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I just hate filling in my timesheet thats my gripe! Im always late with them and end up doing them on a Monday morning instead of before I go home on a Friday evening. l; It's not that I'm bad at time management, I just get fed up with the whole timesheets weekly chore, because that's exactly what it is to me.
Surely there must be a better way of recording the way that you spend your time during the working day? Weve got enough other administrative tasks to do without the hassle of timesheets as well. When you work in a multi-client, multi-job environment it gets extremely complicated trying to record everything. This is especially true when some tasks are five minutes here and ten minutes here and each time period is for a different client. Some days I have inserted between twenty and fifty different entries!
Out of all of them, the best was a custom web-based timesheet application...
These days I make it up. Its so much easier than trying to record everything in detail. Far simpler just to have an idea in your head how long you spent on each task and roughly guesstimate it all. Bang in a few lines for each day of the week and there you go. One completed timesheet to keep your manager off your back! So what if its not one hundred percent accurate. Who is going to look at in detail? More to the point, who cares if they do, they cant prove anything one way or another. As long as the figures are about right thats all that matters. Im sure Im not the only employee out there that fiddles the books when it comes to their timesheets, of that I am certain!
For me, one of the things that make timesheets a bit of a chore is the timesheet software itself. Ive worked for loads of companies and used all sorts of software for filling in timesheets. Out of all of them, the best was a web-based timesheet application, custom built in-house by our developers specifically for us. It was easy to use, didnt need installing on all the PCs and it was fast. We were a small company at the time and it suited all our needs. It was easy for the workers to use and the managers were apparently happy with the reports it provided. The company then grew and took on a new sales director, he had a cousin whose software company had a timesheet product that was supposed to be really good; we started using that and it sucked big time.
Anyway, thankfully they made me redundant and I didnt have to put up with that mundane piece of software any longer. The company I work for now isnt really a lot better though. Its big and it uses big tools such as Peoplesoft. Try that for your time recording needs and well take you right back to the Stone Age. It might be web-based, but its still poorly built and very difficult to use.
I still make up the numbers by the way. You should try it, it's so easy!
Related extrernal resources
Time Sheet Humour - It has come to our attention recently that many of you have been turning in timesheets that specify large amounts of miscellaneous Unproductive Time. As a result we have extended the timesheet codes list to assist with the analysis of unproductive time.
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Thank You
In one job I had there was a timesheet that had a 'comments' section which of course I couldn't resist. I used to love writing totally unrelated things in it like "Rock and Roll will never die" or "What's the samaritans phone number?" Okay, probably not that funny and a bit juvenile but it p****d off the nerdy manager.
*MikeP(ompous)
You do not undertake work for anybody because you are permanently on this site!
"Any professional who charges by the hour is setting himself up as an employee who makes his "employer" take all the risks. What utter cowardice and apalling customer service! Charging by the hour is not behaving as a grown-up business person and all who do so should be exposed."
This is nonsense.
When I undertake work for a client, I don't know, and nor do they, how long it will take, it could be an hour or so on a computer, or it could involve weeks of work and international travel, depending on what the investigation reveals.
Looking for enterprise timesheet software at the moment. The VERY obvious plugging of Dovico on fake blogs and comments like this has meant Dovico is off my list. If the product needs this kind of underhand promotion I don't want it.
The overall benefit, which is crucial now we are facing another recession, is greater profitability. A stronger business benefits everyone, even those 'slackers' who fear having their productivity tracked. Accurate real-time data, if acted upon, can save a business but ultimately timesheet software is only a tool and it is its overall adoption that will determine its usefulness. Coretime is a module that seems to have the right balance for most professionals. www.onesys.co.uk
But in most organisations the data has to be supplied to "remote" un-trusting third parties such as higher management/clients/sub-contractors/standards bodies/the govt. etc.
Now say you are a client and you don't know me or the company very well and you ask "How is progress on my widget coming along?" - which response has more validity/weight with you:
1. Just fine.
2. We keep metrics on all our projects, and your widget is on track - take a look at this graph.
Now, most people, because they are "lazy" will prefer 2, even if it is based on fictional data. And everyone knows (well most managers will have at least a vague inkling) that those colorful graphs *are* be based on fictional information.
So why do people still require timesheets? Because it absolves them of responsibility. They don't want to carry the can, plain and simple.
How does this absolve responsibility? Take this simple exchange:
Client: My project's overrun - you said it was on track!
Manager: Well, we keep metrics of progress according to Good Management Standard X and everything said we were on target.
Employee: Er... actually Boss, we were all faking our timesheets to fit the plan.
Manager: You're all fired - how can I do my job if you're all lying to me!
Simplistic, but played out every day across the world.
So, timesheets exist solely move responsibility for project *failure* (that should rightfully be largely the managers') onto the shoulders of "the workers" because managers are invariably underpaid, overworked (i.e. their managers are as bad as they are), incompetent and lazy.
wolf
If instead we could focus on how to make our project delivery more effective — that's far more productive question than trying to do the wrong thing right / fast.
Surely it must sink in with people that (coffee) breaks and interuptions make up the most amount of time and it's not productive — yet they are calculated against a project. How about the idea I generated while sitting on a toilet bowl on the weekend. Should I clock that in too? And how much of that time? Just the Eureka! moment? Or the process of getting to that Eureka moment — which to be honest is probably key part of the reason why I had it.
If that's not a valid thing to be measuring... what exactly are we measuring?