I wanted to be able to track my time for billing purposes. So I looked on the web to see what software was available. There are a number of free timers available, but a timer wasn’t exactly what I was after. There are also a number of more sophisticated project trackers available. Some were expensive, others were complicated. I wanted something simple—something that wouldn’t hammer RAM memory since I often have several graphics applications running at once.
I didn’t find what I was after so I built my own simple solution. It consists of two pieces, a Notepad text file which sits open on the desktop while I work and an MS Excel spreadsheet where I paste the contents of the text file when I’m done working.
Here’s how it works: When I start my day I open time-billing.txt, position my cursor in the appropriate row under the words, “Start Time,” and press the F5 key. Voila! My time is captured. Then I press CTRL S to save the file and begin working.
When it’s time to take a break, I tab over so my cursor is beneath the words, “End Time,” and press F5 again. Since I’m a conscientious computer user who loathes losing unsaved data, I press CTRL+s once again. Actually, I press CTRL+s a lot each day.
At the end of my day I copy all my start and stop times into my spreadsheet and know exactly how much time to bill for.
The spreadsheet can also be used without the text file. To enter the time values, first press CTRL+; to enter the date. Next type a space and press CTRL+ Shift+; to enter the time. It’s not as simple as pressing F5, but it gets the job done.
Click the link to download the time and billing tracker.