on following starting today is being more mindful of file names. If anything, it makes disk cleanups much easier: I can more quickly identify which images and files should be moved to specific folders, or deleted. We tend to overlook those poorly titled files like they aren’t cluttering up our computers. Until we run out of space.

And by then, we’ve created a huge time sink by having to clean it all up.

Have only several designated folders (or treat them like a to-do list)

If you’re unsure how to categorize your work folders, treat them like a Kanban board.

Limit your workload to only three or four folders:

1. Important (things you need every day, or that specific day);
2. To-do (things you need the next day, or a few days from now);
3. Miscellaneous (files you downloaded for future, undetermined use).

Just keep in mind to revise those folders daily, and move the documents according to their urgency, or necessity. A similar way to categorize your folders is via the Eisenhower Matrix:

1. Important and urgent things
2. Important but not urgent things
3. Unimportant, but urgent things
4. Unimportant and not urgent things

These are just some ideas to get you started. Give them some thought, and adapt a categorization style that would suit your workflow best.

Keep most-used apps in your taskbar

Speaking from personal experience, the saved space on your desktop can help you realize what software you use the most. So, sort those apps.

Simply move the frequently used apps onto your taskbar, and you’ll eliminate the need to constantly minimize windows to reach the desktop. As a bonus, the apps are just a swift click away. Here’s how mine looks:

A small section of my taskbar with only 6 apps on it.

I use Ubuntu and do most of my writing online, so the tools here are Pumble (the company’s team chat app), a file browser, Chrome, a screenshot tool, and an image manipulation program.

Your desktop should not be your “downloads” folder

As a long-time professional writer, I’m not blameless for this digital transgression either. Wanting to quickly get it over with things, I would treat the desktop as a faster way to store my online files. After all, who has the time to browse for the right folder?

But the truth is, those extra few seconds to find the right folder will be better in the long run. A few days ago I decided to clean up my desktop, inspired by this research, only to realize I can’t remember why I downloaded some of the .pdf files, images, or screenshots. Even after the files had served their purpose, I simply forgot to delete them.

And that’s precisely the issue. The longer those files stay on our desktop, the more numb we grow to them, and our brains forget they are even there. The clutter becomes our new desktop wallpaper.

So, for your own sanity, and saving up on clean-up time, use the download folder for its intended purpose, and remember to purge it daily. Or, whenever I need a motivation boost, I just remember the wise words of Roy Trenneman of the hit show “IT Crowd”:

“Jen, [the laptop] is infected! If this was a human being, I’d shoot it in the face!”

We should all strive to be more like Roy — strict about what can and cannot be on our desktops.

Limit which programs will launch on startup

Usually, new software will have the option to launch on startup, by default. And normally we don’t think anything of it, until too many apps begin to eat up the computer’s boot-up power.

Soon enough, it takes ages for the computer to wake up from its slumber. And this just slows down all of your work right from the start.

Luckily, you can opt out of this, and manually turn them on one by one. Most programs will have the option

Minimalize your chat list

Now, this is something I always do because of personal pet peeves, but I’ve noticed a lot of my coworkers don’t.

It’s cleaning up your DM list in the company chat.

For anyone working in a bigger company, especially remotely, a communication app is vital. It’s where we now spend most of our time brainstorming, discussing and, problem-solving. However, I’ve noticed that chatting via an app is much easier for me when my DM list isn’t riddled with people.

I’ve also noticed that, in some cases, people don’t mind this. They simply finish their chat and never look back. But for me, scrolling down an endless list to find out who pinged me is an additional annoyance.

This is why I exit all of my DMs, and keep one or two people that I most often talk to. A tiny change like this makes it easier to find coworkers, and saves you from filtering through a larger list of people. Here’s a screenshot of my Pumble chat sidebar. A before and after, if you will:

Looks much neater, no? Additionally, you can collapse any categories you don’t use. In my case, it’s the channels I don’t frequent. And I’ve made an additional section with all the writer’s channels. In this way, when a notification pops up, I’ll know if it’s something requiring immediate attention or not.

Practice managing browser tabs

This tip speaks for itself: learn how to limit your browser tab usage. You should always have up to 5 tabs open at all times. No more than that, preferably less.

Seeing a dozen or more tabs open creates an additional sense of urgency and overwhelm, even if you aren’t crowded with work. Not to mention that they horrifically slow down your browser’s load times.

Make use of bookmarking (but also keep those clean, neat, and filtered frequently), scan your tabs every hour or so to check if you can close the ones you’re no longer using, etc.

Manage your inbox

Here’s everything you can do to declutter your email:

1. Make filters for incoming emails, so your incoming mail gets immediately sorted into the right folder. You can find Google’s own instructions for that here.
2. Practice “Inbox zero”, coined by Merlin Mann — sorting your email quickly and efficiently every day, so you don’t spend too much time thinking about it;
3. Don’t check your emails more than two times a day, and have a designated time slot for it;
4. Aim to manage your email productivity as advised by Patty Kreamer, productivity coach, in her interview with Clockify:

Delete emails you don’t need any longer, forward emails that need to be forwarded, and then delete or archive them. If there is no action needed, but the email has important information, archive it somewhere. As Kreamer sums it up, the inbox is not a storage unit for unloved emails.

And those are truly words we can live by. So, the next time you open an email, decide then and there what you want to do with it, and do it. No more skimming.

Do daily browser/online cleanups

You can integrate this new decluttering habit into your daily wind-down routine. Just before clocking out, make sure to check off the following list:

Clean out your email for the day (archive, move, delete);

Clear out the Downloads folder;

Close all unnecessary tabs, clear your search history for the day (bookmark important websites beforehand!), and cache;

Empty the Recycle Bin;

Close all DMs from your company chat app.

All of this can be done in 20 minutes, tops. After a week or two, you can even slash that time down to 10 minutes. Aside from decluttering, you’ll get nice closure, and bring a sense of ease to the end of your workday.

Decluttering your phone

Your phone can also be a great little nest of clutter, if you let it. Given how it’s more easily accessible than a computer, the decluttering is just slightly different.

Remove all social media apps because you’ll be less tempted

A friendly piece of advice you’ll find in a lot of online articles and from Cal Newport himself is to delete all social media apps from your phone, and to limit their use to your computer only.

Every app has its web-based counterpart. It can be less tempting to browse through Instagram on your computer, since the user experience isn’t as smooth and quick as it is on the app.

Clean out your gallery

Decluttering your phone is as simple as a few steps:

1. Sift through your photos, screenshots, and other images for duplicates, low-res, and accidentally taken photos. Some phones even have a built-in option to identify that for you;
2. Sort photos into folders;
3. Move your entire gallery to the cloud, and either delete it completely from your phone, or keep the most important ones.

After all, how often do you open your gallery and just go through the pictures? Probably not every day. So there’s no reason they should be taking up your phone’s memory space.

Clean up and manage your downloads

I personally don’t check Downloads until I accidentally run into the folder while browsing for something specific.

And oh boy, every time I’m surprised by the number of files collecting dust there!

From .pdf files for vitamin descriptions, recipes found while browsing, to gifs and images I forgot were there.

Delete files that are old, or have served their purpose already.

Note: One piece of warm advice I could offer would be to not download shady phone cleanup apps. Unless you can find some from a trusted source, it’s better to do it manually.

Decluttering your personal digital space

Decluttering your personal computer won’t be much different than your work one. There are only a few added things to look out for.

Organize your personal files

Move through each of your disks, one by one, and scan for folders and files you no longer use. Try to stifle the hoarder in you that thinks “some of these files might be useful someday”: From personal experience — those documents you’ve written, and projects you did four or five years ago, probably aren’t important anymore. Archive only the most important documents, and toss the rest.

If this is too drastic a move, you can always buy an SSD (a Solid State Drive), which you can plug into your computer like a USB, and transfer everything there. SSDs can go up to 30 Terabytes of memory space, which is more than most of us will ever need. Similarly, you can use Dropbox or Google Drive to store files online.

Sort music files

Nowadays, very few people will listen to music directly from their computers. With streaming services like Soundcloud and Spotify, and even YouTube, there’s little need to store music locally.

Create your personal playlists online and without much fear, because the odds of your internet connection breaking for days on end are slim. However, you can sort music you still listen to into specific folders for offline jamming.

Move your photos

Digital photos can be the biggest transgressors when it comes to clutter. And on very rare occasions do we decide to browse our computer for memories. It’s still an activity reserved for physical albums, and rightfully so. Here are your options for photo declutter:

1. Organize them into appropriate folders and move them to an SSD;
2. Upload them to Google Photos;
3. Pick the ones you like the most and get them made. Buy a physical album (or several!), and enjoy them as an object you can interact with, rather than a digital file.

A similar thing happened when I asked my mother for some old photos, only to be given an SSD which she said contained all our childhood photos. And after plugging it in, I went through the folders, we had some laughs, and then turned it off and put it away. It truly felt like a digital photo album. Which is not a bad idea either.

Purge your social accounts

Your personal online presence can also be cluttered to the brim. Especially your social media accounts.

Just last year, I did a purge of sorts, realizing how chaotic it felt still having my high-school email out there on the web, and countless accounts for websites I only used for two months (if even that).

What we’d advise here is removing all unused accounts, deleting very old email accounts (if I could remember the passwords), and checking your Google profile for any websites you might’ve signed up (and forgotten about).

Moreover, one Reddit user made an amazing online declutter checklist, based on their own experience. Depending on how far you want to go, you can follow either some or all of their points.

Revisit browser extensions

Browser extensions are such a tiny aspect of our online existence, and yet they can cause some frustration. Oftentimes we forget they are even there. I had a language app that would seamlessly incorporate foreign words into my web pages, so I can learn new terms. However, after a while, I disabled it, and forgot to enable it again.

Only weeks later did I find out I still had that extension on my browser, and several others! They weren’t ruining my experience, but they were collecting dust. So instead of just disabling, I removed them. Now I have three I use the most, and it’s the cleanest thing I could ask for. Makes for way less stress when you see just three icons on your toolbar.

You can also take it one step further.

In Google settings, you can disable your bookmarks toolbar (if you don’t use it frequently), and remove the title bar from your windows. Less text = clearer visuals. Like so:

The top one has Settings – Google Chrome visible, as well as the bookmarks under my search bar. But the bottom one hides all the information I might not need, and condenses the important bits, like the exit, minimize, and maximize buttons.

Now that we’ve covered all that you can do to clear out your digital space, how do you put this into practice? Where do you start? And what if you want to spend a limited amount of time decluttering?

How to do a digital declutter in a limited time

No matter whether you want to spend 10 minutes, 100 minutes, or 30 days decluttering your digital space, we have a checklist for you.

Declutter in 10 minutes

If you have only 10 minutes a day, but still want to get the full satisfaction of a decluttered computer, here’s what you can do.

1. Close all unnecessary tabs in your browser
2. Sort, archive, or delete emails from that day
3. Exit all DMs in the company chat (to start with a clean slate the next day)
4. Empty your Downloads folder and Recycle Bin

This short-but-sweet method is great for temporary cleanups. Or until you manage to set aside some more time for “deep cleaning”.

Declutter in 100 minutes

In case you have more than 10 minutes — an entire hour and a half, in fact — then you can do all of the above and more:

1. Clear out your search history for the day
2. Prepare important documents for the next day (in a designated folder)
3. Find and delete unnecessary icons from your desktop (also screencaps, any downloaded files)
4. Sort any notes and to-dos in a single document
5. Turn off notifications, or pause them until the next day
6. Go through very old emails and either archive, sort, or delete them
7. Wipe down your hardware components (keyboard, monitor, mouse, etc.)

Declutter in 30 days

The best way to go about digital declutter as a project is to stretch it out over four weeks.

Why?

30 days is plenty of time because baby steps are much easier to manage. It gives you enough time to mull over the best course of action for you. Besides, if you need to delete gigabytes of files and reorganize your whole computer, you’ll want to have time to think things through.

Analyze what is causing you stress, and where your digital clutter is the worst. Plan out the order of decluttering. Ask yourself:

• What is causing you digital overwhelm?
• Why do you wish to declutter your computer/phone?
• Which part of cleanup would you instinctively avoid or procrastinate on?

Work on your browser and socials. It’s an easy enough transition towards the bigger fish — your computer. Simply apply the methods we’ve listed above, one day at a time. Unfollow people and accounts, delete old email accounts, reach inbox zero, etc.

Clean out your computer files. Divide your cleanups into days. Each day should belong to a different disk, or folder, depending on how bad the clutter is.

Review, revisit, and reign in those habits. Establish a clean-up routine and new habits you will follow daily. That way you move into maintenance mode, making future clean-ups easier, quicker, and less of a hassle.

Conclusion

Digital declutter has become a must if we want to survive in a digital era. While our computers are one more thing to clean up after our living space, they don’t have to be much of a hassle. Simply establishing ten-minute routines every day can already make a world of difference.

With their increased frequency, virtual meetings have opened up a door to a world of unproductively spent time — all because it’s easier and quicker than ever to organize a meeting. 

After all, it’s just one video call, right?

But, even if you don’t have to attend a virtual meeting because most of your meetings happen in a conference room, you probably already know that there’s a handful of problems that can arise if a meeting isn’t planned and executed the right way.

To avoid suddenly finding yourself absolutely drained after several meetings even before your lunch break, we’ve written a small guide on how to run effective meetings. 

In this blog post, you will learn about:

• The importance of effective meetings,
• The main difference between effective and productive meetings, and
• The 8 key elements of effective meetings.

What is an effective meeting?

An effective meeting starts on time, stays on the subject, and includes only the right people necessary to achieve the stated goal.

I’ve personally experienced a number of effective meetings throughout my life, and they all had the same few, albeit crucial, components:

1. They were just long enough to discuss issues or ideas,
2. Meeting organizers/speakers knew no one really liked meetings and kept that in mind when setting times and dates, as well as when presenting,
3. Our time was respected and valued,
4. Only those necessary were present,
5. We were all focused and engaged at the meeting, and
6. The meeting had a clear aim and goal.

An effective meeting serves its purpose. It helps the whole team make a plan or solve a problem together.

If you’re having meetings just for meeting’s sake, you’re not going to get anywhere except for wasting everyone’s time and energy. 

To make your meetings effective, aim for:

• A specific goal,
• The right people included in the conversation,
• A constructive collaboration, and
• The desired results.

Including these elements in a meeting will help everyone stay focused and engaged. You’ll also get the right things done and within the timeframe.

Why is it important to have effective meetings?

Attending meetings is of vital importance for employees because everyone gets to be at the same place at the same time to discuss an issue.

Still, despite their importance, meetings can sometimes be perceived as more of a burden than an effective solution, especially when run poorly.

That’s why being effective isn’t just about gathering people and conducting a meeting — it’s about doing it right. 

But what does doing a meeting right mean? 

Well, it means that the meeting succeeded in improving employee engagement and had a clear purpose that was ultimately fulfilled. 

If your meeting isn’t organized properly, it can turn into a real catastrophe. Without a clear agenda, people can become bored and start whispering to each other, only prolonging the meeting. 

All you need for a meeting to be effective is a clear goal, the right players, a concise talking-points list, and by the end — an idea of how to move forward. 

Without these important components, you would have achieved the same effect with a casual lunch break instead of a prolonged meeting.

Running an effective meeting goes hand in hand with being productive, so let’s see the difference between effective and productive meetings and learn more about their relationship. 

Effective meetings vs productive meetings: What is the main difference?

Organizing an effective meeting can be fairly easy if you follow the right guidelines.

But what makes a particular meeting effective? Is it its capability to produce results? 

Also, is making the most of your meeting time enough? Although being productive and not wasting time is important, it isn’t always the key to success. 

We’ll explain the difference between an effective and productive meeting in a bit.

Let’s say you brought your team members together for a meeting to discuss a specific issue. You know you have an issue to discuss, but your agenda isn’t clear enough. Your team members are confused, and the conversation doesn’t seem to lead in the desired direction. And the time is almost up!

This is where you realize — your meeting wasn’t effective because you didn’t prepare a clear agenda. You can get multiple tasks done and still be nowhere near solving a specific problem. Your meeting also wasn’t productive, even though you used up time.

Here are some tips on how to run productive team meetings:

• Start on time and end on time, 
• Do some pre-planning,
• Define follow-up actions, and
• Keep a conversation flowing.

A meeting that is both effective and productive leaves everyone feeling confident that they’ve used the time spent in the best possible way.

To create a positive and constructive atmosphere in a meeting, include the following elements in your strategy. 

What are the 8 key elements of effective meetings?

So, let’s break down those elements mentioned previously into the building blocks of a successful meeting. They are universal bite-sized tips to give you a starting idea. 

You can then adapt them to your industry, regardless of whether you’re managing a group of writers, construction workers, or teaching at an elementary school.

Key element #1: Hold a meeting only when it can’t be an email

Most industries have got used to holding meetings for anything and everything. And after all these years, I’ve noticed that it’s usually due to the fear we won’t get our message across. 

Even in your personal life, how many times have people called you after exchanging a few messages, saying they’d rather talk because it’s easier than texting?

So, to combat this, always assess whether or not what you have to say, discuss, or ask requires a meeting. 

Smaller fires can be handled through: 

• A chat communication app, 
• A brief huddle at someone’s desk, or 
• A very clear, directional email. 

Here’s a checklist to help you decide whether or not you should schedule a meeting:

Is this an issue that requires a quick solution, a brainstorming session, or all hands on deck?

How much does the issue affect the rest of the company?

How many people do I realistically need to solve this?

Can I formulate the topic more precisely so we find the solution quicker?

What is the desired outcome?

Is that outcome more important than the work everyone involved is doing right now?

Do I have enough time to prepare?

If you’re still not sure whether you’re wasting time on unnecessary meetings, you can also use a productivity tracker to spend your time in a productive way.

In Clockify, you can see where your time goes in reports, analyze how much time you spend in meetings, and check statistics. This will help you make better decisions in the future and schedule a meeting only when there’s a real need for it.  

For a meeting to be effective, decide whether gathering people in a conference room is actually the best solution in that particular situation. 

Key element #2: Reduce unproductive time spent in a meeting

“Most meetings are too long, too dull, too unproductive — and too much a part of corporate life to be abandoned.” — Lois Wyse, author, advertising executive

While we consider it a practice long forgotten in elementary and high school, doing a mock meeting for yourself before the time comes can be extremely useful. 

Presenting out loud, in front of a mirror, your pet, or a plant, will give you an idea of how much time it takes you to deliver the information. Maybe you’ll notice tiny digressions, filler words, or behavior patterns that stall your presentation time.

Also, pay attention to the time-wasters such as technical difficulties or digressions, and try to eliminate them.

Here are some of the practical ways how you can make the most out of your meeting time:

• Set a clear objective,
• Send Calendar invites,
• Structurize the meeting, and
• Appoint important roles for the meeting.

When everyone knows what to do and how to do it, it becomes much easier to lead a meeting from which the whole team will benefit.

Key element #3: Invite only the necessary people to meetings

“Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to.” — Katharine Whitehorn, British journalist and radio presenter

When we say necessary, we mean the right people.

When organizing a meeting, consider only those directly related to the topic. If you’re doing a project overview, then maybe you need only the team leads since they can relay information to their teams later on. Or, if you’re doing a progress report, you can cut down on time and energy by having people send in their briefs, which you can then summarize.

Inviting people who are only remotely connected to the topic to a meeting has several drawbacks:

• They rarely have/need anything significant to contribute,
• Their time and energy could be better used elsewhere during that time,
• Depending on personality, they might be a source of distraction, and
• They might feel pressured to pay attention to information that doesn’t really concern them, which will throw them off and add more stress.

When you decide on what type of meeting you’ll be holding, make a list of people who are absolutely necessary (because of their feedback, role, or direct influence on issues at hand). Everyone else can get a memo.

Key element #4: Prepare meeting agenda and make it functional

“You have a meeting to make a decision, not to decide on the question.” — Bill Gates, Microsoft Co-founder

If you’re wondering how exactly to make sure your meetings are effective, making an agenda and sticking to it is never a bad idea. Without one, you will have a string of conversations leading nowhere. 

However, having an “order of business” of this sort is not enough.

To make an agenda that runs smoothly, moves from topic to topic, and leaves enough space for a discussion, you’ll need to check off a few boxes:

Formulate each topic as a question, rather than a vague idea (for example — “How can we improve quarterly sales by 15%?” instead of “Quarterly stats overview”),

Place the important topics first (people lose focus as the meeting goes on, and you need their full attention),

Keep introductions short (this includes informalities and “breaking the ice” activities),

Prepare questions, in case there are none from the attendees,

Keep discussions to 5, 10 minutes tops if they are unprompted by you, and

End meetings with a summary, repeating what was agreed upon in very short points.

Don’t shy away from investing time in making the agenda as effective as possible. When done correctly, an agenda is a solid framework to rely on. Apart from that, when you have a clear overview of what needs to be covered during a meeting, you minimize the chances of having the meeting derailed, it lasting too long, or making everyone fall asleep.

Key element #5: Make meetings more inclusive and invite everyone to collaborate

What’s the point of a meeting if you’re the only one talking and everyone just stays silent or keeps nodding regardless of the point of the discussion?

Collaboration in a meeting is necessary to keep everyone included, but also to find the best possible suggestions or a solution for a problem in question.

You can even allocate some time for the team to review or maybe add something new and beneficial to the agenda before you send it out. 

Making participants feel more included both before and during the meeting is essential. It shows that you care about their opinions and value their efforts.

There’s always someone who’s a little uncomfortable being an active participant, so it’s important to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts. 

To keep participants engaged, here are a few pointers:

• Try not to sound monotone,
• Have the participants introduce themselves before speaking,
• Encourage people to write down their questions, if they have some, and
• Build trust by enabling an open exchange of ideas.

As a meeting leader, you should do everything you can to create a productive and collaborative atmosphere in a meeting. That way, you encourage your team members to actively participate in the discussion.

Key element #6: Know how to lead a meeting and assign roles

“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” — Barnett Cocks

One of the worst things that can happen in a meeting is losing control of the conversation. Without proper guidance, people can take the topic, run with it, go off on tangents, and derail the whole meeting.

As a meeting organizer, you’ll need to steer the conversation to keep it as useful as possible for everyone involved. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time.

Set yourself up as a figure of authority by leading the dialogue with the right questions, listening to people, and letting them speak — but paying attention to when they need to be stopped. 

Also, think about assigning meeting roles. Letting everyone know of their exact role is important because it makes it clear to the whole team who’s in charge of each segment of the meeting.

Some of the roles are:

• Leader — a person who arranges and leads the meeting,
• Chat Moderator — a person whose job is to manage the chat and provide the participants with a seamless experience,
• Notetaker — a person who writes down all the important information and possible challenges, and
• Timekeeper — a person who tracks time spent at each stage of a meeting to help the leader move the participants through the agenda and ensure time efficiency.

When everyone knows their responsibilities, there won’t be unnecessary misunderstandings, and it’ll be easier to control the flow of a meeting. 

Key element #7: Name different types of meetings

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’” — Dave Barry, author, former Miami Herald humor columnist

Elise Keith, author of Where the Action Is: The Meetings That Make or Break Your Organization, wrote a short piece on what makes an effective meeting. Among her tips, one that seriously stood out as an excellent idea was to stop calling meetings just that and give each type a specific name that describes it perfectly.

And why should we do that?

When someone calls you in for a “meeting about the new project”, can you immediately tell what it’s going to be about, who’s invited, and how long it’s going to take? No.

But, if they schedule a “project progress briefing,” you’ll probably know immediately what the meeting is all about. You’ll instantly know the meeting is for team leads and managers only, that you’ll need to prepare a short progress report, and that it usually lasts around 45 minutes.

Think of Agile development and its coining of the term “stand up.” This is a 10-15 minute meeting, usually at someone’s desk (to avoid overstaying in an office) — and everyone says in a sentence or two what they’ll be doing for the day or the week.

Note what types of meetings you usually hold, and then see what names you can give them so the attendees can immediately tell what to expect. Naming your meetings resolves many misunderstandings and sets up expectations right from the start.

Key element #8: Learn from and build on previous meetings

Make your own notes during and after the meetings, even if you write down just one word or a phrase. This will help you remember important details.

To collect valuable insights, do the following:

• Mark questions that were redundant, 
• Observe how people reacted to your presentation, and 
• Jot down anything in your agenda that gave positive or negative results. 

Pay attention to what worked and what didn’t. Maybe the topics weren’t clear enough, or the direction of your list of topics wasn’t fluent enough.

This is simply to ensure you don’t make the same mistakes twice. Self-awareness is useful when holding meetings, especially because it labels you as a speaker willing to improve. 

Additionally, you can always ask for feedback after the meeting by sending the attendees an email or asking one-on-one.

In summary: Make your meetings effective by creating a constructive atmosphere

Meetings don’t have to be the bane of the workplace. After all, their core purpose is to gather relevant people to solve a problem or come up with ideas. 

So, as long as you prepare an agenda that clearly outlines what you want to achieve, ask for specific input, and direct conversations and comments, you’ll hold an effective meeting.

What tips and tricks do you have when hosting a meeting (in-person or virtual)? Do you have any advice as someone who often attends them? Send us your comments and feedback to blogfeedback@clockify.me, and we might feature your examples in one of our future articles.

Why morning routines are necessary for productivity

Morning routines are the single best form of self-care, and you need one in place to give your mind some time to wake up. Those who condense their routine into 20-30 minutes before heading off to work are undoubtedly doing it all wrong. It’s too quick of a jumpstart to your morning: your body is already in action, while the mind is playing catch-up. No wonder many people feel groggy and grouchy, fully waking up only several hours into work.

Having a routine in place gives your mind the much needed boost before an activity-packed day. So, learning how to wake up your brain effectively will first and foremost boost your mood. And the rest will follow along (productivity, efficiency, etc).

Start your planning around the time you start work

Instead of throwing a wild guess by saying you’ll wake up at 6AM this time, plan your morning routine backwards.

1. Consider what time you start work
2. Consider commute times, and the necessary preparations before that (checking if you’ve brought everything, cleaning up after breakfast, etc)
3. What remains between that and the hour you wake up should be your morning routine.

Luckily, how long the routine lasts can be arbitrary – so long as it’s more than 20 minutes.

Time how long it takes you to do each thing

You probably won’t have a perfect plan right away. Like all good things in life, it takes some time and practice to make the routine just right. What you can do to speed up this process is to track how much time you spend on each activity.

How long it takes you to brew coffee or tea, how long it takes you to get out of bed, do morning stretches, feed and walk the pets, and the rest. And if you have a general idea on their duration, even better! This will be a great opportunity to sort them in a specific order, and give them some structure.

Now, that alone isn’t enough. Another good thing is to step back and take a look at how you can make your morning routine better. The purpose is to wake up your brain, and start the day off in a great mood. And if your current routine isn’t cutting it, let’s take a look at some tried-and-true tips that could help.

Morning routine ideas

The following ideas come from personal experience, those of my friends and family, but also from days of researching the vastness that are productive morning routines. We’ll look at the advice itself, why it’s good for you, and if there are any alternatives with the same effect.

Take a slow start

One thing I have stuck to ever since my yearly physical exam in high school is spending a few minutes in bed before getting up. Back then, the doctor asked me about my sleeping and morning habits, to which I replied I usually get up as soon as I open my eyes, get ready for school and get out the door not 20 minutes after waking up. To which she replied I should absolutely stop doing that, and stay in bed for at least two or three minutes.

How it helps: What the doctor told me was simple and made a lot of sense – we spend at least five minutes getting ready for bed: shower, brush teeth, get in bed, and let our brains realize it’s time for bed. But we don’t do the same in the morning. So, the idea is to do a few stretches in bed, fully open our eyes, take a few deep breaths to let our bodies “boot up”.

Getting up immediately only shocks the system, forcing it to “boot up” as we task it with other things (like deciding what to wear, what to eat, or having early morning conversation, or worse – checking email). Hence most of us feel groggy, moody, and overwhelmed in the morning.

Alternatives: If laying in bed for a few minutes after waking up isn’t your thing, then sit up and stretch slowly, or sit off the side of the bed with your feet on the floor. Just don’t stand up immediately.

Walk the dog (or take a walk by yourself)

One of the first pieces of productivity advice you’ll find online is to take a morning walk as soon as you can. However, if you’re not the type who finds it easy to walk for no reason, then you need to find one. I, for example, have been pushed by circumstance into walking our puppy first thing in the morning (it having a small bladder and waking up with the first rays of sun).

How it helps: It’s a great substitute for morning workouts. It’s easy enough so that you can do it every day, and even just 20 minutes can wake you up and get you going. There’s no need to reiterate how good walks are for you: improved blood flow, increased focus, lowered stress, and building muscle. Plus, walking my dog, I get to take in the chill of the morning, how quiet the neighborhood is at that hour, and maybe we run into another dog to play with.

Alternatives: If you don’t have a dog to walk, try walking to the nearest coffee shop for a cup to go, or to the corner shop or the bakery for breakfast, or the newspaper. Just find a small reason to take a brief walk, and turn it into a pleasant waking up ritual.

Start with something you enjoy

Consider starting the day off by doing something you enjoy. This is to kick off your morning on a positive note. Whatever your hobbies include, try switching them from “after work” to “before work”. If you like to write, write a single page of a random scene, or just note down your thoughts. Draw a few sketches as you drink your morning coffee, browse your favorite app or play a video game (in short bursts, of course). All you need is 15-20 minutes of it.

How it helps: In order to be productive, you need to be mentally ready to tackle the day ahead. And if you wake up with the idea of work weighing on you, then you need to find an activity you’ll look forward to.

Morning news

Lately, we’ve seen that news can be the bearer of bad tidings, especially in the past few years. But, if you carefully curate the content you follow, it can be beneficial. To this day I remember school mornings that would start off with me walking into the living room as mom made coffee and the morning program was playing on TV. The weather forecast, city events, various guests, etc. Hearing the hosts just made the house seem more… alive, in a way.

How it helps: If you live alone, TV is great at being the white noise to fill up otherwise eerily quiet space. The same goes for your computer, phone, or tablet. Just by not using your earphones, and the sound coming from the speakers, you hear the hosts as if they are in the room with you. And the content keeps you updated, engaged, and makes the whole morning less lonely.

Alternatives: Play a music channel, listen to a podcast or the radio, play a YouTube video from a creator you like. Any kind of productivity podcast or channel that can kick your brain into gear is a great way to start the day right.

Do things with mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of staying present in the moment as you perform an activity. Therapists often use it to help their clients: usually through guided breathing exercises. The goal of these exercises is to ground people who have the habit of overthinking, or are unable to “get out of their own head” due to stress and anxiety.

You can introduce it into your morning routine even if you don’t have the above mentioned issues. It’s still a wonderful way to start the day focused and ready to tackle bigger challenges.

How it helps: It teaches your brain, day by day, to focus on the little things, instead of kicking off the day worrying over what’s to come.

Alternatives:

• Do a mindful breathing exercise – as you inhale deeply, focus on feeling the air traveling down to your lungs, and as you exhale. Pay attention to your stomach rising and falling as you breathe. Do this for one minute.
• As you make breakfast or coffee – take your time, and observe the details, like the color of your crockery, the smell of food or the brewing drink, the heat on your hands, etc.
• Outside noises and sights – what is happening outside your living space? Listen to the traffic, the children going to school, people passing by, the weather and animals,…

Create a morning playlist

Music can be the best mood booster to any day. There are countless studies that prove its effectiveness, and we see it every day in our own lives. We all have songs that we remember fondly, or that take us back to some emotional moments in our lives.

How it helps: A morning playlist (or several for different days), provides pleasant background noise, works as a mood booster, and will most likely get your body moving, as well.

Alternatives: If you’re not a fan of creating playlists, you can opt for premade ones on YouTube or Spotify. You can find whatever you want online, as playlists have grown increasingly detailed (which is humorous, at the same time). Like a playlist that makes you feel like a 19th century villain or a 9AM jazz playlist.

Wim Hof method

Wim Hof, a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete, made himself famous with his enthused recommendations of ice baths. In fact, his extraordinary feat of meditating in ice water for 1 hour and 53 minutes remains baffling to this day. For some, his methods may seem too much like holistic medicine. But no one can deny that his breathing exercises and guided meditations aren’t a big help in tackling your day-to-day life.

The Wim Hof method usually refers to his combined practice of breathing, meditation, and exposure to cold. However, for a morning ritual, I believe breathing would be enough:

1. Right after waking up, sit in a meditative pose
2. Do 30 power breaths (long inhales through the nose, and short bursts of exhales)
3. Hold breath for one minute
4. Breathe in and hold for 10 seconds and repeat 3 more times
5. Optional: have a cold shower

How it helps: Hoff himself adheres to this routine, and swears by it – so do people who follow those power breathing exercises. We are unaware of it, but during the day, our breathing patterns are highly irregular. In fact, it is known that we only breathe properly while we sleep – deep, controlled breaths. And it helps us relax and loosen the tension in our bodies.

Which is why we need exercises like this one to help us achieve that same effect in our waking state.

Leave some buffer time (for unexpected events or tasks)

Buffer time is an arbitrary amount of time free of any activity that comes in handy when something unplanned pops up. 

So, when planning your day, make sure to leave additional time in a schedule reserved for unexpected events.

How it helps: Knowing you have some free, unscheduled time for any routine tasks alleviates some pressure. In the back of your mind, you’ll know there is that time slot, should you need it. Relying on that buffer, there’s no need to worry if you can manage everything. And if nothing comes up, then you can use that buffer time to start work early, or just rest a little longer.

Famous morning routine tips

It’s hard not to get curious about other people’s routines, especially successful ones. We always want to know how they do it: actors, musicians and entrepreneurs balancing complex tasks and busy schedules with personal lives.

So I dove a little in the search of some morning routines that resonated with me and, I hope, will resonate with you as well.

Richard Branson: include your family

The founder of the Virgin Group, and famous business magnate, Richard Branson includes his family in his morning routine. After waking up at 5AM, and some exercise, he sets aside time to reconnect:

“Then I eat breakfast and spend time with my family. Exercise and family time put me in a great mind frame before getting down to business.”

Richard Branson

Having your family be a piece of your morning routine can be healing, so long as you find some activity that suits everyone involved. Be it breakfast, coffee, taking a walk together, or commuting to work/school.

Jessica Alba: everything is easier with friends

Jessica Alba, despite being one of the most prolific actresses, seems to have a tough time holding to some rituals, when left to her own devices.

In an interview for an online magazine, Alba mentioned how she likes to exercise with friends, because it’s more fun. And if they are unavailable, she’ll opt for a group session.

You can do the same, but let’s say, taking a morning walk with your dog with a friend or a neighbor who also walks their dog at that time. Or take them for a workout together, or have morning coffee with them.

Audrey Hepburn: never missed breakfast

One of the most humanitarian actresses, and an icon of her age, Audrey Hepburn stuck to one simple rule on mornings – never skip breakfast.

She would have toast and eggs, and coffee with milk. Even if she didn’t feel like eating, she would have at least something, knowing she would need energy to get her through the day.

If at all possible, work on including something similar in your morning routine. A constant activity like this gives an easy introduction to your day, works as a comforting, familiar ritual, while providing you with energy for what’s to come. A simple piece of toast and a beverage can go a long way.

Steve Jobs: don’t lose sight of your dreams

With no special introduction needed, Steve Jobs gave what is now his most famous speech, to a class of graduates at Stanford in 2005:

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

Source: Stanford News

What we can adopt from this is the same question Jobs asked himself: would I want to do what I am about to do today? Start your day with evaluation. Do you like what you are doing? Are your current tasks and activities leading you there? What can you do to change or improve your situation?

Self-reflection is a great practice, and important as an early warning when your life may be becoming stagnant.

Mozart: the beauty of primping

In 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a letter to his sister, in which he discussed his daily schedule. Among other things, what caught many eyes was his morning routine:

“At six o’clock in the morning I have my hair dressed, and have finished my toilet by seven o’clock. I write till nine. From nine to one I give lessons.”

Source: cnbc.com

Mozart was apparently very fond of self-care and grooming himself for a full hour. And personally, it’s something I’d like to adopt in the future.

We usually compromise for a shower, washing our faces and teeth brushing (and quick makeup if we work in an office). However, how well would it be if we set aside at least half an hour for a longer shower, skin care, and just… making sure to nurture our bodies with something other than healthy food?

It’s definitely something to look into, because in the end, how productive you are depends on how good you feel. And what better way to boost mood than to pamper yourself?

Toni Morrison: greet the morning

Toni Morrison was an incredible novelist, essayist, and a Pulitzer prize winner. Her daily routine was a delight to read, and it was interesting to see how it shifted together with her circumstances: when her children were small and after they had grown up. One thing remained consistent, though, that she was an early riser:

“I, at first, thought I didn’t have a ritual, but then I remembered that I always get up and make a cup of coffee and watch the light come. And I realized that for me this ritual comprises my preparation to enter a space I can only call nonsecular… Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transaction. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives.”

Source: The Daily Routines Blog

For Morrison, the rising sun has a transformative effect. Maybe there is something in the peace and quiet as nighttime transitions to daytime. It’s worth looking into this or similar rituals for your morning routine.

Conclusion

Morning routines for productivity are all about waking up your mind alongside your body, and giving yourself a mood boost. Instead of scrounging up more time so that we can get to work faster, or be more efficient, it’s time we focus on building healthier long term habits. They can boost our mental health significantly, and in turn make us more resilient to stress, and more satisfied with our lives. Productivity, efficiency, and success all stem from these solid foundations.

If you’re among those who are still not convinced of their effectiveness, we’ve compiled a list of benefits digital timesheets bring, and how they can turn your work life upside down – for the better, of course.

The biggest issues with paper timesheets and punch cards

To highlight how paper timesheets can cost you money, time, and energy, we’ll use an example. Take a look at the timesheet below.

Example of a timesheet from amherst.edu

While we’re not trying to say that paper timesheets are bad (for some individuals and companies it works much better), we are very much pro-digitalization. And while the above timesheet is nicely filled out, there are several weak points for mistakes.

Of course, their digital equivalents present their own sets of challenges, but they’re much more easily caught in time and timesheet mistakes are more easily minimized.

They cover too broad of a period

While two-week timesheets aren’t uncommon, when they’re in a written form like this, you don’t get to see much detail about a person’s workday. What you get are numbers, and some bare-bones information.

This is fine if you’re at a job that puts more emphasis on your presence, or that others don’t rely on your work, or you simply provide timesheets to accounting to calculate your payroll.

There’s more room for human error and exploitation

When timesheets are filled out by hand and rely solely on noting down time, there are several openings for issues:

• A person’s handwriting is illegible;
• The way they round up time is wrong, compromising the time entries;
• They fill out the fields wrong;
• Calculating payroll requires more focus, since slip-ups are easier to make;
• A person can forget or purposefully omit writing down a task or a break.

With paper timesheets, there will always be a way to cheat the system. In one of my old workplaces, we didn’t fill out timesheets as such, but we did have company ID card readers at the main and back door (where we had our breaks). These card readers would unlock the door, so the system would know when you entered and left the building (started and ended your workday, and when you took breaks).

Needless to say that soon, you could see groups of five people going on a smoke break, with one saying: “This break is on me!” while unlocking the door, while the rest of them didn’t even scan their IDs (thus their breaks went unregistered). In many cases, employers are left struggling to find the best way to track their employees’ hours.

The moral of the story is: some people will find ways to skirt the rules, and outdated timekeeping systems make it that much easier for them, while you suffer the losses.

Additional work for other departments

For managers and team leads, paper timesheets can be a nightmarish archive to go through in times when they have to make project assessments or check how their teams are faring overall. And bare-bones information like the time they entered and exited the building won’t help much. For them, time entries with a little more detail and collective timesheets are much more useful.

For accountants, a timesheet like the one in our example seems to save a lot of time, as the person had already calculated their payroll. However, it’s safe to guess that the accountant will go through the math again, to make sure everything is by the book. Not to mention inputting the same data in their own software or books. This just doubles the work, and unnecessarily so.

For freelancers, a timesheet like this works to their detriment. Clients will often ask for some kind of breakdown of their processes and deadlines. While the freelancer has the right to give as little information as they want, a big part of trust relies on transparency. Being able to show your client how much time you spend per day on each part of their project is invaluable. It builds a better understanding and helps you justify your rates.

You spot issues too late

Imagine an employee approaches you and lays out an issue they’ve had with their teammate for weeks now. They were reluctant to say anything at first, wanting to solve the problem on their own, or not cause a ruckus. The teammate was consistently late with their part of the project, making up excuses and delivering subpar results. There are several big red flags here:

1. The problem was there for weeks, and you were unaware of it;
2. You need to go through tons of timesheets to collect evidence to confront the employee;
3. You’ll have to make new project estimates manually while the deadline approaches fast.

For freelancers, the problem is similar: a client wishes to push back a deadline or accuses you of taking too long. So, to back yourself up, you’ll need to spend significant time going through all the papers (or books), manually searching up the information you need. All the while hoping you kept count of everything.

With all that being said, simply introducing a digital timesheet and time tracker, you can prevent all of these issues, and get your returns tenfold.

Reasons to use digital timesheets

In this section, we’ll focus on the multiple benefits of digital timesheets for you (or your business). And by the end of the list, you’ll see how indispensable a single piece of software can become.

They let you edit timesheets and time entries

WIth a digital timesheet, there is an option of editing the description of each time entry. This is perfect for adding details about the task related to that entry. Information like the tools used, or who assigned the task, etc.

While you can argue that the same is available on a paper timesheet, there are always issues of illegibility and people punching in or filling in for their coworkers (risk of time theft). But with a digital time tracker and timesheet, you get three solutions to these problems:

1. It’s easier to delete and fix a time entry digitally than it is on paper;
2. Each employee has their own login credentials, so they can’t write up time for each other, and
3. Employers can lock the editing option in the software itself. This means the employees will require approval before editing a time entry, which is great for preventing time theft.

Time entry editing in Clockify

There are also numerous timesheet templates for those who don’t want to install a separate software but like the idea of having a clean-cut, digitized account of everyone’s times.

Better overview of everyone and everything

This is the age of transparency and accountability. And with paper timesheets, you don’t have that luxury.

Digital timesheets let you see what everyone is doing in real time. It’s much easier to look up a specific employee to see their availability, track project progress and how well the work time lines up with your estimates.

In the above example, you can see which employee works on what project, and you can even search through the timesheets for a specific employee.

You will easily stay on top of project estimates

Every project will require you to make time estimates which affect every aspect of it: how you allocate budget as the project moves along, which teammates are available for what, which tasks are affecting the deadlines, how priorities shift, and more.

With paper timesheets, following how well the project is following your estimates can be tricky. There is a delay in information processing, and it’s simply longer and more taxing to go through everything.

Digital timekeeping, on the other hand, makes everything instantaneous. The software is designed to deliver to you any information you need as fast as possible. After you input the information needed – like time and budget estimates in this case, the software can track all the time entries employees make and compare them to your estimates.

Tracking project estimates in Clockify.

You get the option of following the project’s progression as it moves along, and see if you’re ahead, or delayed. And it delivers that information whenever you want, within minutes. It’s all a matter of letting the software do all the heavy lifting.

Problems are easier to spot

After mentioning estimates, it’s only logical we beeline to the subject of project delays, and how digital timesheets can help you prevent them.

Some of the biggest reasons for late deadlines include:

• Lack of motivation or productivity;
• Task assignment problems;
• Overwhelmed employees;
• Unreasonable client requests, etc.

Would you believe that nearly all of those issues can be averted with the help of timesheets?

It’s simple.

Instead of only using a timesheet showing when someone entered and exited the office at the end of the day, real-time tracking helps you spot a rising problem days or even weeks ahead. The moment someone’s task is taking longer, or stays on hold more than needed, you can act on the spot and get to the root cause.

Not to mention that having a project estimate report just a click away can help you see if a particular deadline will be difficult to meet even weeks ahead. So you can contact your clients and let them know accordingly, instead of facing unpleasant belated emails and calls.

More accurate timekeeping

With a digital time tracker, your timesheets will become as detailed as you want them to be.

Modern time trackers give you the option of

• Labeling your time entries, so you know what type of work you did

(accounting, meetings, development, testing, project brainstorming, etc.)

• Integrating with other apps you use

(Web browser, accounting software, project management tool, etc.)

On both accounts, each entry you make has the option to specify the kind of work you did. And normally, all you have to do is input the information once, and it will transfer to all your future entries.

One amazing benefit when it comes to accuracy is in the option to directly create a time entry from your online calendar. Like so:

As you can see above, a digital time tracker can work hand-in-hand with your calendar. When you connect the two, there’s no need to manually enter data in your time entry for that specific task on your list. The “Meeting with Client X” in the above picture shows that, with one click on the ‘play’ button, you start the timer for that task. And when you’re done, the time entry goes right to the timesheet.

As simple as that!

Less room for human error and less hassle for everyone involved

Let’s take a look at another example of a paper timesheet:

Example of paper timesheet from Psychology.illinois.edu

We’ve mentioned that these serve a specific purpose: simply noting down hours worked for easier payroll calculation.

And at the same time, this means some (if not most) people will skim through the fields asking what type of task was being done in that time slot. Additionally, the supervisors could just quickly sign these timesheets to go through the lot, and leave them aside for later. It also requires legible handwriting, and avoiding any damage (like stains and rips in the paper).

With a digital timesheet, very little of its completion depends on the employees and supervisors. While the time entries still need to be filled in, the software does the rest: calculating payroll, extracting information, formulating reports, searching specific entries, and even presenting an overview of everyone’s tasks and times spent at work.

Reports are one click away

Last, but not least – reporting on project progress. With everything mentioned before, the software is being fed enough information to generate a complex, data-rich view of everything you could want:

• Who worked on what task and overall task delegation;
• Hours worked in general;
• Project progress, time remaining, budget and expenses;
• Time saved and time wasted;
• Billable vs non-billable hours, and more.

And for client rapport, documents like these are vital. Timekeeping software allows you to get all this information from your digital timesheets with a blink of an eye. Which comes in handy when a client calls you wanting a meeting about the project first thing in the morning.

Conclusion

The upsides to having a digital timesheet are too many to count. We’ve covered just some that seem to persist with paper timesheets, in hopes of illustrating how they can make your work life easier. There’s less room for human error, they speed up every process, make payroll calculation and project tracking easier… And digital trackers only seem to get better and better with time. So why not modernize and save yourself a lot of money, time, and resources?

So, let’s discuss it.

How on earth can productivity be toxic?

We know that generally, being productive means we are working to our fullest potential, making strides in our career, and overall contributing to greater satisfaction with our lives.

However, productivity actually has its dark side that, unless we’re really cautious, easily steps in and gradually takes over our life. And it’s all because of the image of the ideal productive worker.

This article came about after watching one insightful YouTube video by user 1Dime called “Burnout Society”. In the video, they explore the idea of productivity, and how we’ve allowed ourselves to normalize workaholism. While the author focuses more on the implications this has on society as a whole, and how only companies, not employees, benefit from this hustle culture, their mention of toxic productivity really piqued my interest.

Toxic productivity will have you convinced that you are a bad worker unless you fulfill a very restrictive, single-track image of the ideal. And from there, it only has to sit back and watch you work yourself to the bone for the betterment of the company, chasing an unachievable ideal.

Source: Clockify.me

It can make you suffer for success

In the video, the author notices how suffering and fantasy go hand in hand to keep us working hard despite all the signs we need to hit the brakes.

Suffering for success — Phrases like “no pain no gain”, and “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” originally aimed to make light of difficult situations. But within hustle culture, they’re used to convince us that we can’t reach any progress without significant sacrifice. Thus getting us used to the grind.

Fantasy — Perpetrated by a lot of self-proclaimed life gurus, coaches, and loud entrepreneurs who “earned their first million” in a snap, usually reinforcing the idea of suffering first (e.g. surviving on ramen for a year to get his business off the ground which now makes them millions). This dream of one day ending our struggles and achieving success pushes us past our limits.

Together, suffering and fantasy create the ideal worker — one who keeps a single goal in mind and will stop at nothing to achieve it if they want to be happy and fulfilled. Toxic productivity thrives on those who can’t achieve this ideal. Because then they need self-help courses, books, YouTube videos, and coaches to achieve it. They’re convinced something is wrong with them.

Hence working to the bone, ignoring physical and mental burnout signs, and continuing to watch motivational talks to temporarily fix the problem.

What helps here is consciously approaching your habits and taking note of those that are big red flags your productivity has been “twisted”.

Signs that you’ve entered toxic productivity

Learn the signs before you’re in too deep and burn yourself out.

You feel guilty when resting or taking breaks

Follow your thoughts during break times.

How does your brain behave, so to say? Time how long it takes before the first question pops up: “Why are we on a break? There’s so much to be done!” An overly active brain urging you to get back to work during a 15-minute break is not a good sign.

Also, reflect on your self-talk. Do you live in the realm of “could”, “should” and “would”? In an interview we had with artist Katy Arrington some time ago, she shared that this kind of thinking and self-talk is hugely unproductive.

Bullying yourself into doing something or scolding yourself for not having done something only kills your drive moving forward. What’s more, it makes you miserable.

Anything not focused on work and growth is “a waste of time”

This is a symptom I had personally experienced, and it succeeded in eradicating my favorite hobby.

When starting my MA studies, the idea of having a full-time job to help my parents and become financially independent at 22 started to creep in. But, instead of motivating me to find what I would like to work as, the search became far more serious. I wanted to get the best paying job my education allowed, and it had to be something I would be proud of.

Already, I had in my head the image of the perfect productive job hunter, inspired by my fellow student friends who were also starting to get jobs. Anything less than what they had was a failure.

It didn’t take long for the search to overcome every other aspect of my life. I would catch myself 15 minutes into a drawing session, which was my favorite hobby, and asked myself if this is really going to help me get a job. I’m not going to be an illustrator, so… why waste time if I could practice translation or writing in that time?

And just like that, more and more, I would leave my drawing materials in exchange for doing temp work or perfecting my CV. And, by the time I had a job, my love for drawing had died. To this day I haven’t rediscovered it.

So, ask yourself if any of your hobbies or activities from personal life or passion projects had suffered because “they weren’t fruitful or profitable”? Once we start seeing our lives through that lens, it’s a huge sign to step back.

Relaxing becomes near impossible

Do you struggle shutting off your brain? Are you sleep-deprived? Do you play out scenarios, emails, and practice meeting notes as you lay in bed?

Or, like my father, do you take client calls at the beach during your vacation, because it’s “rude” to ignore them?

If a friend invited you to take a long walk to catch up, would you say yes without further planning? Or would you start wondering how you could use it as an opportunity to go grocery shopping, or check out that store you’ve been meaning to, or pick up dry cleaning… If this is the case, you definitely have a problem relaxing.

So, think of your end-of-workday rituals, and what they include. This can also be a dead giveaway on how easily you can or can’t disconnect from work.

Self-help books aren’t really…. Helping

I’ve personally been there. I would listen to so many TED Talks, and almost each one spoke to me. I found productivity-boosting Instagram pages, motivational quotes, and positively drowned myself in them.

I had no motivation or positivity in myself, neither could I “generate” it. So I turned to outside self-help resources as a daily injection of motivation. But, what a surprise — they didn’t work!

Months later, it became clear that the problem wasn’t me being unable to apply what they preached. It was my own insecurities and skewed perception of what productivity is and unlearning the idea that there’s just one type of productivity. For all we know, each personality type has a different one!

Examine how much media you consume to improve your productivity, and what percentage of it actually helps. Have they helped you make a work life you want to have? If not, then you’re simply banging your head against the wall, hoping to break it. Now would be a good time to reexamine what is the root cause of this.

You’re hooked to the feeling of accomplishment

The sense of accomplishment means more to you than the larger goals.

The simplest example is prioritizing small, easily manageable tasks on your to-do list, while leaving bigger tasks to the side. The rush of pride you feel having finished those smaller tasks can often overshadow the guilt over the larger ones.

And soon enough, you’ll be looking at how to convert your activities to get that sense of accomplishment. For example, you can find daily 40-minute walks boring, because they’re not inherently stimulating — so you download an app with rewards, or set an impossible goal for yourself.

While in moderation this isn’t harmful, giving every activity a goal that needs accomplishing makes you completely ignore the process. You stop enjoying the moment because it doesn’t lead to anything.

What to do if you recognize toxic productivity in yourself

If most of the above are true for you, then this problem should be looked into. Here are some starting tips on how to address toxic productivity, and of course, later seek out professional help.

Look for the root cause

Oftentimes, we’re lured into this neck-deep pool of toxic productivity because of an underlying issue. The most common culprits that trick us into getting in this pool are:

1. Procrastination;
2. Fear of failure;
3. Desire to prove ourselves;
4. Perfectionism;
5. Low self-confidence, and
6. Spite (yes, even spite! Like pursuing a career to prove disapproving family members wrong).

What can you do?

Well, it’s time you put away that box of colorful self-help band-aids.

While doing self-reflection is useful and a great practice in self-care, you should talk to a professional. Be it a licensed, legitimate life coach, or a therapist. They will equip you with appropriate methods to tackle this problem at the root.

Separate societal expectations from your own

While the root cause of toxic productivity is something within you, Social Media and our immediate surroundings are the amplifiers. Throughout the years, we’ve made it okay to work ourselves to the bone, in any aspect of our life.

We’ve successfully romanticized being overworked and sleep deprived as signs of a path to success. 

Well-rested people who take their time seem like they don’t use the full potential of the life they’re given. That extra hour they could squeeze out if they just commuted faster, organized their email better, or used shortcuts on their PC.

Just like the 1Dime YouTube video from the beginning emphasizes — look at how Social Media and life coaches are portraying that ideal and thriving productive person. That is what society wants you to be, and what is best optimized for the economy. Not who you really are.

What can you do?

Take a notebook and a pen and write out the qualities the media has taught you make for a productive worker. Usually, it’s time efficiency, task management, eliminating distractions, spending less time on Social Media (ironically), etc.

Then, write out what you realistically can achieve with your skillset, limited time, and goals. We often push ourselves past the breaking point, without realizing it. And writing out these two columns may give you a much-needed outside look.

Practice doing less

Make yourself do nothing. Just like all other habits, this one will take time to get used to.

The toxically productive brain wants every action to have a purpose, otherwise, you’ve wasted time. So we want to combat that.

What can you do?

When you start browsing YouTube, for example, you may be tempted to use the time to catch up on your backlog of videos. Instead, type in the first thing that comes to your mind, that is completely useless to you. Like, “funny dog videos” for example, or “best 2021 movie trailers”, or find a review of that one movie you like. Make your brain accept that not everything you do has to have a purpose, aside from enjoying the moment.

You can do the same by picking up a magazine during your break instead of going through emails. Or just making coffee or tea in silence, without a phone in your hand.

Practice gratitude

Toxic productivity feeds on our feeling of not being good or productive enough. That everything we have in life needs to be earned with grueling hard work, or constant investment. And in that negative self-talk, we forget that simply existing in this world is a big achievement. Navigating through the complexities of daily life is demanding already.

What can you do?

Practicing daily gratitude is one of the few anxiety-riding methods that worked wonders for me.

The idea is to keep a simple notepad by your bed, and at the end of each day, write three things you’re grateful for. It can be the same three things, like your partner, a pet, your career so far, or even that morning coffee from your favorite place. Or, you can try to pick out different nice things each day, and teach yourself how to slow down and pay attention to the small things that make you happy.

It’s a great practice in taking a break to appreciate what you already have. And also, to remind yourself of things that are important in your life.

List things that are important to you

What aspect of your life do you hold as most important? Refocus your energy in that direction.

Whether you want to be a better parent, secure your kids’ future, or work toward starting a family, these three alone will have three different paths. Discern precisely and clearly what it is that you want with your life in the next 5-10 years, and how you can achieve it.

What can you do?

Simple as that — make a list. Do you want to make improvements in your personal life, career, health, hobby, or a long-lost passion?

Use that as guidance in making more detailed plans. If you want to become a writer, but you’re now neck-deep in programming, then this can help you carve out a path towards the goal you really want to achieve.

Look for your purpose or reconnect with it

Erika Ferszt is a former senior advertising executive, now a personal coach and founder of Moodally. A trip to the hospital caused by stress-related temporary blindness pushed her into a career change. Far from it that she hated her job — Ferszt realized then and there that her strong work ethics and energy were misplaced. When asked in an interview what piece of advice she would give her younger self, she claimed she actually appreciates all her mistakes and lows, because they brought her to where she is now. However:

“One thing I’ve always felt, but perhaps wasn’t able to articulate until recently, is that you must stay true to your vision and purpose. The more you allow your purpose to be real for you, the better guided you will be in your choices and you’ll see better results. Where your purpose lies is where your passion lies, and vice versa. I know from my time in personal coaching that many people struggle to identify their purpose and, truthfully, it isn’t until later in life that we may understand why we believe we’re here on this planet.”

Ferszt, however, adds that you shouldn’t ask: “What am I supposed to do with my life”? As she claims, this question is restrictive. It doesn’t let your mind open up for all possibilities, and always weirdly associates your “supposed to’s” with your work life.

What can you do?

Instead, Ferszt says you should ask: “What impact do I want to have?”

This question helped her come to the career she has today, and feel more fulfilled than ever. Ask the same question to see what activities in your personal life and career are or aren’t actually contributing to that purpose. This makes it much easier to cut out only that which wastes your energy.

Conclusion

Toxic productivity is a persistent phenomenon that few of us will be aware of, unless we start to suffer serious consequences (burnout). Sadly, most will reconsider their work habits only through experiencing these health side effects that hustle culture brings. To ensure you don’t end up in a hospital, regretting every choice you’ve made, it’s vital to reexamine what your life is like right now. Ask yourself whether your focus is in the right place, if your expectations are painted by rose-tinted productivity ideas, and aesthetic YouTube videos of seemingly highly productive individuals. It’s time to take a realistic look at how and why you work, to see if your energy is in the right place.

Who is a Freelancer?

Freelancers are individuals who are self-employed, pay their own taxes (not their client), and usually have more than one employer for whom they work.

Their scope of work can vary:

• Setting up a newsletter template for a single small client;
• Supervising a project from start to finish;
• Doing a logo design for a startup, etc.

There is no real limit to the amount of their involvement, size and scope of the job, and the duration of their contract with a client. However, freelancers will rarely rely on a single client or a business as their income source, as they are aware of market fluctuations. For them, job security comes from a larger number of quality long-term clients.

Freelancers are most commonly paid by the hour, or per project.

While they do consult with their employers/clients, freelancers enjoy a much larger autonomy, and are normally given free rein to do their job and make decisions as they see fit.

Who is a Contractor?

Contractors operate much like freelancers: they are self-employed, pay their own taxes, and can be involved with several clients at a time. However, there are some key differences.

1. Contractors can work solo, or through an agency;
2. They can be hired as a temporary replacement to a full-time worker;
3. They can work on the employer’s premises and use their equipment;
4. More likely to work full-time and for a longer period of time for a single employer;
5. Clients/Employers also aren’t obligated to pay health insurance or benefits.

They are the kind of middle ground between freelancers and employees, who enjoy some freedoms of independent work, but also have a more reliable pay.

Who is an Employee?

Employees are individuals working full time for an employer who pays their taxes, health insurance, pension (optionally), and regulates their sick leave and holidays. The differences between employees and contractors and freelancers are much bigger.

1. They work exclusively on the work premises;
2. They use company-provided tools, materials, and space;
3. Employee work hours are regulated and managed by the employer;
4. Their salaries are usually fixed, paid out on a monthly basis;
5. The work they do is more guided, there’s less autonomy.

It’s important to mention that employees work under contracts, much like freelancers and contractors. However, their contracts specify how long they’re expected to work for a company, as they’re not hired per project, or paid by the hour. They also outline all the benefits the employer provides, which aren’t available to the contractor or freelancer.

Categories for distinguishing freelancers, contractors, and employees

Note: As a starting point in this discussion, we will look at how the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) in the United States distinguishes the three groups. Keep in mind that the laws in your country may differ in some regards, so it’s important to check your government website for details.

The way to distinguish what kind of worker you are depends on how much control or independence you have with the workflow. And it’s reflected in three categories:

1. Behavioral control – how much control the employer has over how you work
2. Financial control – how and when you are being paid
3. Type of business relationship – the employer-worker relationship details

Why correct classification is important for the employees

One should always be properly compensated for their work. Whether you are a salaried employee, or work as a contractor or a freelancer, you should be familiar with your rights and prerogatives as a worker.

And as an independent worker, you need to pay close attention to how you classify yourself. Accepting a job that treats you more as an employee than a freelancer can cost you and your client a potential fine or additional taxes.

Additionally, some businesses will find ways to bypass taxes by manipulating contracts, to your detriment. In these cases, you are eligible for legal action and potential damages.

For example, if you are an independent contractor in the U.S., and you believe a client has misclassified you as an employee, the IRS has provided a form you can fill out, to have them check if you’re eligible for compensation.

Why correct classification is important for the employers

Misclassification happens when a company treats a worker as a freelancer or a contractor, when they are actually an employee, or vice versa.

This leads to employees potentially missing out on certain benefits, or freelancers being locked in a contract that only damages their business practice (for example, working longer than required, or having supervised, fixed hours). And the law often sides with the workers, seeing how these misclassifications usually only benefit the employer.

For example, skirting these labor laws gives the business all the advantages of having a full-time employee, while not having to pay the person any benefits. Misclassification can be seen as neglect, employee mistreatment, or ultimately – exploitation. Should the worker sue the company, or tax auditors come knocking, the employer could stand to pay a hefty fine. While some businesses still operate in this way, genuine mistakes can happen.

Misclassification penalties for the employers

There are two kinds of penalties: those of the IRS and legal penalties

IRS penalties come down to:

• 1.5% of the employee wages;
• A fine for each wrongly filed employee form (or if you’ve failed to file it at all);
• 40% – 100% of FICA taxes the employer was supposed to pay.

Legal penalties include:

• Wage and tax audits – compensation for unpaid wages
• Class-action lawsuits
• Criminal penalties – if the misclassification was intentional

If you’re an employer unsure of how to classify a worker, you can file the SS-8 Form (Determination of Worker Status) to have the IRS help you with it.

How to prevent misclassification

Luckily, prevention is easy, and the government makes sure to equip every worker and employer with enough tools and help to protect themselves and their businesses from any misconduct.

The Common Law (or Right to Control) Test

In the U.S. the IRS uses what is known under multiple names as the Common Law Test (the Right to Control Test, or the 20 Factor Test).

It has a checklist of 20 factors that determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The test itself isn’t a zero-sum game, and there are no right or wrong answers. It provides categories like the three we’ve mentioned earlier. In the end, as you assess your work relationship according to the checklist.

It’s important to mention that the IRS emphasizes that certain factors on that list hold more weight than others. So, your classification might not be that clear-cut.

For a more detailed overview of the 20 Factor Test, the State of Oregon website has a public document on the proper forms that need to be filled out and what to look out for.

Additionally, we’ve provided a resource on how to properly pay contractors and freelancers, which could be useful.

Always check your contracts

Before signing or formulating any contracts (as an employee or freelancer), be sure to check every point of it.

If possible, consult an accountant or a lawyer, who can spot potential legal loopholes more easily. Freelancers can also make a contract template for general work conditions that aren’t based on the type of work or client, but secure their classification, like:

1. Hourly rates and projections of hours worked on a daily basis;
2. Emphasis on your own equipment/tools/space being used for work;
3. The type of evaluation and rapport you provide, etc.

Since contracts are an important means of protecting your assets and integrity as a worker, it’s best to learn how to read and write them.

Know your rights

We can’t emphasize enough how important it is to know your rights as a worker. No matter the classification.

For freelancers and contractors, the laws can differ from state to state in the U.S. alone. Websites like LawSoup.org digest all the important information on their website to help beginners start off their careers, and keep the “veterans” up to date with relevant information. However, even their information covers only certain regions, like Los Angeles, California, and San Francisco, with only general information for the whole country.

Looking up the official government website for labor laws, and their corresponding tax department, the lesser the odds of someone misclassifying you on purpose, or by accident.

International Labor Organization, an agency organized by the UN, contains all the information concerning labor laws by country. It is a great starting point no matter where you are from.

Conclusion

The distinction between the three employment categories comes down to the amount of control an employer has over the financial aspect of a worker’s job, their tools and equipment, workspace, time, and the manner in which they work. Freelancers and contractors are more autonomous, but require to pay their own taxes, insurance, and benefits, while employees have less control over their work processes, but with full paid benefits.

In this article, you’ll find the less discussed common pitfalls of doing work in your personal time, and how to avoid getting yourself in trouble. Legal, or otherwise.

Working off the clock

Researching material for this article, I remembered one of my former jobs, and how much overtime I put in.

My “regular” overtime was covered by a regulated overtime fee. However, sometimes I would leave the office and continue to work at home, not really counting it as overtime. It was either reading some late-arrived feedback, filling out a spreadsheet so there’s less to do in the morning, or checking email.

I considered it small work that didn’t really count as overtime, but rather gave me a head start or wrapped up my daily work from the comfort of my home.

However, did you know that no matter how minute, off-the-clock work can actually do more harm than good – both to your career and the company you work for?

Overtime laws and regulations

When working overtime, you should really stick to the laws as closely as possible.

The FLSA states that any time worked over 40 hours a week counts as overtime, and the employee should be fairly compensated for it (if you are non-exempt from overtime pay). The standard rate is one and a half times the hourly pay.

A vast majority of employers stick to this and take careful steps to clearly state in the contracts how much time they expect you to put in. However, when it comes to employees not being able to unplug and their need to check and send emails, or write drafts because motivation hits them at 10 PM as they watch a show… It becomes a very gray and somewhat legally dangerous area.

Why is it important to limit overtime?

In any industry, overtime can be a very slippery slope, unless it’s regulated.

1. Employees get overworked to the point of burnout;
2. Employers manipulate contracts or abuse overtime law misinformation;
3. Employees modify their timesheets to “steal” company time and get paid more.

To best protect the interests of both parties and the company itself, we need to monitor (and at best, eliminate) off-the-clock work. In this way, everyone avoids drawn-out legal prosecutions and disciplinary actions.

Imagine a scenario where you are the employer, and an employee suddenly comes to you one morning and asks for a resignation. They tell you only then how they’re feeling burnt out because there was too much work on their shoulders. But from what you know, they’ve worked regular overtime hours and went home in a timely manner. Only there on the spot do you find out that they’ve been working in their off-time almost every day, neglecting their family, social life, and health.

All of a sudden, you’re out a great employee, it turns out your work environment is toxic and pressure, and you had no indication of what was going on for months.

Pretty nerve-wracking, isn’t it?

Oftentimes, we’re unaware of how much our dedication and the desire to “do the right thing” can harm others around us. We’re willing to suffer through burnout, completely blind to the rest of the people working with us.

How overwork brings harm

Aside from leading yourself to a complete burnout due to overworking, there are plenty of other reasons to avoid giving 120% at work when you’re not required to.

Legal issues

If an employer finds out that one of their workers did company-related tasks during their off-work hours, they have full right to ask about it.

We’ve discussed overtime regulation, but what about working after overtime? Can working during your personal time really get you in legal trouble? The answer is both yes and no. The slightly longer answer:

According to FLSA, all employers need to compensate their employees for work received during off-work hours. However, even if they prohibit work during personal time, there is no law stopping the employees from disregarding the rule. In cases like these, section 785.13 states the management has every right to enforce these rules, and even discipline those who break them. To quote verbatim:

“The FLSA does not prohibit employers from implementing a policy or enforcing an existing policy that prohibits unauthorized work, and it does not prohibit employers from disciplining employees for violating the policy.” 

shrm.org

So, while your employer is still obligated to pay you for finishing that one email or document at midnight unless you’ve asked for authorization for such overtime work, you could receive some reprimand. Nothing to the extent of legal action, but a “slap on the wrist” at best, and resignation at worst.

Impaired work-life balance

Maybe work starts earlier for you because you decide to check emails and company chat as you drink morning coffee before commuting to the office. Or, you decide to check your email because one of your departments works in a different timezone, so they may have sent something at around 10 PM your time.

Either way, even such small errands in your off-time blur the line between work hours and personal hours.

It’s crucial knowing when to leave the office, and how to leave work at the office as you head home.

If this border between your career and life isn’t clear, you can easily slip into a constant work mode, until it becomes impossible to unplug.

Overworking gives the impression you’re always available

One interesting piece of advice I got from a team lead in a former company was: “Never bend over backwards for your job. Otherwise, they’ll see how far you’re willing to push yourself, and they’ll keep asking more”.

Now, while this advice held particularly true in that company, as I later came to realize, I should make a caveat that not all companies are this opportunistic. Most will recognize the effort and reward it accordingly.

But, in my case, I used to work on some tasks from home during a project, until late at night, for weeks. And at the time it didn’t bother me, I was younger and could pull off less sleep, and the work was fun. Little did I know that, on the other side, unaware of my overtime, team leads believed all that stellar work was done during my regular hours.

Suddenly, with every new project, the same level of quality and effort was expected. It locked me into a perpetual state of overworking to meet wrongly set expectations.

Other examples of how overworking sets high expectations

1. Reinforcing the “always on” mentality

Working in addition to overtime, you get everyone around used to the fact that you’re available. Coworkers and team leads or managers know they can get a hold of you whenever they need you. Hence you can expect more off-work emails, texts, or calls that are suddenly urgent.

2. Setting a standard for everyone else

Japan’s former infamous practice in the knowledge economy was that no employee was allowed to leave work before the boss does. While it’s a dying practice, and worker protection laws were implemented in 2018 and 2019, the workers are still fighting the stigma that lingers on.

In much the same way, some overtimers may be unaware of the pressure they are setting for the others. Even I, as a new arrival at my former company, used to stick around the office longer, because I saw some senior employees still at the office even at 6 PM. It felt embarrassing to leave, even though I was exhausted.

3. It makes managers think that everything CAN be done

When we decide to work in our off-hours, it sets a dangerous precedent that there is no limit to how much energy we will squeeze out to see a project to the end. While it is at times necessary, there’s a moment where overworking becomes the norm every time a deadline is at risk. They get used to you giving your all, and rely on that self-sacrifice.

And there is also a slight chance they will pretend like they don’t know or see how hard you work outside overtime, so they don’t have to compensate you for it.

Overworking brings a greater risk of micromanagement

If they can’t afford to have employees working overtime constantly, then employers can establish a rule prohibiting them from working over 40 hours per week. And managers are there to enforce the rule. If enough people disregard this, then there’s an increased chance they’ll start micromanaging everyone.

This includes overly detailed timesheets, monitoring software, daily reports, etc.

Employers being forced to pay for overtime when they are unable to

Employers can also ask their employees not to work over 40 hours per week simply because they cannot afford to pay them the rates required. This especially holds true for small and starting businesses.

So unless you get previous approval, working overtime risks the employer facing inspection or charges, should the word get out. Sometimes, even the best intentions can get us in trouble.

How to prevent yourself from overworking

Here are some short tips on how to get your own off-work hours under control, but also check if your employer is trying to abuse that goodwill for their own benefit.

Check your contract

Under FLSA, every contract needs to state how many hours you are expected to work if overtime is mandatory or not, alongside holidays, minimum wage, compensatory time, etc.

Each stipulation needs to be carefully examined. Look for a clause that mentions off-work hours and the company’s stance on it. If there is none, ask around in your HR department, or upper management.

Let them know you have the habit of doing work during off-hours, and ask how you can regulate that together.

If you have no contract

Firstly, check for any and all mentions of your work hours. Whether it’s through emails, messages, reports, or notes taken during meetings.

Secondly, ask your employer for a written statement or a contract, to clearly define your regular and overtime hours. Protect yourself and your wage with a “paper trail”, no matter what kind of work you do – part-time, seasonal, even one-time help.

Track your work hours

If you have the habit of accidentally slipping into overtime because you’ve reached “the zone”, your best bet is to track overtime.

The moment you hit those 8 hours for the day, start into overtime (if you’re allowed or mandated) with a mindful attitude. And keep tracking time for a multitude of reasons. Take note of what tasks you did during that time, how long they lasted, and when you clocked out. Then, when you give your employer the information, they’ll have a better understanding of where your time goes. What’s more, together you can find ways to mitigate the amount of overtime or off-work hours, so there is no legal issue for either of you.

Set up an end-of-workday ritual

At the end of your overtime, you can wind down the work and signal to your brain it’s time to go home by taking on smaller tasks. Some examples include:

• Finding a “buddy” with whom you can leave work at the same time as they do, and have a chat as you walk down the building, or commute together;
• Make a to-do list with everything you need to catch up on tomorrow, instead of finishing that work now – ignore the age-old proverb: “If you can do it today, don’t leave it for tomorrow.” There’s plenty of things you can do today, and yet you shouldn’t.
• Clean up your desk, throw away garbage, wash your cups or mugs, etc.
• Set up an end-of-workday playlist to listen to when you enter the last stages of overtime.

These were just some of the examples, but you can probably find some that are more suited for you, which reflect your workflow more accurately.

Conclusion

Working excessive overtime, or even longer after it has numerous consequences. And as much as we discuss burnout as the main one, downsides like disciplinary action, setting unrealistic standards, or setting yourself up for more and more work until you’re too swamped to handle anything.

The best course of action is to make do with the time you have at your disposal. Find ways to get better at time management, track your time, exercise restraint when wanting to check your messages and emails, and set up some rituals for leaving work, so your brain knows you’re done for the day. Lastly, always ask whether or not it’s okay to work off-hours, with arguments as to why it’s necessary.

Why should I justify my invoices?

We’ve touched upon this in the introduction, and to add to that, justifying your invoices can protect you from clients that avoid payment by making unreasonable claims. Either they’re not happy with the result for that price, or they “don’t understand” why you would charge more for revision, or disagree with your choice to take longer on a specific task.

And in case you’re still not convinced, here’s how work/project reports attached to invoices benefit your career.

Reports avoid misunderstandings

Clients come in all kinds – some are perfectly happy with you just sending an invoice, and staying out of their hair. Others want some more elaboration, because after all, it’s their money, and they want to know where it goes.

A well-structured report makes it easier to show the clients exactly what you charged and why. We can’t assume that everyone knows what our work entails. That is why simple explanations go a long way.

If your report show why you, for example, charged so many hours spent researching, you cover several possible opportunities for a misunderstanding:

1. The client won’t think you’re trying to swindle them;
2. You won’t come off as a procrastinator or unskilled;
3. You’ll build respect due to transparency;
4. There will be a written trail in case the client tries to alter the deal or the rates later on.

Maybe that specific task was a little more complex than the client let on, or you had technical issues, or simply wanted to do the best job possible, and the end result reflects that. Don’t be afraid to openly communicate your reasons for doing the tasks a specific way, and stand by your methods.

Justified invoices nurture transparency

When clients see that you’re willing to freely discuss your workflow and show them how you work, they’ll grow more confident that you have nothing to hide. Usually, people who are overly protective of their work schedules either don’t have them, are a complete mess, or aren’t up to client standards.

This only leads to distrust, and shows clients you are unwilling to answer their potential questions or take advice or suggestions. If you don’t want your invoices doubted and interrogated, then meet them halfway. Show you are a trustworthy, professional person.

Reports help build a positive reputation

As we’ve touched upon, settling into the practice of justifying your invoices through reports helps you with your industry reputation.

Happy clients are more likely to recommend you to their business partners, acquaintances, etc. Good word of mouth is often worth more than all the networking you can do.

How to justify your invoice

Justifying invoices is best done through project progress reports. The steps to building a solid report that will benefit both you and the client are fairly simple. But, it takes some preparation, and changes in habits, like filling out timesheets and tracking time on almost all tasks.

If these aren’t an issue for you, then the following process will be a breeze. Take a look at the elements your report and discussion should include.

Introduce clients to industry rates

First and foremost – your clients must know the average hourly (or per project) rate for your industry and particular branch.

You can also explain to them how rates differ depending on

Just make sure you find a reliable source of information, backed by global data. Here are some freelancing and consulting rates for 2021 that we’ve researched and compiled.

Track your time

The backbone of every good report is its timesheet.

This is where you keep all the tasks scheduled, accounted for, and track how long it takes to finish each aspect of the project you’re working on. If you’re not used to this practice, consider picking up time tracking, and find which time tracking method is best suited for you.

Now, time tracking is obviously the most useful for calculating billable and non-billable hours. But we’re not here for instructions on invoicing. We’re here to see how time tracking helps you justify it. For example, this is what a digital timesheet looks like:

Source: Clockify.me

Now, let’s take a look at one of those entries, and how this form of time tracking helps justify invoices.

This is a detailed look at one specific time entry in Clockify. Aside from showing when you worked on a task and for how long, you also get the option to describe the process in as much detail as you want. This is perfect for preparing your reports. Simply write down how the task went, if it took longer or shorter, and why. That way, when you have to generate a report, you’ll have all the necessary information ready for the client.

Track your progress

A digital time tracker can also track your project progress.

When you start on a project, you make estimates on how long certain aspects of the project and tasks themselves will last. Through estimates, you can tell your client roughly how long it will take to finish everything.

In a digital time tracker, you can input those estimates and, as you work every day and track your time, check how they compare to actual work times. For example:

Source: Clockify.me

Some of the estimates in the entries above were that development would take 20 hours, but it took 10 hours instead, while marketing was correctly assessed. This can also be invaluable information when justifying your rates.

List any issues you had, or “bumps on the road”

Elaborate on what caused the issue, and the steps you took.

Sometimes, a task will take longer, thus ending up costing the client more. You can save yourself the stress from potential accusations or criticism by noticing and jotting down the cause of the issue before addressing it. That way, the information will stay fresh for when you have to present it to the client later on.

You can reassure them of your decisions before they’ve had the opportunity to form a negative opinion once they see the numbers.

Don’t go into too much detail

Find the perfect length and the perfect language.

Most clients won’t want to read pages of reports, no matter how demanding they are. They’ll simply ignore the report, and probably call you for a summed-up version of it. In the end, you’ve done nothing but waste time on a report no one will read.

Your best course of action would be to have a sit-down and discuss your reports with the client. Let them know what you usually track, and see what information they need or don’t need. No need for guesswork on your end, and the client knows what to expect.

Lastly, you can take a look at how we at Clockify used the time tracker to bill clients. It lists the process step by step in clear explanations.

Phrases to use when justifying your invoices

We can’t make an end-all-be-all template on how to approach your client when explaining your invoicing decisions. Not every industry is the same, nor even two freelancers in the same line of work! What we could do is give you a list of good openers and closers for your meetings, calls, and emails.

First, invite the client to a meeting

You want to establish contact with the client, so you can explain your rates and how they relate to your workflow. We’ll start off with an email template inviting the client to that particular meeting:

Hello, XY

I hope this email finds you well.

It’s a pleasure meeting you, and I look forward to working with you on this project. I’ll do my best to provide you with the results you’ll be happy with.

I’m sending you this email to suggest we set up a meeting, or a call, where I could explain a little better how I will work on this project. I believe this is an excellent way for you to share your expectations, and for me to explain why I charge these rates. You’ll get a quick and simple breakdown of my work, so you’ll know where your money goes, and rest assured there are no hidden costs.

My professional relationships are based on transparency, and I think they run much smoother when everything is out in the open.

I’m free on (DATE AND HOURS). Let me know what you think, and if any of these hours work for you.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

ZY

Of course, you are free to change whatever phrase you want, to make it more personal.

Phrases to use when justifying your invoice

To keep this section short and sweet, here are some openers (and closers) you can use, both in emails and in person.

• “From experience on projects similar to this, I found that the most common problems are (XY), and take longer times to finish. So, you can expect potentially longer work times in that area.”
• “These are the average industry rates…”
• “As we’ve agreed earlier…”
• “Let me know if any part of my billing process is unclear.”
• “Thank you for taking the time to go through this with me.”
• “What aspects of the project development would you like to focus on in our progress reports?”

How to handle disputes

There are times where you will probably slip up, and miss some of these steps. Maybe you won’t prepare what was necessary for a solid report, or your client flip-flops on one of their decisions. In case you didn’t manage to avoid misunderstandings (which can often happen), there are several things you can do.

Now, there can be plenty of reasons for disputes, and the ones tied to invoicing include:

• The project took too long
• The billable hours rate wasn’t clear from the start
• There was additional work the client didn’t agree on

How do you approach an invoice dispute? How do you handle justifying your invoice professionally?

1. Analyze the situation

Your first instinct should be to identify who made the oversight – you, or the client.

If you are the one who caused the misunderstanding, send them an apology email assuring them you will see to fixing the issue. This works for when the problem is in the final product:

• They aren’t satisfied with the product quality

You go back to the drawing board with new directions, but also let them know you will invoice again and charge for the additional time. Be very clear concerning this, as some will try to avoid paying because they just “don’t like” your work, despite the revisions.

Below is an example of a great, calm handling of one such situation.

Source: Clientsfromhell.net

• They don’t understand why some things took too long or too little

To combat this, you should pull up your reports, timesheets, and all the notes you’ve hopefully written as you worked on the project. Arrange a meeting or a call, showing a willingness to justify your invoice and the choices you made.

If the client is the one behind the misunderstanding, there are again, two ways to go about it:

• Accidentally causing a problem

Usually due to forgetting to ask important questions early on, or failing to remember things you agreed upon. A simple email reminding them of your agreements, sections of the contract, and any email exchanges you had will jog their memory.

• Purposefully causing a problem

These are usually clients who get miserly with their money. Bringing up complaints after-the-fact is just fancified flea market bartering. While clients like these can be rare, every freelancer has met them at least once or twice in their life.

Keeping neat documentation has saved plenty of freelancers before the clients had a chance to wriggle out of paying. Even considering lawyer involvement should be your go-to in extreme cases. You deserve to get paid.

2. Have proof at the ready

This entire time we’ve emphasized how important it is to document everything. It’s the only way to see that your work, reputation, and payment are protected.

Don’t delete emails, make screenshots of texts and chat logs, and summaries of meetings or calls.

Important note:

Refrain from recording meetings and calls without the client’s knowledge, as it is illegal! You should ask for consent to record anything first. If they refuse, simply type up a summary of what you agreed upon during the meeting/call, and forward them the email. Ask them to see if your summary is correct, and if they confirm, you just made one more “paper trail” that could potentially work in your favor.

3. Remain civil

No matter how the client reacts, nothing beats civility and good manners.

As hard as it may be, remain cool-headed even when the person gets stubborn, or simply can’t understand what you’re trying to communicate. Coming from personal experience, we’ve composed a list of templates on asking the client for payment without being rude.

Conclusion

Justifying invoices shouldn’t come as an afterthought when the client starts to suspect your work ethics. To prevent this from happening, you should actually justify your invoices early on, almost at the very beginning of your partnership. When clients know why you charge as much as you do from the get-go, they’re less likely to make any alterations or complaints later on.

Keeping tight and detailed documentation (timesheets, emails, and reports) also ensures you have leverage should a dispute come out. Ultimately, brief breakdowns of your pricing process help build trust through transparency. Clients are more likely to work with you again, and even recommend you to their peers.

Do you have any practices of your own? Share your experiences with us at blogfeedback@clockify.me and we could feature you in one of our next articles.

In this article, we’ll take a look at what these YouTube videos are, why they have millions of viewers and billions of views, and how they aim to help students get better grades. Are they really the cure to procrastination, or are they just another distraction?

What are “study with me” videos?

In short, these are pre-recorded or live YouTube videos where students film themselves studying. This kind of content aims to help others like them gain more focus, work on their productivity, avoid distractions, and find motivation. Generally, there are two types:

• Live streams of individuals studying (good for forming a daily habit and if you like the community), and
• Pre-recorded videos (good if you aren’t following the individual necessarily, just need the background noise)

Source: YouTube.com

Even though they have existed for several years, it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic that “study with me” videos and live streams have gained mainstream popularity. With strict lockdown measures going for months on end, students suddenly moved from classrooms to their lonely four walls.

For some, this wasn’t an issue – the quiet solitude proved to be an even better motivator. But for others, the isolation lead to almost depressing demotivation. Hence the sudden uptick in the popularity of “study with me” videos.

The appealing elements of study with me videos

If you are unsure whether these videos will provide good motivation material for you, let’s briefly take a look at what draws so many students to them.

The video creators come from everywhere

While it’s speculated that these videos originate from South Korea, nowadays, their creators come from all over the globe, and study various things.

Law school and engineering students, and residents in medicine are just some of the interesting individuals in this area of content creation. And while their subject of study doesn’t really impact the video itself, it’s one of the ways to stand out from other “study with me” creators. It attracts viewers of similar background who are in need of a like-minded study community.

Aesthetic and functional elements increase immersion

To really give these videos a personal stamp, “study with me” YouTubers also decide to decorate their rooms and videos in a specific way to appeal to the viewers. Usually, a “study with me” video will have one or more (or even all!) of the following:

• decorated room or desk to fit a certain aesthetic (pastel colors, or dimmed rooms, LED lights, posters, post-its, minimalism, etc);
• an on-screen Pomodoro timer to track sessions;
• sounds of rain, coffee shop ambiance, or traffic outside;
• relaxing music, or only the sound of papers, pens and keyboard, and
• a studying app or extension you can use alongside the person studying

Let’s see what it looks like on an actual video:

Source: Abao in Tokyo

All of this is done to make the viewer’s studying session more pleasant, and foster a sense of familiarity. Even the shot is made to look like you’re sitting across from the person, as you study together. So, spending about 30 minutes browsing youtube is surely going to help you find one video creator whose aesthetics and elements suit you the most.

Pomodoro timers

Almost every video features a pomodoro timer that shows how far off the creator is with their studying. This is an additional helpful element that makes sure both the viewer and the creator do the work at the same time.

However, if timing yourself is something you don’t really like, or struggle with, following the timer of a study YouTuber can solve all of that heavy lifting for you.

How “study with me” videos help you be more productive

But, while some people may be motivated by visuals, or find these videos a better alternative to “chill music to study to”, what else do they have to offer?

Let’s see how watching these YouTubers can help you not just study more, but become a more well-rounded, more organized student. Especially if you’re struggling with isolation and demotivation.

They improve your time tracking

As we’ve mentioned, Pomodoro timers are an important element in these videos. They’ve almost become essential. Every content creator features a timer that shows which study block they’re on, and when is their next break, to give their study time some structure.

If you especially struggle with tracking time and staying consistent with it, then this could be of great help. Studying along these videos for a few days could give you an idea of how Pomodoro works, and what ratio of study time vs breaks you’re most comfortable with.

Here’s one example from study YouTuber James Scholz:

You can see two counters on the bottom left:

1. The number of study blocks he plans to do in his 12-hour session (top), and
2. The countdown timer for the current study block (bottom).

Taking note of your progress this way gives a greater sense of control over your time, and makes progress more tangible. Odds are that, after some time, you’ll be able to track time on your own. You won’t need someone else providing you with the structure.

They make it easier to focus

One of the biggest struggles students face is the distractions. Whether you’re looking for the perfect Spotify playlist (or skipping songs you don’t like), getting sidetracked by an Instagram notification, or you want to wind down with a video between tasks, distractions come aplenty nowadays.

The internet was designed to make us multitask and waste time when we can, so first of all – don’t feel bad if you can’t concentrate when you’re trying to study on your computer, laptop, or tablet.

Jamie, a study YouTuber who has a channel called StriveToFit, mentions how “study with me” videos can help people get distracted less:

“…because every time they’re tempted to do something on their phone or go somewhere on their website, they kinda look up and see that I’m still studying on the screen, so it kind of motivates them to keep studying and stay focused on what they’re supposed to be doing.”

While these videos can certainly help a little with procrastination, they can’t completely solve it. Try to identify why you procrastinate, and the fix will be a little clearer.

They help with time management

By structuring their time into study blocks and breaks, these YouTubers teach hundreds of thousands of students how to divide anywhere between 2 and 12 hours of work a day.

Their videos follow a simple formula that usually consists of:

45/50 minute study time + 15/10 minute breaks

Time management plays a big part in how productive you are throughout the day. So, having the right model to learn from can vastly improve how you manage your own workload. Maybe you decide to have one block of study time devoted to homework, while the next one is for revision of another subject.

Another study YouTuber called 공부하는지호 Ziho keeps their schedule and times posted on the left side of the screen.

That way, viewers know when the live streams will occur and can tune in accordingly. In a way, you can work out a study plan around the content creator, and find some time management support in that way.

They combat lack of motivation and isolation

While these kinds of videos have been around for a while as a way to help students with focusing issues, the 2020 lockdowns introduced an even bigger boogeyman – isolation. It was a whole new beast to tackle. While being out of classrooms seemed liberating at first, the schoolwork soon began to feel mind-numbing, and the energy for any kind of studying ran dry.

While schools were struggling to catch up and seemingly failed to create engaging digital communities… These YouTubers have done it effortlessly.

So, what is their secret? Can they really help you feel less alone? Well, according to Tatjana Mali Ergelasev, a psychologist and therapist, they certainly can:

“Earlier, students would choose college or uni libraries to study, because of its work atmosphere. And, while some of that atmosphere came from the optimal studying conditions, such as desks, silence, and space, a lot of it actually came from the feeling that everyone there had the same “problem”. They were going through the same struggles, putting in as much work… The generations of 2000 and onward already have a heightened sense of loneliness, estrangement, and being misunderstood. If you ask me, this “study with me” phenomenon is a very creative way to overcome the obstacles of loneliness and physical distance. It satisfies the need for belonging and social contact.”

And here’s what these young creators do to make the study experience more social, even if it’s over a computer.

Motivation through personal experiences

James Scholz has a video titled Why I work so Hard, detailing his personal reasons for wanting to spend 12 hours a day studying, how his family life affected this decision, and his future.

Some of the creators are willing to share bits of their lives and experiences, enhancing the idea of an “online friendship” or camaraderie also known as the parasocial relationship. And by getting to know them and their methods, students can connect with them better, and feel like they have an actual study buddy.

Maybe their college struggles and learning progress can help you find that one motivator that will push you towards achieving better grades or getting a degree.

Most creators nurture a hard-working community

Most of the popular “study with me” YouTubers have built entire communities around their studying process. You know what their major is, and you’re probably in the same field, just like a lot of their other viewers – so there’s already some familiarity there. They also invest time in:

• Discord servers – where viewers can chat with one another and even do video calls in a group;
• Focus apps – Forest seems to be the most popular one. Viewers can join the YouTuber’s group inside the app, and track their time together;
• Giveaways – like The Man Sitting Next to Me, one of South Korea’s most famous study YouTubers, who invests the money earned through these videos into rewarding 20 of his viewers every month with online coupons for textbooks and the like.

And when there are hundreds of people in the comments, chats, and apps, working together, the feeling of isolation dampens. And while it doesn’t completely cure loneliness, it definitely helps to see a community of people like yourself, gathered to study together.

Accountability through emotions

While these YouTubers can’t communicate with you directly and make sure you’re doing your work, there is something called emotional contagion. It’s a process where one person’s behavior affects the behavior of people in their close vicinity. For example, friends going to the gym together to ensure they don’t give up, or when an actor makes you laugh during a movie scene.

Emotional contagion can be even stronger in virtual spaces, so it’s safe to assume that, by seeing a study YouTuber live stream their studying every day at a set time does create some sense of accountability in their viewers.

Because if they can do it, why can’t you, right?

Why you should be careful with these videos

Hustle culture and the risk of burning out

While the videos are harmless in nature and come from good intentions, it’s easy to get lost in the YouTubers’ habit of studying up to 12 hours a day.

It’s important to know your limitations and pace yourself. Combining your studying with healthy brain-boosting foods, a functioning sleeping schedule, and some downtime for hobbies and fun will help you make great changes in your productivity.

So, the videos alone can’t help you, as there are more factors to productivity than just motivation.

Burning out can cause you to tire easily, start having lapses in memory, and even lead to sickness. Be mindful, listen to your body, and find the best stress relievers for yourself.

Overindulging in the aesthetics instead of the matter

There are talks within the community of the “study YouTube” that certain creators and as a result, their youtubers, begin to focus more on the aesthetics of the videos, rather than their purpose. People will focus too much on getting the perfect stationery, the best apps, the prettiest desk space, or the most expensive tablets/laptops, instead of zoning in on the whole point of these videos – the studies.

So, while you should find inspiration in the creator’s own workspace, it should never derail you from studying. Clean desks and neat work tools are a great way to give some life and color to the whole process. Just try not to make it the only reason why you sit down to study but get no studying done.

In summary

“Study with me” videos are an extremely helpful focusing and productivity tool. The scheduled live streams can help bring some structure to your study time, the timers on screen improve time tracking and time management, and the personal, quiet atmosphere gives you the impression of studying with a friend. Some of the creators of these videos even have communities built around becoming better students. So, if you’re looking for a way to make your studies more engaging, and fight the tension and boredom that comes with learning on your own, these videos will be perfect for you.

Decide on daily priorities

Not every task is the most important one.

Before the start of every day, crack down on that to-do list, and find the ones that are most important. It’s usually 1 to 3 tasks, and you can easily identify them:

• Other people depend on you doing your part so they can do theirs;
• They are urgent, or have a fast-approaching deadline;
• They affect your career in the long term.

To illustrate this – and all following aspects of your workday breakdown – we’ll take a look at my schedule for a moment, and how I try to learn about my work habits and improve little by little every day.

Here is an example of how my priorities list may look for Wednesday:

There is a new employee coming in, and I’m mentoring them. It’s both good for mine and their career, so most of my energy should go to this task. There’s also some work I didn’t manage to finish the day before, and even though the deadline is not until Monday, I can try to finish it today. Lastly, there’s a presentation I really want to impress with. The rest is regular work I can take in my stride.

Why do I need a priorities list?

From the example, we can see how pinpointing what tasks matter to you the most eliminates the “white noise” of other work.

You know exactly where to spend the most energy, which in turn helps you avoid wasting time and stressing out over other things. This list is easily the vital first step of every good workday breakdown.

Draw out a before work section

As a next step, define what work-related things you do to prepare for the day.

Do you write a to-do list?

Do you revise your goals for the week?

Or do you contact your coworkers?

Maybe you make yourself coffee and check email.

We all have different rituals that boost productivity, and they can even vary day-to-day. And if you don’t have a ritual, this is a great time to find one. Here’s another glance at my daily schedule:

Source: Clockify workday breakdown template

As you can see from the table above, each day can start off with varying activities. And for Wednesday, I prepare for the second priority task – leftover work – by going over what I’ve missed and how to go about finishing it.

Why do I need a “before work” section?

An easy-going morning work ritual is a great way to introduce your day. Instead of starting with the most demanding tasks first, you conserve energy with something light, and get mentally prepared for tasks to come.

Draw out a during work section

The next large chunk in your breakdown is the actual work itself. The tougher tasks or, the meat and potatoes, if you will.

There are plenty of resources on breaking down large tasks into smaller chunks and scheduling them, so we won’t go into detail here. However, it’s important to mention them.

You can:

1. Use timeboxing to create an hour-by-hour guideline of your day;
2. Use the Eisenhower matrix to sort your priorities;
3. The Get Things Done method will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.

What I would, however, focus on, is breaking down this chunk of work into two segments: before your meal break, and after it.

If you’ve read some of our other articles on productivity, you could’ve noticed how we mention managing energy levels throughout the day. And it’s important to recognize how your energy varies after you’ve had a good lunch at work. Most notably, ask yourself:

• How do you feel half an hour to an hour before lunch?
• Do you feel energized after lunch?
• Do you feel sleepy?
• How long after lunch do you start to feel your focus drop (or rise)?
• Do you start having sugar cravings and how do they affect you?

Food plays a big role in the body’s energy roller coaster, and we usually don’t pay attention to it. Moreso because we’re at home, or outside, or don’t require too much focus. However, at work, it can become a detriment.

Why do I need the “before and after meal” section?

Sectioning off a work schedule into before and after lunch can help with several things.

First, it can reveal how different meals affect your focus. Heavier ones will make you sleepy, while lighter ones help you stay alert. That way you can, for example, notice you have a big meeting on Thursday at 3PM, and decide to eat fish and a salad instead of steak and potatoes, if the latter usually makes you crave a nap afterwards.

Second, you will start to make better scheduling decisions. Shifting tasks around your energy levels is a lesser-thought-about tactic, but one proven to be very effective in practice.

Third, it forces you to not neglect food as a vital part of your day. We usually get so swamped with work, we shift our meal times until it’s way too late, or completely omit them. This runs the risk of you getting too hungry, and opting for a quick snack, just to stave it off. What’s more, you’ll be less patient and more frustrated if you don’t have a proper break with a meal. Which in turn impedes your work performance.

Here’s an example from my schedule:

In this section, I decided to continue my morning with leftover work, while it’s still fresh in my mind. A meeting before lunch break was scheduled, just in time to wind down. During lunch, an emergency issue popped up, but I postponed it until after lunch, to ensure I come to it refreshed. Training the new employee came after my coffee, as I noticed that caffeine negates the drowsiness from lunch.

Now, you might be wondering if it’s possible to achieve this kind of calculating mindset. The answer is yes, but with a lot of work, and trial and error. Let’s take a look at how.

How to be mindful of energy levels

Achieving this kind of organization… intuition, to call it, isn’t impossible. It’s important to remember that learning to listen to your body and pick up on your behavior and habits is something you have to actively do throughout the day.

The moment you notice a shift in focus or energy levels, take note of it, whether on a post-it, or through a voice recording app. It may seem unprofessional at first, that it’s something unsuitable for a work environment, but look at it as an investment. The more insight you gain, the better you’ll be at scheduling your tasks for the day.

Additionally, take some time to research healthy productivity-brain-boosting recipes. It can be a great additional experiment.

Note your distractions

In the same vein, pay extra care to your most (un)common distractions.

They can derail your entire afternoon and lead to the postponing of certain tasks, or to completely forgetting about them. If you have particular problems with identifying what your time wasters are, then you can use the same tactic as with energy levels.

When you’re making a breakdown of your workday, try to catch yourself the moment you start browsing social media for longer than 5 minutes, every time you agree to help a coworker without thinking of your own workload, or every impromptu meeting called by your manager.

Above is an example of two distractions over two separate days. Summarizing and analyzing them like in our table will give you the necessary details on where most of your time is wasted. So, you can start working on solutions, or ways to avoid said distractions.

We often don’t give two thoughts about why we get distracted or when. But using a method like this can vastly improve how you approach distractions, and increases your success in eliminating them.

Sometimes, simply installing a website blocker isn’t enough.

Include a workday cooldown

A workday cooldown is the transition between work and free time. It includes tasks that we like to call “end of workday rituals”. Just like you have morning rituals to boost preparedness for the day, so should you have some for easing into the end of it.

Usually, we finish our last task of the day, shut off the computer, and start wondering what to do next (if we don’t have chores like dishes, food, picking up kids, appointments, etc). And even with the latter, the transition is so sudden, it takes our brains quite a while to shut off “work mode”.

Why do I need a workday cooldown?

A close friend of mine once said how he used to walk home for 40 minutes instead of biking, because he needed to walk off the frustration of the day. Because if he came home sooner, he would just bring it into his personal life, and it would “taint” the rest of his off-work time.

Similarly, you need some minute tasks at the end of the day to signal your brain to begin winding down. Let’s take a look at the ones below:

The images above are parts of my schedule showing the end of workday tasks – writing the day summary (on the right), and making a to-do list draft for the next day. These are so painfully simple, yet very effective in giving you a sense of closure. The workday is behind you, and now it’s time to rest.

Clockify’s workday breakdown template

The excerpts of the schedule we’ve used here are from a template you can find on our blog.

It is not just a timesheet, but a schedule focusing on breaking down your day to give you the most useful insight into your workflow.

If you would like to try it for yourself, you can download the PDF templates from the following links:

Download the Workday breakdown template here.

Download the Priorities list template here.

Download the Workday distractions breakdown template here.

Decide which timesheet you need

The way you organize your projects, and how you work day-to-day will determine which timesheet would be best suited for you. There are several types, but the most commonly used are:

1. Daily – most commonly used by employees and freelancers paid by the hour to keep track of billable hours and for improved productivity
2. Weekly – used to track weekly progression, as well as for payments on a weekly basis
3. Bi-weekly – used by employers and workers who are usually paid on a two-week basis
4. Monthly – normally used by employers who pay employees once a month, to simply record start and end times of workdays

For those less digitally inclined, all of the abovementioned (and more) timesheet templates are available online. Simply print them out, and start tracking your work hours.

Weekly timesheet in Clockify

Create tags and categories

Tags and categories exist to make your time tracking much easier. You’ll see that, once you have them in place, filling in individual time entries becomes a breeze. There’s no need for manual inputs every time, or remembering details.

The tags you create should be built around your work. For example, you can have:

• Project-related tags;
• General tags;
• Client-related tags;

Tags and categories are especially useful when formulating end-of-project, or client reports. You can filter out data based on these tags and give more customized reports.

An example of a report in Clockify

Set hourly rates and track your billable hours

Naturally, when you’re paid by the hour and you want to have a clean, presentable report for your clients, you’ll set a specific rate. Simply set a currency in your time tracker, as well as the default rate (or per project or client, however detailed you want to be), and you can start filling out your time entries with peace of mind.

Setting up a custom rate in Clockify

A fun fact – you’ll want to decide on which non-billable hours you’ll also be tracking. Believe it or not, sometimes, they are just as important as billable hours.

Why track non-billable hours?

These hours include marketing, invoicing, writing up reports, and preparing meetings, for example.

While you should have more billable hours than non-billable in order to cover the costs, tracking time on the latter has its own merits:

• You learn how much time non-billables take, and how to improve on them;
• You can see which clients or projects have more or less non-billable hours;
• Improve your workflow and project management.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. To find out more about tracking billable and non-billable hours, we’ve written a guide that is sure to help any employee paid by the hour.

Track time

Two ways of tracking time – manually inputting hours, and tracking automatically. You can use either one or both methods, even base your choice on what type of workday you’re having.

How to track time manually

Manual time tracking is good for those who prefer to add time after-the-fact, at the end of the day, usually because there are only a few tasks that take up most of their time.

There are also people who plan out their time meticulously. Their timeboxes for the day are already planned out in a to-do list, or a calendar. And so they’re able to fill out the time reports in advance or at the very end of the day, seeing how they plan to stick to their schedule as strictly as possible.

Additionally, manual time tracking allows them to edit any time entries where they over- or underestimated their work times.

Above is an example of how Clockify lets you simply enter the time you plan to spend (or have spent) working, and add it to your time report with one click. You can also check off whether the hours are billable or not, and tag them appropriately.

How to track time automatically

Setting up your time tracker to automatically record your hours is useful when you don’t want to deal with setting up timeboxes or to-do lists. If you’re particularly crowded with work on some days, it’s easier to just start the app and go about your business.

Trackers like Clockify will follow you no matter how many times you switch between different programs. Once the workday is over, you can spend 15 minutes to cool down by reviewing the time entries and sorting, tagging, or reviewing them in the timesheet.

A screenshot of Clockify’s automatic tracker

Accounting for additional pay

Additional pay includes cases like overtime, compensatory time, holiday rates, on-call/emergency situations. Let’s take a brief look at each type.

1. Recording overtime

We’re all familiar with overtime – it’s the additional hours spent at work. Overtime can happen for a multitude of reasons, from pushed deadlines to personal productivity issues.

Legally, anything that surpasses the usual 40-hour workweek can be considered overtime. And depending on the day of the week, and how many hours you’ve put in, an employer (or client) can pay you different rates.

Naturally, how much you make when working overtime will greatly depend on the country you’re from.

• EU time tracking law
• California overtime law
• Fair Labor Standards Act and work time regulation

These labor laws were put in place to protect both employers and employees, so we encourage everyone to inform themselves as best they can.

2. Recording for compensatory time

Compensatory time is the time off given to employees instead of overtime pay. It also depends on more factors: whether you’re in the public or private sector, if you’re salaried or paid by the hour, and on how high your wage is.

Find out whether or not you’re eligible for compensatory time here.

3. Recording for holiday rates

During national holidays, it’s especially important to track work hours, as holiday rates can be different from those of regular overtime (again, depending on your country’s labor laws).

When tracking time in cases like these, pay special attention to updating the rates for billable hours. In the end, simply generate a report and let the time tracker calculate your overtime pay.

4. Recording for on-call work

To be on-call means being available for work whenever the employer needs you. Most common examples include nurses, IT technicians, and maintenance.

On-call work can be a part of a regular employment plan, but also an occasional thing – for example, when a company launches their new software on a Friday and needs their developers at the ready on Saturday in case any serious issues crop up.

It’s important to mention on-call hours to your employer and remind them of the appropriate FLSA regulations. Agree on how you will track time, bill and report hours worked to ensure your timesheets are accurate and leave no room for misunderstandings.

These overtime cases are just some of the most common ones. To properly fill out time reports, it’s essential you familiarize yourself with the kind of overtime you will most likely do, and when.

Rounding time

In filling out your time reports, you will most likely run into the concept of time rounding. It’s the practice of rounding up hours to the closest increments.

Ex: You arrive at work at 8:45 AM and leave at 4:49 PM. When calculated, that is 8hrs and 4 minutes. The 4 minutes can then be rounded down to 8 hours and 5, 10, or 15 minutes, for easier payroll calculation.

Generally, there are three rules when rounding time:

1. Rounding time entry to the closest time increment (from 7 hrs 59 mins worked to 8hrs worked)
2. Rounding the clock in time in favor of the employee and the clock out in favor of the employer (rounding down both time entries)
3. Rounding the clock in and clock out favor of the employee

Here is what these rules look like in practice (and order of listing):

Time rounding is necessary to make payroll calculating painless, and to help both employers get a transparent look at hours worked, and employees paid fairly.

Additionally, plenty of time tracking software, like Clockify, gives you the option to round your time entries with a simple on-off switch in the app itself. That way, you don’t have to calculate yourself or worry if you’ve done everything properly.

Turning on time rounding to calculate payroll in Clockify

However, if you wish to do things “old school”, you can always do the time rounding calculations yourself. For those who want to learn how to fill out a timesheet while keeping time rounding in mind, we’ve done a detailed breakdown of time rounding practices. It lists all the rules you’ll need to master it and make time reporting easier.

Review your timesheet

Once your time entries are filled for the day (or week), it’s best to set aside a few minutes at the end of the day to review them. This is best done by looking at your day in a timesheet.

Time trackers have the option of presenting your workday via a timesheet, and additionally allowing you to edit any entry you made.

Timesheet view in Clockify

Make an agreement with your employer or client on what you will be able to edit in the timesheet itself. You can add or delete entries, edit descriptions, tags and project or client names, and much more. The timesheet is a reflection of your business practices and should be refined to match them.

Needless to say, since trust is a major factor in good business relationships, always justify your time entry changes to avoid misunderstandings or conflicts.

Additional time tracking tips

Last, but not least, as Clockify has been around for quite some time, we’ve seen and heard a lot of feedback from our users. It helps us understand what time tracking conundrums they find themselves in, and how we can help them make the best use of our app.

With that, here’s a shortlist of tips we believe everyone needs.

• List all the reasons why you track time

In times when we feel like filling out time reports is the worst chore there is, reminding ourselves why we do it can give a significant push forward. Whether it was a client dispute, gathering data to argue a raise, or simply wanting to see where you’re wasting time.

Keep a note of those reasons somewhere visible, as a work-related mantra.

• No need to track absolutely everything

Taking a break to make a cup of coffee, or answering a personal call that is under 10 minutes is not time worth logging.

If every little thing you do throughout your workday required a time entry, several things would happen:

• You would start to hate time tracking;
• You would waste time on minor details;
• Your brain would burnout from being so time-focused;
• Your work focus would suffer.

Log only those time entries that carry important data – to know how much you should charge, when you’re at most/least productive, etc.

• Tracking time does not make you a robot

As we’ve mentioned in the previous point, only by tracking every single aspect of your workday is a fast lane to becoming more of an AI than a human.

Time reports bring some order and structure to our workday and ensure we have some “paper trail” of what and how we’ve done.

• Not every time entry needs a description

Sometimes, “replying to emails” is just that. It’s not necessary to specify which clients or companies you’ve replied to. Unless our tasks absolutely need a track record of such details, minor task descriptions are an additional hassle you shouldn’t waste energy on.

In conclusion

Time tracking can have a lot of components to it, a lot of moving parts. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be complicated. When set up correctly, your time tracker can do all of the heavy lifting, while you just log the hours. By using tags, descriptions, categorizing properly, and making templates for each new project, you’re creating a time report assistant worth a fortune.

Chat with every new client

You need to find out what kind of information they value. This is to ensure that your rapport with them stays relevant, and you both know what to expect of each other. Added bonuses include:

• Clearer set goals;
• Getting a feel for what your client is like as a business person;
• Knowing what kind of reports they like and negotiating deadlines;
• Transparency with time estimates and expenses.

The more information you exchange, the better prepared you’ll be for when you actually need to put together a report. There will be little to no second-guessing, as you’ll know which information they want to see.

Make sure to either record this meeting (with the client’s permission, of course), or take extensive notes. It makes information categorization and reporting as easy as paint-by-numbers.

How to categorize your work

When you categorize your work, it reflects your productivity and how you tackle tasks. However, when reporting, be prepared for client questions to explain those decisions. Most reports rely on several categorization methods.

Categorizing by priority

Priority is one of the most frequent methods. It works for both clients and contractors because time is of the essence for every project. When everything is on time, you save the client money, help your own productivity, and keep the business relationship running smoothly.

Determine what aspects of the project are most important. For example, as a writer, if a client gives me a set of topics to work with, I would discern whether they primarily need research, interviews, datasheets, or something else entirely. Because the type of text and its goals will determine what kind of preparation I need to do. An article based on interviews requires coordination with other people, so I would probably put that as my first objective and organize tasks around it.

In the same way, I would explain my plan and decisions to the client, and how my strategy helps the project in the long run.

Categorizing by task type or technology used

The next method relies on the project breakdown. Once you have the larger goals dissected into smaller steps, you can begin to lump them together into different types. For example: research, design, review, feedback, etc.

Additionally, task types can include different platforms or software. Social media managers can categorize their work by the platform they use to say, promote a campaign. And they can track time spent on each, to later present to the client. Backed with their own reasoning and strategy, the person can then better explain how the project is going, and what choices were made to best push it forward.

Categorizing by time estimates

When the project is broken down into tasks, you may already be making mental time estimates for most of them. So, another method of categorizing work is by time required to finish them.

While this method is most useful to your daily schedule, it can provide some useful insight for the client as well. There is some benefit to using this categorization, as time estimates are a great indicator of how resources and finances are spent (important for clients). For example, in Clockify, you can set time estimates for each task you do:

And then later compare the estimated times and actual tracked times. From there, you can generate a client report with only the essential information.

Source: Make precise work time estimates

Clockify has a robust reporting system that can help make tracking project estimates and their presentation much easier.

Categorizing by difficulty/energy levels

This last one may sound a little weird. How do you categorize work by energy levels?

Well, when you break down the work you’ve accepted, odds are you will shift tasks on your schedule depending on your productivity during the day. For me, morning starts with easier tasks and e-mail checking for the first hour, and then I move onto more difficult ones until lunchtime.

You will naturally shift tasks that require more focus, effort, or research to the most productive hours of your day. Whether it’s in the morning, afternoon, or evening. While clients who will ask for this kind of breakdown are really rare, the insight can be useful when reporting:

• If you notice that you won’t make the deadline, it’s good to use this categorization to help the client see the work from your perspective. Instead of simply saying “the tasks are more energy-consuming, so I’ve decided to rearrange the deadlines” and expecting them to take your word for it, you actually have data to back it up;
• The information collected is extremely useful for you to study your own workflow, as well;
• It reveals the overall project progression, and the ratio of difficult vs easy tasks.

Now that we’ve covered different avenues of tackling the work itself, let’s take a look at when you should report to clients.

When to report to clients

Luckily, overbearing clients are slowly becoming a thing of the past. With newer generations come more professional individuals willing to listen and negotiate. However, they also require full transparency and fairness in return. This is why the reporting process will almost always be a matter of negotiations between you and them.

Negotiating the report schedule

There are two types of clients – those who like having some (healthy) supervision over the project

• Clients with no rapport preferences – have a template ready for them in the first meeting. Even when they say they don’t really care (or don’t have the time to plan out) meetings with you, it would be very professional to offer them a schedule.

Take the time to come up with a template schedule you can use in cases like these. Odds are, the client will be more willing to participate in scheduling when they have a base to start them off.

Here is an example of how that template could look:

Of course, your report schedule and types of reporting would vary from this example. The calendar should be made according to the industry you work in, how your client works, and most importantly – how you tackle the project.

• Clients with rapport preferences – ask them about their expectations, and be sure to clearly state your work process and usual reporting practices. Find a common ground that will work for both parties. Some clients, for example, don’t have the time to read through emails, and would rather have a 15-minute screen-shared call, so they can give feedback immediately.

Initial and final presentations

By this, we mean the meetings you have at the beginning, and at the end of the project.

When you first meet, you and the client may discuss rates, expenses, deadlines, and goals in more detail. However, it’s good to follow up that meeting after a few days or a week with a project report laying out all those details. It’s a way to make sure you’re on the same page, and to reassure the client that the work has already started. This “initial” report can include:

• Overall project layout;
• Task categorizations;
• Initial expense and time assessments, etc.

However, keep the information general – don’t go into individual tasks or your time assessments for each. The client will rather see these assessments for the overarching tasks and goals, rather than your hour-by-hour Monday plan. Those should be left for the more frequent check-ins.

Check-ins

Check-ins are your regular project updates. In the example table above, the Monday report and the one every other Friday would be considered check-ins.

It’s important to note, that even if there’s nothing special to report, you should do so. You should inform the client on how the project is progressing, even if the week was uneventful. We can compare it to feedback – while working at a company, I asked our department lead how I can know if I’m doing a good job. All he said was:

“If you aren’t, someone’s going to point it out to you. So long as no one is saying anything, you’re doing great”.

At first, I had no problem with that, as expecting feedback seemed self-centered of me. However, I soon found myself tense up every once in a while, wondering when the bad feedback would come. In much the same way, you should report, even with the most basic information during slow weeks. If you only report when there’s deadline pushbacks or project issues, the client can end up dreading to see your email in their inbox.

When should you schedule check-ins (depending on project type):

• Weekly;
• Twice a week or twice a month;
• Monthly (larger-scope check-in).

It goes without saying that your reports should be crafted according to the check-in frequency. Shorter, to the point information works best for weekly check-ins, to save you and the client the time and energy. Stick to emails and, if necessary, very short calls (up to 15 minutes).

Categorization and presentation in easy steps

Alongside time tracking, we’ve paid close attention to client billing reporting in Clockify. Because digital time tracking has become the most reliable source of trust and transparency between clients and contractors, reports have been made easy, as detailed, and as versatile as you need them.

Specify categories by using custom fields

In Clockify, you can make hassle-free reports thanks to custom fields. These are optional text boxes on each task, which allow you to specify what exactly you are tracking. Custom fields let you input: text, numbers, links, codes, locations,… They even give the option of entering expenses, in case that particular task has them.

A custom field in Clockify

Track time

This is the meat and potatoes of the reporting process.

Once categorized, your work time needs to be tracked for each task in each category. And if you’ve made estimates, you’ll only be one click away from comparing them with the actual time it took to finish everything.

Tracking project progress estimates in Clockify.

Formulate a report

Digital time trackers nowadays are equipped with a massive set of features that can give your reports as many layers as possible. They can be simple or detailed, or summarizing important points only.

Reports like the one above take the entirety of hours tracked and then let you choose what you want to present, at any given moment. For example, if you’re having a check-in call after several months of work, and you’re giving a weekly report, a client might ask about the overall project progress, just to check some numbers.

With a synchronized report like this, you can easily pull up that information. Simply switching from one tab to another, depending on what the client asks for. It lets you adapt to the flow of the meeting, and you’ll rarely be “put on the spot” by not having the necessary data at hand.

Present the report

If possible, ask your client at the initial meeting how they want their reports delivered and presented. Some prefer actual slides, while others want excel sheets or graphs. They will also change depending on the frequency and nature of the report.

Find out what works best for them, and try to stick to one format. However, make sure to have graphs and charts on hand, as they are the easiest visual representation to follow.

To summarize

Client reporting doesn’t have to be the boogeyman side of your job. A lot of confusion and misunderstandings can be prevented by simply categorizing your work on the grounds both parties agreed on. From then on, all you have to do is track time, and let the software generate the appropriate reports for you. Schedule times for reporting calls and emails, and stick to them, even if there’s little to nothing new to present. The client-contractor relationship is based on transparency, which software like this can provide?

But for that to happen, we need to overcome the unpleasant and annoying feeling of having to remember to track time, and actually do that additional work. In this article, I share some tips that worked for me. I’ll discuss things like finding the right motivator, making time tracking into a game, and simplifying it to the core.

Make sure you have the right motivator

While motivation in itself can be very fleeting (if you’re waiting for inspiration to strike), one shouldn’t neglect the power of the right motivator.

The only “abstract” advice I will give here is finding a very good reason why you need to track time. For example:

1. I’ll avoid misunderstandings with my boss/manager/team lead/coworkers;
2. There will be a “paper trail” of my work time, so I can back myself up when needed;
3. My clients are likely to be more trusting and/or willing to pay more because I come across as diligent and transparent;
4. I’ll get a better idea of where I waste my time, and can do something about it;
5. I want to stop working overtime;

Once you have your reasons on paper, time tracking has more of a purpose. This is something you can put up on a pinboard, above your work desk, or on a post-it on your monitor to help you get through mental pushback and level up your productivity.

Turn time tracking into a game

Gamifying your productivity can bring a lot of progress.

When you take the unnecessary seriousness out of time tracking, it’ll suddenly be more entertaining to start up your timer and take note of how you spend your time.

Treat time tracking as a skill to level up

Time tracking can become a game if you think of it in terms of filling out an experience progress bar. You gain experience bit by bit, and after some time, you level up. The same method can be applied if you treat time tracking as a game skill, and your tasks as experience (exp) points.

So, it will look a little like this:

• Make a progress bar much like the ones you see in video games;
• Assign them values or, experience points;
• Every time you successfully track time on a task, assign an experience point (or more).

You can make the concept as simple as this, or expand on it. For example, each task can carry a different number of experience points – if it takes an hour, it’s 5 points, and if it’s 20 minutes, it’s 2.

Here’s how I did it for a short while:

• I need to reach level 4 in one month of time tracking. Level 4 requires 200 exp points;
• I have four work weeks, meaning I can earn a maximum of 50 points per week;
• I have 5 days of work each week, making it to 10 points maximum per day;
• Goal: Earn 10 points a day while tracking time.
• If I tracked each task successfully, I would get the full 10 points.
• If I failed somewhere, I would deduct the points accordingly.

It may sound complex, but it was the simplest math, and with a hand-drawn exp bar on my desk, I somewhat felt like a video game character leveling up.

Fortunately, there are plenty of progress charts and templates online that you can either copy, or adapt them to suit your needs. Either way, if you’re even the smallest bit of a gaming type of person, this should work nicely.

Bring color and creativity into your timesheets

Way back in 2011, former Stamen tech lead Michal Migurski devised a clever, funny way to keep track of his team’s time.

He programmed a browser-friendly app that displays time spent on a project, with a twist: time would be tracked with a famous Angry Birds bird avatar, as it moves to hit the pig (aka the deadline). Here’s how it looks:

Source: mike.teczno.com

As Migurski himself explains it’s simple goal, you are supposed to hit the pig. If the bird flies over the pig’s head, you’re losing money/resources, and if the bird flies past the pig, you’re way behind your deadlines. On his website, Migurski had left a link to a Github repository, to check out Angry Productive Birds for yourself.

Reward time tracking milestones

Maybe the long term benefits of time tracking aren’t a good drive forward for you. The benefits of time tracking are obvious, but not always a tempting end goal. And that is okay, because a short term motivational boost can be equally successful. When gamifying your time tracking, make sure to set specific milestones and appropriate rewards.

For example, if your goal is to successfully track time five days in a row, the reward can be a pricey takeout dinner, shopping for something you’ve wanted for a while or… just a guilt-free nap in the middle of the day.

Milestones can also include successfully tracking time X number of times throughout the day, tracking a total of four hours at least (leaving some room in case you forget), etc.

Make time tracking fun with applets

If This Then That is a very popular and useful app we’ve mentioned quite a few times on the Clockify blog. The website lets you create small actions called applets, that trigger certain behaviors in your computer or phone. For example, every YouTube video you like can be added to your Spotify playlist, or every time your dishwasher starts, your roomba will start cleaning the kitchen. It takes the small chores off your plate. As another example, you can connect your Trello and Clockify so that every time someone puts a task card in Trello, an applet will enter that card as a time entry in Clockify. All you have to do is start the timer when you get to it.

A more fun way to track time would be to connect, say, YouTube and Clockify, where every time you stop your timer, a short celebratory video pops up. You can also do the same with an audio clip, or a gif you find amusing. These automated celebrations are like tiny rewards to look forward to when you track time on tasks.

Track time first – categorize later

In the past, whenever I thought of time tracking, I would immediately roll my eyes just picturing the whole process of typing what the task was, labeling it, deciding how long my Pomodoro would last, etc. The idea of preparation for each time slot was killing me – it was missing the flow and made me feel like a robot.

So, I fixed the issue with a few simple tweaks:

• When making my task list, I premade all the labels and projects;
• I threw out the Pomodoro timer (except for time-sensitive tasks);
• I would fill in only the basic information concerning the task;
• The sorting, additional notes and everything else was pushed back to the end of the day.

I found that taking out these small technical nuances made time tracking less annoying for me. As a bonus, at the end of the day, sorting all the time entries proved to be a great gradual unplugging ritual. I didn’t need an additional task for analysing how my day went, and going through the entries rewarded me with a sense of accomplishment and closure.

Source: Clockify tutorial – categorizing time

The above is an example of how you can make tags for recurring tasks in Clockify, so you simply choose what you are working on from the drop-down menu. If categorizing time entries makes your skin crawl, this is the perfect solution.

Get yourself a perfect tool

I’ve personally tried countless time tracking, habit tracking, and focus apps. And while I haven’t found any one that works for me 100% aside from Clockify, I can say with certainty that they differ so much, each caters to a different kind of person.

Whether you want an app-only tracker, one that is cross-devices, auto tracking or manual input, reports or no, invoicing, calendar integrations, you name it – they have it.

My best advice would be to spend a few weeks trying them on for size. Clockify has the most robust feature system for its free plan, so it’s a good starting point, in my opinion. You can see what you like and need, and work from there.

Don’t strive for perfection

One of the reasons I hated time tracking was because every failure to document my time felt very personal. As if I was lazy, inattentive, incapable of doing such a small task, and other very… unpleasant opinions.

And it was that negative mindset from the get-go that stopped me from doing this for a long time. Why even try time tracking when it brings out the worst in me?

So, to combat the negative assumptions you will most likely have, try nurturing different opinions.

“It’s okay to fail every once in a while”

Things will sometimes get in the way.

You will be distracted.

You will have a bad day.

Learn to forgive yourself for occasionally dropping the ball. So long as you push through those unpleasant feelings and keep trying, those small defeats don’t matter. And this is the healthiest mindset to be in, especially if you’re only starting to track your time.

“I don’t need to track everything”

Bathroom breaks, coffee-brewing breaks, or writing a follow-up email that just popped up as a task really don’t need their own time slot, nor tracking. Five-ten minute activities are probably not important in the long run (unless they’re entertainment breaks that add up), and they don’t give you any useful information about your habits.

They’re especially unimportant for your client/manager report.

Don’t overburden yourself, and you won’t hate time tracking as much.

“Time tracking is like eating broccoli”

Time tracking can make us feel like a robot who needs to fill out a specific quota for their engineer. And it kind of hurts to see that numbers seem to get a greater value than our quality or output.

But the truth is, good habits don’t come naturally. Just like a child needing to acquire the taste of broccoli because it’s good for its health, we too need to go through the annoyance of remembering to track time to be more productive in all aspects of life.

So yes, I suppose I am comparing time tracking to broccoli.

“Time tracking keeps me safe”

One of the best reasons why you should be on board with time tracking, is that it is irrefutable proof of how you’ve spent your work hours.

The modern workplace can be littered with doubts, broken deadlines, distrustful clients, and even scammers. When you know that you’ve done your part in making a fair report on hours worked and how much you’re owed, it takes a lot of stress off your chest.

You also get written evidence in case a client tries to evade payment, or an office dispute among coworkers goes south.

“It gives some semblance of control”

Nowadays, there are far too many factors that influence our day-to-day work as well as careers. So, when you are presented with the opportunity to have a miniscule aspect of total control over your resources and time, why wouldn’t you take it?

Time tracking is such a tiny action, and yet makes a huge impact on how you work and present yourself to others. Not to mention that, with how digital time trackers like Clockify have evolved, they’ve been perfected into an unobtrusive experience for anyone who hates time tracking.

To conclude

Time tracking comes with a lot of negative press. We don’t like it because it appears to turn our output into numbers, and we mistakenly believe that we as humans start to get valued through our timesheets. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Time tracking can give us control over damaging distracted behavior, keep us safe from malpractices both in office and in freelance, and be a great path towards building healthier work habits.

Today, we’re taking a look into how time management is more about the way you think and feel about time, and how to use those ideas for specific steps towards improvement.

The uncomfortable truth about time management

You can never really manage your time. We can’t make more time, save it, or steal it from other aspects of our lives. It’s not a tool, nor a resource that can be wrangled into obedience like a wild horse. Instead, we switch our priorities and schedules, and make tough decisions.

The only thing you can really do is change how you perceive it, and learn how to manage yourself and your energy and let time be just that. Time management should be more like learning how to handle a river by getting to know your boat, the right rowing techniques, how to properly balance yourself and mentally prepare for the occasional rapids ahead; rather than thinking how you can slow down the river or alter its course.

With what limited time we all have, it’s important to learn how to focus on tasks that matter in the long term (in career and life), and how to invest your energy wisely.

Why time management may be difficult for you

Having trouble sticking to your to-do list? Do you reach the end of the day, and feel like you just could’ve done more? Have you tried every single app under the sun, and none of them last longer than a week on your phone before you give up?

The good news is – there’s nothing wrong with you. The bad news is – it’ll be a while until you get better at this. And I’m about to tell you why.

How good are you at cooking?

I’ve often wondered why my partner was too intimidated to cook by the cookbook. All he has to do is follow the recipe: he has the measures written out, the tools, the ingredients… there’s nothing to it. But one time, as he was preparing a meal, he asked me how the meat was supposed to look when it was “just right”, so he could chuck in the rest of the ingredients.

And then it hit me.

No amount of details in the recipe or specific tools can give him the confidence, when it comes with the base skills and knowledge. To me, after years of experience, cooking comes easily: I know which tools I need without a second thought, I can eyeball the cooking time, and measurements based on a hunch. To cook a successful meal, you need to know how the dish is supposed to look during the process, how it should smell, how long each ingredient needs to cook and when to be put in.

Without these skills and prior experience, my partner was stranded. Despite having the cookbook and the tools (in our case, all those productivity articles and videos).

The same idea can be applied to anything: painting, woodworking, programming, video editing, you name it. Each of these activities requires some underlying skill sets. Without them, no amount of fancy tools or methods can help you improve.

Maybe that is why every app store Pomodoro timer, browser-based to-do list, or bullet journal fail to help you keep track of your time, and stay productive.

Let’s take a look at what skills you need to develop first, before you look for tools and time management guides to help you with the specifics.

Time management needs three key qualities to work

Mastering your management skills requires a shift in understanding time. To achieve this, Erich C. Dierdorff advises working on three things:

1. Awareness of time – realizing it is limited, keeping a realistic outlook on time;
2. Arrangement – handling your schedule, planning, and prioritizing to make the best use of time;
3. Adaptation – observing and analyzing your use of time for further improvement, and learning how to adjust to the changes in your schedule.

In one research, Dierdorff observed 1200 participants, and how they managed these three skills in a 30-minute test. He noticed that arranging came much easier to them than awareness and adaptation – meaning, people scored better at organizing their schedules, but managing shifts, cancellations, overextensions and any deadline disruption was handled worse.

From this, Dierdorff concluded that awareness and adaptation are much more difficult to master. It could explain why we always struggle with procrastination and maintaining healthy habits, even when our plans seem foolproof.

Just like his participants, you too might be better in only one or two thirds of those skills. Let’s see how each of them can be practiced until you reach a healthy balance between the three.

How to improve awareness of time

Your overall attitude towards time needs to change, because even with the best organization you can feel stressed over wanting to be more productive, or fearing you will slip up.

Practice awareness by playing

Dierdorff’s research had the participants perform in a microsimulation that lasted half an hour. In much the same way, you can test your time management, organization, and prioritization without any fancy tools, at home.

Video games!

There are plenty of video games that rely on time and resource management, with as much or as little story and frills as you want. These games provide microsimulations of their own, where you need to juggle resources, time, tasks, employees, and random events that pop up. The goals are usually to either earn enough money to keep your shop/restaurant/business afloat, or to get the best possible results for each day and grow successful.

Time management games are the simplest, yet the most fun way to get a glimpse of how you manage time, and what aspects of work you prioritize. Just make sure to actually pay attention to your play style, otherwise you’ll just be playing video games, instead of treating it as a learning opportunity.

Change your attitude towards time with a mantra

In looking for successful entrepreneurs’ perceptions of time in my research, I ran into one by Rosie Guagliardo, of Inner Brilliance Coaching. She said that:

“Knowing your priorities and aligning activities with them is important, but you can still feel stressed. Since you can’t change the time you have, change how you feel about it. If you’re thinking you don’t have enough time, it’ll feel stressful. Tell yourself “I have all the time in the world.” You’ll feel calmer, more present and open to new and different solutions, allowing you to get more done.”

It goes right to the core of changing your awareness of what time is, and how you should feel about it. There are thousands of sayings about time, and one of them is surely to resonate with you. It’s such a small action, but a significant one – your choice of quote will say a lot about your biggest insecurities, concerns, or hopes about time.

Keeping it in mind or repeating it every day is bound to burn the mantra into your consciousness.

Get external feedback

It goes without saying that we tend to be too subjective about our own work. Our self-assessment will always be flawed in some way, whether we judge ourselves too harshly or too softly.

Depending on your employment, if you’re a student, a freelancer, or a manager, your sources of feedback will differ. Usually they’re:

• Coworkers (peers whose opinion you value);
• Managers or team leads;
• Friends and family;

You need to share your ideas and goals with the person giving the feedback, and let them know what kind of comments you need. There’s also the option of creating a template of sorts that you can give them. The more information you share, the easier it will be for the person to give accurate, actionable observations.

Spend some time introspecting

One thing that I did and find personally the most beneficial was to create a visual representation of my time awareness. That way, I was able to identify what was wrong with my perceptions, and what blocked me from becoming more productive. Here’s how I did it:

• I identified the biggest problem first

The eyesore was my procrastination – I wanted to get the work done, but couldn’t physically bring myself to it.

• I wrote down the behavior patterns

Usually, it was looking for the appropriate music to focus to (and then getting distracted), remembering I needed to call a friend for something important, a specific chore, etc.

• I noted the feelings that came with the behavior

As with all procrastination, the feeling was usually of guilt, fear of delay, and sense of incompetence. Even though I was aware of them, I still jotted them down next to each behavior. That way I saw what caused me most distress, and would be able to think of a possible solution.

• I kept asking “why”

Along with the feelings, I also tried to answer the question “why”. Why did I choose to waste time picking out music? Why did I feel the need to call that friend now? Why couldn’t I do the chore in half an hour, after I’m done with the task?

• I analyzed the grid

This activity works similar to journaling – you put the struggles onto paper and explore them in excruciating detail, because the visualization gives you a different perspective of the issue. Ultimately, I realized that all my distractions were avoidance of writing a subpar article, and fear of not living up to expectations. Because, if I don’t start writing an article, it can’t be bad, right?

It was something I thought was the root cause, but was never sure of it. Getting this kind of closure turned out to be really good for my mental health as well. The activity forced me to examine everything I did or feel, and in a way, I acted as my own productivity coach.

How to improve arrangement

Improving arrangement means learning how to plan and prioritize better, so that the foundations your time management is on stay solid and unwavering. After all, this is the most concrete way you can take back control of your time.

Try reinventing the to-do list

Peter Bregman of Bregman Partners said how:

“For many of us, our to-do list has become more of a guilt list: an inventory of everything we want to do, plan to do, really should do, but never get to. It’s more like an I’m-never-going-to-get-to-it list.”

And he makes a very good point. A lot of the time, we write a list of tasks that need to be done, without taking into account how much time or energy they will take. And by workday’s end, we’re stuck regretting not having done everything we put on our platter.

In the same article for Harvard Business Review, Bregman proposes that instead of a vague to-do list, we adopt fewer bulleted points, but with stricter work times. This is best achieved by using timeboxes, where you determine a fixed amount of time for each task, with one caveat: you begin and end the task at the exact minute you set.

An example of timeboxing in Clockify

When your work times are flexible, you risk slipping into a 12-hour workday. Having a strict framework will help with accomplishing more throughout the day, and finishing in time.

How to improve adaptation

As mentioned before, adaptation is the subtle art of being flexible enough to salvage your schedule from anything life may throw at it. Emergencies, unexpected meetings, forgotten appointments, breached deadlines… you name it.

However, instead of learning how to manage stress or learn to plan better (which we did), how about we show what improving adaptability really means?

Recognize you’ll have bad days, but don’t overindulge in them

Quite often, I’ve run into various YouTube videos and articles writing about allowing yourself to experience bad days, when time management simply isn’t going your way. And while that is true, I’ve often felt guilty if two or three such days line up. What’s more, these resources seem a little scripted, in a way, and I can’t really relate to the author.

That was, until I ran into a video by Matt D’Avella, whose productivity YouTube channel counts millions of viewers. His videos focus on productivity, self-improvement, and avoiding burnout/hustle culture. For a video titled How I stay productive all day, surprisingly, he didn’t. Seeing the montage of him going through the day struggling with some tasks, failing in some places and succeeding in others, to ultimately end it putting off some bigger ones was – refreshing.

Seeing D’Avella face the unpleasantness of not finishing some important tasks, only to make peace with it, shrug it off, and hit the gym at the end of the day, made it oddly comforting. It showed me that we need an equal amount of understanding, letting go, and the trust that we can finish those tasks next time, to actually be adaptable.

Because the more you fret over your schedule, the time you wasted, or what didn’t work, the more rigid you become.

Don’t plan each day in detail

Forbes had an article on time management myths not too long ago, and one interviewee’s piece of advice stuck with me:

“”Plan your day” used to be the mantra of time management. However, if all you do is plan your day, long-term goals never get any closer. You finish the day with extra to-dos that get added to tomorrow’s list until you eventually give up on them. They can be unimportant tasks, but more often they are tasks with a longer time horizon. Include time in your week for longer-term strategic goals.”

Jim Vaselopulos, Rafti Advisors, Inc.

If you focus too much on each day, you run the risk of becoming short-sighted. Whatever long term goals you had, all fall by the wayside. This opens a whole new issue of doing daily tasks without any other reason than to “make the deadline”.

Set aside one day a week where you will revise long term goals, and change or adapt your daily schedule depending on how those tasks align with them. You’ll find it’s easier to adapt to unexpected shifts. Knowing what your long term goals are will help you make more informed choices on how to adapt.

A good support system goes a long way

One of the reasons why your time management suffers is the lack of support. Some people like to have people around them working towards the same goal. Kind of like taking a language course and seeing the same people twice a week in the classroom, putting in the effort to reach the same language level.

But how does it work when it comes to time management?

We’ll take a look at some things you can do to make your surroundings more “learner-friendly”, as you try to cultivate a healthier mindset and relationship with time.

Support among your family and friends

Downloading a daily time management app, for example. There are a few to choose from in the app stores, and they consolidate every family member’s schedule with the bigger activities and obligations you have together.

Additionally, for those who have children, there are apps and exercises for teaching kids time management. It gives a unique opportunity to go back to basics yourself, and reevaluate what you know.

Support among your coworkers

If you are a part of a team, or a department, and your relationship with the coworkers/teammates is generally good, you can always turn to them for support. Simply sharing your challenges, asking for tips, or double-checking a method you want to implement will already go a long way.

To take it one step further, you can organize a small group with a common goal. Support among those who know the company and the work as well as you do is great for validation and understanding.

Support online

The habit forming and tracking app Habiticacan be used as one example where the online community serves as a great support system. The app itself has a robust forum inside it, where users can gather around shared goals and experiences and look for comments, opinions, and advice.

Similarly, forum-based websites, and discussion boards like Reddit, for example, provide numerous threads and topics for free discussion. This type of support can also be the best kind, seeing how you have a knowledge pool of hundreds – if not thousands – of people around the world. You are bound to run into some new techniques, methods, and food for thought.

r/productivity message board on reddit.com

Rely on persistence, not motivation

Last, but not least, one of the best and most commonly overlooked pieces of advice is to not rely on motivation to work, but on pure persistence.

It’s not surprising why we often push away the notion of “stubbornly starting a task even if we don’t feel like it”. It’s unpleasant, we would rather do anything else, and we have no clue if the output is going to be worth the effort. As a bonus, we’ll feel awful the whole time, right?

Well, as awkward as it can be, sometimes we need to parent ourselves, and enforce discipline. On one hand, it can become a stable drive after some time.

On the other hand, as artist and productivity coach Katy Arrington shared with us, sometimes we just need the right goal to manage our procrastination. Not to beat ourselves up over lack of discipline, but to find real, tangible goals that will pull us out of the rut when we most need it.

To conclude

Getting the hang of time management is tough, grueling work. But it can be made easier if you put yourself in the right mindset, and start looking at time differently. It is a constant, not a resource you need to learn to utilize. Learning how to develop a healthy attitude towards schedules, time spent, time wasted, and what is important to you in life greatly increases your odds of sticking to good time management habits.