The single most effective habit of small business owners is tracking your time.

It took me almost two years to figure this out. But once I found a time tracking application that I actually loved and really used – then I became a miraculously good time tracker. Want to know my simple secret tool?

I use Freckle, a simple and delightful online application, to track all the hours of my workday.

I track my time in 15-minute segments, and I categorize my time by paid time, which is grouped in different client projects – and by unpaid time, grouped in categories like “office work” and “accounting” and “leads” and “past clients.”

Freckle is a great solution for my time tracking because…

• It’s actually liberating to track the minutes of your workday. There’s no longer the nagging feeling of working too much or too little. In either case, I have the numbers to know exactly how many hours that I invested (or not). That way, I can appreciate the long days and I can rejoice for all the short days!
• It’s pretty – those cheerful colors. As my artist friend + past studiomate Mati Rose was quick to point out, the lovely colors and clean design of the LetsFreckle.com make it way more enjoyable to use. For creative types, this is important!
• It’s cost effective. For $12 per month, I happily track all of my billable hours.

Plus there are lots of bonus tools and features that help you integrate time tracking into your workday! Try it out. It’s worth the time.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes peak at my “pulse” on Freckle from January…

Look at those lovely pie charts! And the colors! Be still my heart. I am so happy when the end of the week arrives, and I sit down to upload my hours to Freckle. :)

What about you? Do you track your time at work – if so, how? After years of this habit, it’s hard for me to imagine not doing this, even if I weren’t working for myself!