10 years into my business I feel I finally have a handle
on my workflow. Working on tasks is only one part of the
equation when you have your own business, the tracking,
invoicing, book keeping are as important to my daily routine.
I've tried countless tools, from task warrior, vim-wiki,
simple notes, time tracking online software. I've purchase
agendas (hobonichi) with daily, monthly, yearly tracking,
used huge page of calendar / task right on my desk.
I used a cellphone task/note/time tracking, both
paid and open source (time/taskwarrior) syncing on
every platform possible.
But finally for the last few weeks I can say I've find
what works for me.
What I use:
Hardware
- Hobonichi squared or dotted plain notebook
- Hobonichi notebook cover
- Lamy fountain pen, thin line
- Platinium Carbon black ink
- Cellphone, laptop, desktop
Software
- Termdown, for time tracking
- i3-wm for the multiple desktops
- Fusion Invoice, self hosted invoicing system
- LibreOffice, for bookkeeping
Here is my process:
Every Monday (or start of the week) I open a new spread
of 2 pages in my notebook. On the left I title it TASKS and on
the right I title it TIME.
I check the previous page to see if there are tasks that
aren't completed. I then move these tasks over. I check
my email and add all the new tasks that has been added
for the week. I mark important task with !. I also
review meeting notes if I had a meeting over the weekend.
I add small checkbox for each task, and indent for
'sub task' when a task is multi-faceted.
If there are planned meetings (I don't have a lot of these)
I entered them in the tasks with a date added to it.
I normally take a break after all that is done.
Then I start the work. I check what is the most important
to do today, if there are deadlines first, and then what
can be finalized in a day. That part of the strategy has
different elements of priorities; how much a client is
paying, and if a client is on retainer or a running invoice etc.
I write on the right side of the spread today's date and
I list all the task I plan to be doing in the day, with
small checkbox before them (I use a squared or dotted notebook.)
I open a new desktop on my computer (email and chat are on desktop 1)
and start a timer 'termdown -T taskName' then I start on the task.
I can pause the timer as needed and leave that desktop for
as long as I need. I reboot my computer normally on a monthly
basis, so task/desktop are often open for multiple days.
By then end of the day I mark the time I've spent on each of
the task. I go with 1/4 hour minimum time slot. And instead
of not working the full 1/4 hour, I simply give more time for
that client. For example, if I need to provide a quick report
on site stats, instead of taking 5 minutes to do so, I take a full
15 minutes and create a more detail report or take time to check
on their site if there are updates or other task that need attention.
By the end of the day I tally up my hours. This gives me a good sense
of my productivity and also helps me making enough each month
to pay for our bills. I used to not track my time really well,
where I ended up under charging for most of my work. After a few
weeks, a task seems to be not so big anymore, and eyeballing it
I would always think it was done faster than it was.
I used the check box on both side of the spread to note that
a task has been done.
I used to try to avoid having to count my hours, I would prefer to
work with retainer, where the client pay for a fix rate monthly,
or by contract, so the total ammount is decided in advance.
This type of contract was useful as I didn't have to track too
much of my time, but also left me unaware of my productivity.
Nowdays I just do the work, and count my hours as I go.
It has a positive effect on my client as I am more
responsive, and I end up working more hour per month.
I am able to do that because I work only a few hours a day,
my weeks total in between 20 to 30 hour of billable time,
with a few more hours of task/billing/accounting, so it
leaves me the flexibility of adding some task to my workflow.
I continue the same process for the whole month and once the month
is over, I go trough the 4 spread, and start invoicing. I
start an invoice in fusionInvoice, and then tally up all
the hours and the task I've listed. At this point, I
cross the task that is accounted for. So when I check the
checkbox, the task is done, with it's crossed I know it's been
invoiced.
On that monthly page, I make a small list:
Client Invoiced Total Paid
Judy [ ] $1200 [ ]
Helen [ ] $100 [ ]
Mary [ ] $500 [ ]
Monthly total $1800
Once everything is invoiced and paid, I try to keep up
with the bookeeping side of thing. I normally do it a month
after, download my bank report, fill in my excel sheet,
calculate the taxes and pay my taxes on time (this is a
goal and not a reality!)
Writing things down instead of using a computer/cellphone
Writing things down on paper really works well for me.
I find it a calm and beautiful technology and it's a
nice way to separate the different function for every
tools. I can start the day simply with my notebook,
checking the tasks, the minutes from a meeting or
calculating my hours so far, or reviewing some previous
week of work, without any computer.
I can also check my phone for email and fill in my task
in my notebook, again withough resorting to a centralized
task system. I also use the notebook for meeting
notes.
Separating my work life in a notebook also make my
phone a neutral tool. On weekend or vacation my phone
is just a phone. I don't need to open my emails and
there are no task/calendar reminder of my work. It
stays relatively a calm technology (I don't use social
network, so my phone is only for phone/text/email/gopher/photo)
I normally start my task/time spread from the end
of the book, and go back one page at a time. While I take
meeting note from the front of the notebook in. By the end
half or more of the notebook is filled with task/time and
the first part are all meeting notes. These meeting notes
also populate my tasks. As these notebook are 360 pages,
each week takes up 2 pages, I could fit almost 2 years of
work in one book. (I'm planing to start a new notebook
on the new year with this technique to see how long it
will last.)
I also like writing on paper. I like the fountain pen as
it's an instrument that I always use. It doesn't generate
pollution, as I refil the ink manually and I keep the nice
looking bottle of ink (made of glass) to store other thing.
I use the same tool for illustration. The ink is archival
quality and is waterproof for when I add water color to
my drawings. So again, the fountain pen is a simple
technology that works well for every task of my life.
Hobonichi notebook are made for fountain pen, using Tamoe
River paper, which is a really thin paper that doesn't let
the ink trough. You end up with a very small paper footprint
(their notebook are half the thinkness of other notebook).
Using the reusable cover, you can use refill that are using
a lighter cover.
I've only settled on this system in the last couple months
and my monthly income has almost doubled. I was working a
lot of hours that I didn't really track (I know, I'm
silly like that.) but now having a really solide tacking
system helps me relax more. When I can see that I've made
such and such amount during a week and if there is
nothing pressing from a client then I can truly relax.
Something I couldn't really afford before as I didn't
really know what was going on.
Although this is for a self-employed, home business workflow
I'd love to hear other people's task/time/work tracking system!
