However, it’s a bit tricky to give a clear-cut answer in practice.

Another question may also pop into your head, such as why calculate yearly work hours. It’s something we’ll discuss later in this text, but let’s put it this way — knowing how many work hours per year we have will help you stay on top of your budget and plan your spendings (whether as an individual or a business owner), to name a few reasons. 

Stay with us because in this blog post, we’ll help you:

• Calculate your total annual work hours,
• Calculate your total annual non-work hours, and
• Convince you to start tracking your work hours by giving you legitimate reasons to do so.

Let’s jump right into it!

How many working hours are there in a year?

As mentioned, broadly speaking, there are 2,080 working hours per year — that’s 40 hours of work per week.

The calculation goes as follows: multiply 40 hours of work per week (which is a global norm) by 52 (number of weeks per calendar year), and you will get 2,080 hours a year.

The standard 2,080 work hours per year may fluctuate depending on whether it’s a leap year or not. In that case, there can be up to 2,096 working hours (260 to 262 working days within a year).

Still, a number of other factors may influence the calculation of your annual work hours, such as your work schedule, time off, holidays, overtime, to name a few. It’s quite unlikely that you would work throughout a calendar year without taking any time off, whether that’s vacation, sick or holiday leave. 

Let’s walk you through the steps for calculating your total annual working time. 

How many working hours in a year (based on your workweek)?

The Fair Labor Standards Act does not define the exact number of work hours a full-time or part-time employee must clock in, as it is solely established by the employer. Therefore, certain workers may work more or less than the standard 40-hour workweek and still be covered by the FLSA rules and regulations. 

Now, if you don’t work a “traditional” 40-hour workweek (2,080 work hours/year), look at the following breakdown of different work schedules to find out their respective annual work hours:

• 20-hour workweek: 20 hours/week x 52 = 1,040 working hours/year
• 25-hour workweek: 25 hours/week x 52 = 1,300 working hours/year
• 30-hour workweek: 30 hours/week x 52 = 1,560 working hours/year
• 35-hour workweek: 35 hours/week x 52 = 1,820 working hours/year
• 37.5-hour workweek: 37.5 hours/week x 52 = 1,950 working hours/year
• 45-hour workweek: 45 hours/week x 52 = 2,340 working hours/year
• 50-hour workweek: 50 hours/week x 52 = 2,600 working hours/year
• 55-hour workweek: 55 hours/week x 52 = 2,860 working hours/year
• 60-hour workweek: 60 hours/week x 52 = 3,120 working hours/year

Remember that the said calculations refer to working hours on a yearly basis and do not include any time off or holiday. For the purpose of calculating your total hours in a work year, along with your time off and holidays, you will have to follow the formula we provided in the How do you calculate work hours per year (+ steps) section. 

How many non-working hours per year (based on your workweek)?

Now that you know your total annual work hours, based on your work schedule, let’s find out how many hours you don’t work in a year, referring to the same work schedule we mentioned earlier.

To find out how many non-working hours there are in a year, whether that’s a 40-hour workweek or other “non-traditional” work schedules, you’ll need to subtract total hours worked based on your working week from the total hours per year (there are in total 8,760 hours per calendar year):

• 20-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 1,040 work hours/year = 7,720 non-working hours/year
• 25-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 1,300 work hours/year = 7,460 non-working hours/year
• 30-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 1,560 work hours/year = 7,200 non-working hours/year
• 35-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 1,820 work hours/year = 6,940 non-working hours/year
• 37.5-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 1,950 work hours/year = 6,810 non-working hours/year
• 40-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 2,080 work hours/year = 6,680 non-working hours/year
• 45-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 2,340 work hours/year = 6,420 non-working hours/year
• 50-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 2,600 work hours/year = 6,160 non-working hours/year
• 55-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 2,860 work hours/year = 5,900 non-working hours/year
• 60-hour workweek: 8,760 hours/year – 3,120 work hours/year = 5,640 non-working hours/year

Knowing the number of your non-working hours may aid you in planning free time, vacation, or just as a reference to make sure you maintain a good work-life balance.

How do you calculate work hours per year (+ steps)? 

As said earlier, there are factors that you must take into account before you start calculating your annual working hours. Regardless of your work schedule (and certain other steps throughout the calculation), you will have to subtract any time off you took for the given year, including:

• Vacation days,
• Sick days, and
• Holidays.  

Bear in mind that vacation days, sick days, and holidays are not fixed amounts, and they might depend on your company’s policies or even the state you live in. 

Now, to calculate the total working hours per year, look at the equation below:

Total hours in a work year = (Number of working hours per week x 52) – [(PTO days + number of paid holidays) x number of working hours per day]

To make sure you get the most accurate calculation of your work hours per calendar year, we’ve broken down the equation into 4 in-depth steps for better understanding.

Step #1: Track your weekly work hours and multiply them by 52

This is the first step to calculating your yearly work hours. Once you know how many hours you work per week, it’s easy to calculate your yearly total.

To calculate your weekly work hours, multiply the hours worked per day by the number of working days for that given week. Or, even more simply, make use of an automatic time card calculator to streamline the process of calculating your weekly hours.

A time card calculator records the start and end times of your work day, calculates your overtime for each day, and lunch break periods (which are deducted from the work hours automatically), too.

Finally, you can download your time card for personal archive or print it out and show it to your employer. Or, such as in this case, you can calculate your weekly hours hassle-free for the purpose of obtaining the total hours in a work year.

Now that you have the number of hours worked per week, multiply it by 52 (number of weeks per calendar year).

Let’s say you’ve tracked 35 hours of weekly work (including overtime), and when you multiply it by 52, you get:

35 hours of work/week x 52 = 1,820 working hours/year 

Of course, this is not the number of hours we are looking for since you will need to count in the time you took off, along with holidays, so let’s calculate those in the next section.

Step #2: Calculate PTO and holidays 

The next step towards calculating your working hours per year is to consider how many hours you were absent from work (only paid time off counts). This includes vacation time, sick leave, and paid public holidays. 

Don’t forget that, according to the US Department of Labor, no employer is liable for providing their employees with paid vacation leave including sick leave or holiday leave (basically for any time not worked). Also, the number of vacation days depends on the length of time spent with the employer. Namely, one-third of the private industry workers in 2021 received 10 to 14 days of paid vacation after the first year of employment, while 33% of private industry workers with 10 years of experience received between 15 to 19 days of paid vacation. 

As for public holidays, the number of paid holidays you get also depends on your employer. However, the US recognizes 11 annual holidays:

1. New Year’s Day (January 1),
2. Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Third Monday in January),
3. Washington’s Birthday (or Presidents Day; third Monday in February),
4. Memorial Day (Last Monday in May),
5. Juneteenth National Independence Day (June 19),
6. Independence Day (July 4),
7. Labor Day (First Monday in September),
8. Columbus Day (Second Monday in October),
9. Veterans Day (November 11),
10. Thanksgiving Day (Fourth Thursday in November), and
11. Christmas Day (December 25).

In addition, Inauguration Day (January 20) is also a public holiday, but it is held every four years and considered a paid holiday for federal employees living in the Washington, D.C. area only.

Now, to proceed with your annual work hours calculation, add up all the hours of paid time off you took, including holidays, and prepare for the next step in your calculation. 

Step #3: Multiply the number of total days you took off with the number of hours you work per day

If you, for instance, worked 8 hours a day (no overtime) and had 9 days of vacation that same year, you had a total of 72 hours of vacation time. 

Say you also had 11 paid holidays in that certain year and, again, worked 8 hours a day — you had a total of 88 hours of holiday time. 

The total number of hours you took off from work equals 160 hours a year (72 hours of vacation + 88 hours of holiday). 

Step #4: Subtract total time off from annual work hours

Now that you have all the numbers you need, subtract the number of hours you didn’t work for that year (160) from the total number of hours worked (1,820), just like in the equation that follows:

1,820 – 160 = 1,660 total hours/work year

Finally, your total annual work hours equal 1,660.

Why is it important to calculate how many work hours there are in a year?

Being aware of how much time you spend at work comes with many benefits. As a matter of fact, you’ll have spent roughly a third of your life at work. Calculating the exact number of hours you spend working each year may create a work-life balance that will make you prosper on and off the clock (among other things). 

Take a look at other benefits of calculating your total working hours per year in the section below.

Benefit #1: Knowing the number of your annual work hours helps you calculate your annual income

First and foremost, knowing how many hours you work in a calendar year will help you get a better insight into your earnings and keep tabs on how much money you spend. Hourly workers may greatly benefit from knowing how many work hours they clock in a year for the purpose of calculating their annual salary.

Whether you want to get valuable insight into your household income or make quality decisions for your business, calculating work hours is the path to successful financial planning.    

Benefit #2: Calculating annual work hours helps with maintaining a quality work-life balance

According to the World Happiness Report from 2023, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland take up the first three positions on this flattering list. One of the main reasons for their happiness is that they boast quality work-life balance thanks to their envious employment policies such as short working hours, long vacations, and parental leaves, to name a few.

Compared to almost half of Americans who don’t use up their full paid time off, the Scandinavias can serve as a great example of the importance of having a balanced work-life balance. Being aware of how many work hours you clock in, stopping yourself from overworking, and using your PTO regularly can follow an optimal quality of life. 

Bear in mind that working a traditional 40-hour workweek will equal a total of 2,080 work hours per year, which leaves enough time for you to live a balanced life. Anything more than that may require more effort and thorough planning in order to maintain a healthy work-life balance. 

Start tracking your work hours as of today, and rest assured your well-being remains unhindered.

Benefit #3: Determining work hours helps with calculating your hourly rate 

If you are paid a fixed salary rather than by the hour, you may want to know how much money you earn per hour. You can easily determine your hourly rate by dividing your annual income by the number of hours worked per year.

So, for instance, if you’ve calculated that you worked 2,080 hours in a previous year, and your annual salary for that year was $45,000:

$45,000 / 2,080 = $21,6 per hour

Being mindful of their annual work hours, salaried employees may determine their hourly wage more easily.

Benefit #4: Calculating yearly hours helps employers abide by labor regulations

As an employer, it’s crucial to understand your legal responsibilities towards your employees. Making sure you keep an accurate track of your employees’ work hours per year will help you do the following:

• Compensate your employees appropriately (whether that’s regular or overtime hours, bonuses or commissions),
• Give promised benefits (PTO, retirement plan, etc.),
• Determine labor costs,
• Differ between part-time and full-time employees, and 
• Provide employees with a harmonious life. 

By keeping a thorough record of your employee’s annual work hours, you avoid making wage and hour violations that result in punitive measures.

Benefit #5: Exact calculations make a great ally to the HR department

It’s old news that the HR sector deeply relies on the calculation of working hours for multiple reasons: determining wages/salaries, accounting for time off, differentiating between full time and part time workers, amongst others.

To get the most accurate calculations, HR managers can breathe a sigh of relief while using reliable time tracking software as their main tool for recording employee work hours. 

Recorded work hours later help HR specialists automate payroll, invoice clients, create PTO policies, manage employee scheduling, and much more. 

With Clockify, you just need to select the time range (Clockify gives you 2 options to choose from: ‘This year’ or ‘Last year’), and you can run detailed reports of employee work hours grouped according to projects. Furthermore, the tool automatically calculates pay (or cost) based on employee hourly rates.

So, yes, annual work hours play a huge role in HR operations, too.

Calculating work hours in a year: The bottom line

As you can see, there’s more to the story of calculating annual work hours than you might think. Since work hours greatly depend on the employee’s work schedule, there is no straightforward answer to the question How many work hours are there in a year. 

Sure, if you work a traditional 40-hour work schedule, your annual work hours come down to 2,080. But you would still need to account for time off and holidays to be able to get the right number. 

One way or another, we did our best to provide you with a detailed guide on determining your work hours alone. Also, we laid out notable benefits of calculating your annual work hours to stay on top of your work hours (for whatever reason).

Whether you are an employee or run a business, time tracking is an important part of both your work-life balance and overall success.

Do you calculate your annual work hours? What’s the most efficient way to do it? Let us know at blogfeedback@clockify.me, and we might include your thoughts in this one or one of our future articles. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone you think could benefit from it.

We did the heavy lifting and a thorough research about the most reliable payroll software in 2023 for small business owners. 

In this text, we’ll help you: 

• Understand what payroll software is,
• Learn about the benefits and importance of using a technology-based system for handling payroll, and finally
• Find reliable payroll software for your business.

What is payroll software?

Payroll software presents a contemporary, highly efficient, and time-saving tool for handling business payments. Quality payroll software can completely change the way businesses handle employee payments in terms of:

• Automating payroll processing,
• Saving precious time,
• Reducing costs, and
• Making sure taxes are filed and employees are paid accurately and timely.

Payroll processing can be quite distressing to small business owners since it requires keeping up with federal, state, and local laws regarding payroll taxes apart from paying employees and data keeping. Reliable payroll software helps ensure such processes are automatic, accurate, and compliant with tax regulations and requirements.

Benefits of using payroll software

Not only do technology platforms help small businesses grow and run smoothly, but they also pave the way for a steady and thriving future. Namely, starting from 2020, small businesses that use different software for handling their affairs have seen growth in: 

• Sales — 82% of small businesses, 
• Profits — 84%, and 
• Even employment — 74%.

If you are still managing your business manually — perhaps these numbers will change the way you think. But, apart from having a significant impact on the overall growth of your business, the following are additional advantages of using technology when running a small business (for payroll purposes, more specifically).

Benefit #1: In-house payroll processing

When you use specific payroll software for handling your payments, you don’t need to hire an outsourcing company to carry out the payments instead. 

This means significant cost reduction, developing a payroll system that fits your business, and having a better insight into your payroll history and tax liability. After all, you have your own team of financial professionals or the HR department that you can trust your business with.

Benefit #2: Process automation

Spreadsheets (and not to mention pen and paper) are a matter of the past. In fact, with the arrival of digital tools for handling payments the process of payroll became much more efficient and time-saving. Everything you need is embedded in one place, which streamlines payroll processing without losing precious resources.

Benefit #3: Fewer mistakes

Mistakes in payroll processing are sometimes inevitable, but payroll software minimizes such occurrences notably. The right payroll software helps you get a better grasp of your payroll data and information. Moreover, the risks of any errors regarding payroll tax submissions are less likely to happen. 

Benefit #4: Cost effectiveness

This may (or may not) sound like a surprise to you, but yes, efficient payroll software may pinch pennies in your pocket. Choosing quality payroll software that fits your business needs will pay for itself eventually — no more time wastage, paying for payroll services or doing things manually.

The prices of payroll software mainly depend on the plan you choose for your business and how many employees you have. A standard payroll software plan that costs, for instance, a fixed amount of $30 a month (plus $5 per each employee) is way more affordable than paying for a payroll accountant per hour. In fact, according to Upwork, certain accountants charge up to $35 per hour for handling payrolls. In line with that, choosing the right software will promise you fixed costs at all times.  

How we picked the best payroll software for small businesses?

In a sea of numerous tools and apps for handling payroll, you must be extra cautious when choosing the right for your business purposes. After all, poor quality software can cost you money, time, and nerves! 

To move back to the story of how we singled out some favorites, here are some ground rules we sticked to when choosing a perfect payroll software:   

• We looked for software that would do most of the payroll-related tasks automatically,
• We included payroll software that’s user-friendly and easy to navigate,
• We singled out payroll software reliable enough to store data and mail payslips securely,
• We paid special attention to payroll software that can help with keeping up with the changes in tax laws and regulations (owing to the IRS is what we all really want to avoid),
• We selected payroll software that comes with the option of generating automatic reports, and
• Last but not least, we included software with time tracking options since tracked work hours can later be used for timesheets, invoices, PTO, reports, and more.  

Sticking to the rules we laid out above, here is the list of the best payroll software currently available on the market.

Overview of the best payroll software for small businesses in 2023

To help you choose the most suitable payroll software that fits your needs, we did  thorough research and selected 8 payroll software that we believe are most efficient for running a small business. 

1. RUN Powered by ADP — best for different size businesses

RUN by ADP presents the perfect HR and payroll solution trusted by more than 1,000,000 clients.

What is RUN by ADP about?

RUN by ADP is a perfectly designed, all-in-one platform for managing and paying employees hassle-free. This tool will help you stay on top of many administrative tasks, including payroll management.  

Why use RUN by ADP?

RUN by ADP provides you with different business plans to help you manage your business, no matter the size of it. 

Whether you are a small, midsized, or large business with 1,000+ employees — RUN by ADP has got you covered. Apart from facilitating the process of handling employee payrolls, RUN helps you file payroll taxes accurately and ensures you stay compliant with changing payroll regulations. 

Moreover, RUN by ADP offers employee and manager self-service (either online or via mobile phone), customer support available 24/7, numerous integrations with different software (time tracking, HR, ERPs), and much more.

Depending on your needs and the size of your business, RUN offers different plans to its customers. However, you’ll have to contact their support for more details on this matter. They have 24/7 support that will help you find the package that’s right for your business.

2. Gusto — best for easy navigation

An award-winning payroll, HR, benefits, employee management (and more) software. Gusto is an all-in-one app that keeps your team happy and productive.

What is Gusto about?

Gusto is another amazing software that streamlines payment operations by automatically calculating and syncing your employees’ work hours, PTO, and holidays with payroll. 

Why use Gusto?

With Gusto, you are a few clicks away from running your employees’ payrolls and filing taxes in a timely and accurate manner. Gusto’s Run payroll feature provides employers with a clear overview of everyone’s hours and wages — both salaried and hourly employees. Another important thing to mention is Gusto comes with the option to withhold taxes stress-free and remain compliant with tax laws in your state.

3. Rippling — best for IT management

Rippling is another payroll software worth-mentioning due to its single system for running a business — from hiring and managing to paying employees and automatic tax filing.

What is Rippling about?

Rippling lets employers manage employee payroll, benefits, expenses, devices, apps, and more. Furthermore, Rippling is a great solution for automatic tax filing.

Why use Rippling?

Rippling is an all-in-one app that lets you manage all your employee data and operations. Employers with 2 to 2,000+ employees using Rippling have the option to manage, update, and report on anything. 

With Rippling, you can automate any manual processes, whether that be in: 

• HR, 
• IT, 
• Finance, or 
• Engineering. 

From I–9s to W–2s, Rippling calculates and files your payroll taxes adhering to any federal, state, or local agencies.

4. Paycor — best for staying compliant with tax regulations

Paycor lets you manage every aspect of your workforce. Give your employees a secure location for accessing their payroll information.

What is Paycor about?

Paycor’s simple yet effective interface offers multiple features, including payroll processing, clocking in/out, tax filing, and more. 

Why use Paycor?

Handling payrolls in Paycor will let you keep up with federal, state, and local laws. On the dashboard, you’ll be able to see a breakdown of both employee and employer tax liability.

Paycor is more than just payroll software. With Paycor, employees are able to:

• Log their hours easily,
• Request time off,
• See their pay stubs and benefits, and much more.

Additionally, Paycor provides employers with real-time data insights and detailed reports.

5. Justworks — best for filing taxes and having insights into employee benefits

Run your business with simple software that provides payroll, employee benefits, HR services, compliance, and more.

What is Justworks about?

Justworks lets employees track work hours and sync timesheets to payroll. Moreover, employers will no longer have to worry about employee benefit deductions and tax withholdings if they opt for this app. 

Why use Justworks?

Justworks’s easy-to-use interface lets employers see information about upcoming payments and all the necessary details related to employee paychecks, such as: 

• Date, 
• Delivery method, 
• Pay type, and more. 

Additionally, the Justworks Plus plan gives you access to healthcare coverage (dental or vision insurance plans), 401(k) savings plans, and COBRA administration. On top of that, Justworks is a perfect solution for small businesses and startups.

6. Paychex — best for customer support

Paychex presents a single platform for payroll, HR, and benefits.

What is Paychex about?

Paychex is another great solution for payroll, HR, hiring, and managing employees. Paychex eases the burden of being informed about the ever-changing payroll tax rates, making payments to employees, and calculating tax liabilities.

Why use Paychex?

Whether you’re self-employed or a business owner with up to 20 or 1,000+ employees, Paychex will provide HR and payroll solutions either way. Paychex’s neat and easy-to-use interface provides employers with:

• Fast and accurate payroll processing,
• A great customer support service,
• The option to calculate and submit payroll taxes,
• Easy HR tasks handling, and more.

7. Patriot Software — best affordable software 

Patriot allows small business owners to have all the info at their fingertips, whether that’s payroll, tax payments, or even accounting.

What is Patriot Software about?

Patriot is both payroll and accounting software. When it comes to payroll, it provides accurate payment processing and filing payroll taxes for businesses of all types — self-employed or businesses with 2 or 1,000+ employees.

Why use Patriot Software?

Patriot offers everything you need for running a small business in one platform:

• Keeping track of employees and data,
• Customizable and unlimited payroll,
• Calculating taxes,
• Financial reports, and much more.

What’s more, this software provides easier and more affordable accounting for small businesses. With the accounting feature, employers are able to:

• Track the money going in and out,
• Record payments,
• Create custom invoices,
• File 1099 forms electronically, etc.  

8. Bonus app: Clockify — best for time tracking

Clockify is primarily a time tracking app that lets you track work hours across projects. It’s time tracking software used by millions every day.

What is Clockify about?

Clockify doesn’t provide payroll features per se, it is based on tracking employee work hours (you can choose from different tracking options) and creating automatic timesheets. 

Thanks to the report feature in Clockify, employers can have a clear insight into logged hours, overtime work, and even time off. Employers can later export payroll data in any format they need — PDF, CSV, or Excel. 

Why use Clockify?

By simply tracking your or your employees’ work hours, Clockify lets you automatically:

• Create timesheets, 
• Send reminders if an employee forgets to log their work hours,
• Create instant invoices, and
• Export payroll hour reports.

Moreover, Clockify gives you the option to set hourly rates for projects or tasks and distinguish between billable and nonbillable hours. 

Since it offers an array of features, Clockify is a perfect fit for consultants, accountants, small and medium businesses. You may choose between different plans and find the pricing plan that fits your needs. 

Learn more about Clockify pricing and plans. 

Wrapping up: Payroll software simplifies employee and payroll management, reduces errors, and saves precious resources

After reading about the importance and benefits of using payroll software, we hope that we have eliminated any doubts that you may (or may not) have had regarding payroll software’s efficiency and accuracy. Remember — the best payroll software must:

• Provide automatic processing,
• Be reliable and compliant with tax regulations, and
• Provide features such as invoicing, creating reports, and time tracking.

Still, keep in mind that a perfect payroll software must first and foremost meet your specific business needs! We hope we’ve helped you find a perfect fit for your needs. Happy payroll handling!

Do you use payroll software for your business? Which one would you recommend? If there’s payroll software that we haven’t mentioned here, but you think could help others be more successful in handling payments, let us know at blogfeedback@clockify.me. We might include your answer in this or future posts. Also, if you liked this blog post, share it with someone you think could benefit from it. 

In this blog post, I’ll introduce you to a whole new way of getting things done and reaching your goals — with the help of the Rapid Planning Method. Not only does this method help you achieve your goals, but it also teaches you ways to focus on what matters. 

Here’s a brief overview of what you can read about in this text, which includes: 

• RPM definition
• How to create an RPM plan (+ Example)
• RPM personal observations and thoughts

What is the Rapid Planning Method (RPM)?

The Rapid Planning Method, as its creator Tony Robbins points out, is a system of thinking — not a time management technique per se. 

In a nutshell, RPM helps you stay focused on a particular outcome by guiding you through different steps to make it happen. Instead of doing more and more, the emphasis is on deciding precisely what to do and doing it right.

The RPM system really does change the way you think about your desired outcomes — but, in a new and eye-opening way. Tony Robbins believes people adopt a wrong attitude about the things they must or should do, right from the beginning.

For instance, you want to complete a task, but you’re only thinking about how demanding it will be or how long it will take. The RPM system shifts your focus on what you want to achieve, i.e. the final outcome. This way, you can brush aside all the nuisances and problems that come along the way.

When I started writing this blog post, the first thing that came to mind were those war movies in which soldiers endured hardships just by thinking about their homes, spouses, and children, by looking at the photos of their loved ones. 

This is what kept them going — focusing on what they really wanted, their final goal — to come back home to their loved ones. Everything in between didn’t matter.

As Tony himself says: Focus equals power.

Breaking down the Rapid Planning Method (RPM)

Even though RPM means Rapid Planning Method, the acronym also stands for:

• Results-oriented — Explains WHAT you really want to achieve (What is my final goal?)
• Purpose-driven —  Helps you find a reason WHY you want to do something (What are my reasons and motives for doing that?)
• Massive action plan — Tells you HOW to do it (What do I need to do to accomplish this? What’s my plan?)

Therefore, before you start realizing a plan, ask yourself said questions — but bear in mind that the sequence of these questions is critical. No matter if you are planning your daily activities, a project, or a long-term goal — start by asking yourself these three questions following this specific order. According to Tony, when you know the desired result first, followed by a compelling reason for doing something, you will figure out how to pull it off eventually. That is the only way to succeed at achieving your goal — to know what, why, and how you are going to do it. 

Rapid Planning Method example

Let’s incorporate the RPM system into one real-life example. Remember — avoid vague phrasing and be specific. 

Poor example: I want to improve my time management skills.

The first example is bad since it’s too vague, i.e. it only defines a broad goal but no purpose behind it or how to achieve it.

Good example: I want to improve my time management skills to increase productivity at work, beat procrastination, and do more with less time by building the habit of tracking time.

Here, on the other hand, we have a precisely defined goal together with the reasons behind it and a concrete plan on how to achieve it.

How to create your RPM plan

Now it’s time to guide your goal in the right direction.

For a better insight into the RPM method itself, we’ll refer to the previously mentioned example concerning improving one’s time management skills and expand on it.

There are 5 steps that will help you create a successful RPM plan for achieving your final outcome:

1. Capture your thoughts
2. Create an RPM plan 
3. Take action and schedule
4. Shape your identity
5. Review your progress

Step #1: Capture your thoughts

When thinking about your goal, it’s important to brainstorm your ideas to precisely define what you want to achieve. Simple pen and paper always work! Try making a list of things you want to achieve and capture the ideas you consider most worthy.

When there are too many items on your list, chunk them down into groups such as health, career, relationships, or any other custom-made category, to sort your thoughts. 

To move back to our specific example, the idea is:

To improve my time management skills.

Step #2: Create an RPM plan

To create an achievable plan for your specific goal (or goals), you’ll need to answer the following questions (in this specific order):

• RESULT (R) — Be specific about the result you are after.
  • “What do I want to achieve?” → “I want to improve my time management skills.”
• PURPOSE (P) — Whenever you do something, there must be a reason why you do it. When you identify the reason, you have a much bigger chance of success.
  • “Why do I want this?” → “Because I wish to increase productivity at work, beat procrastination, and do more with less time.”
• MASSIVE ACTION PLAN (M) — Now that you know what you want to achieve and the reason behind it, it’s time to determine your massive action plan.
  • “What must I do to achieve my desired results?” →
    • Find some popular productivity books to read.
    • Keep a to-do list and/or a planner.
    • Avoid multitasking.
    • Track my time using a time tracking app.
    • Learn how to prioritize tasks.
    • Make a schedule and stick to it.
    • Identify distractions.

At first, it can be hard to break bad habits, change routines, and the way you think. 

However, when you have a purpose on your mind — in this case, to increase productivity at work, beat procrastination, and do more with less time — the focus shifts to what really matters, and it’s easier to bear any dreary and demanding tasks on your way to achieving the goal.

The RPM Planning Block for your goal (in this case, to enhance your time management skills) should look like this:

Step #3: Take action and schedule

Now that you know what you want to achieve, why you want it, and have a plan on how to do it — it’s time to roll up your sleeves and take action!  

When you have multiple things to do in a day, it’s wise to prioritize your tasks accordingly. Furthermore, schedule a specific time in your calendar to ensure you don’t omit an item from your to-do list.

Again, make use of technology and organize your schedule with Clockify.

This is what scheduling looks like in Clockify. There’s a clear insight into your daily, weekly, or monthly tasks and goals. You can use it for both work and personal life as it allows you to:

• Add or remove projects/tasks,
• Easily manage assignments,
• Choose start and end time, 
• Share your schedules with others, and more.

Furthermore, start tracking your time regularly, and make it a habit. Here is what tracking time in Clockify looks like: 

You can start and stop the timer as you work, or enter hours manually. Whichever works best for you.

Step #4: Shape your identity

I find this step to be most motivating and thrilling. What you need to do here is create an identity term for each specific result you are after. It shifts your attention from all the dreary tasks you must complete and the sacrifices you must make to reach the outcome.

To go back to our example, working on your time management is not something that happens over night. It’s something that requires continuity and an iron will to break old habits and form new routines. To begin with, don’t think of yourself as a procrastinator or laggard. Instead, shape your identity in a way that will give you motivation and help you stay on track with your final goal.

Think of something empowering, such as the master of time, for instance. When you think of yourself as the master of time, you forget about all fears and obstacles that are standing between you and your success.

Your newly shaped identity will change how you feel about yourself, keep you motivated, and, most importantly — shift your focus on the final outcome. 

Step #5: Review your progress

Last but not least — don’t forget to celebrate your accomplishments and review your progress.

Maybe you can measure your success by looking back at the things you used to manage to accomplish and all the things you get done now. 

This will motivate you to move further and maybe even turn your RPM plan up a notch!

Rapid Planning Method: Why I decided to try RPM

Now, if you think that the example with improving time management skills is just a random example — think again. In the past, I struggled with staying on top of my workload including poor organization, procrastinating, and worst of all, poorly managing my most valuable asset — time.

I even tried incorporating some techniques that I stumbled upon on the Internet to improve my productivity, such as doing the most demanding tasks first, waking up early, and similar. 

Yet, I would end up slipping back into my old habits of poor organization and procrastinating eventually. 

I’m not saying waking up early is a bad thing — but the problem is that I had never questioned if I am really a morning person, and if such work style truly works for me. 

I would wake up early but end up being stressed due to working late to meet my deadlines.

A little more than five months ago, I decided to shake things up. No more ‘try the perfect time management strategy’ or ‘increase your productivity with these 5 steps’ and similar. Those things would always lead to instant results, and the old habits would boomerang back eventually.

I needed something deeper — something that would stick permanently and increase my self-awareness.

With that in mind, I stumbled on an appealing text about the Rapid Planning Method, and I thought to myself: “Why wouldn’t I use this mode of thinking to improve my time management skills?”

So, I did. I used the above plan to achieve my goal.

Since I’ve already walked you through each step of RPM viewed through my lens — I’m going to share some insights about how it affected me and the final results.

Rapid Planning Method (RPM): My observations 

After some time of using the RPM methodology to achieve my desired outcome (i.e. a little more than five months), I may say that RPM opened a whole new perspective on goal-setting. 

Prior to RPM, I always struggled with continuity and never really achieved long-lasting results.

On that account, these are some of the most notable advantages of the Rapid Planning Method from my experience:

• Helps you understand what you want — RPM trains your brain to stay focused on the outcomes you are after. With RPM, you understand what you want and why you want it.
• Makes planning more manageable — The RPM methodology breaks your goals into more manageable tasks hence making them easier to plan and prioritize.
• Changes your mindset — As mentioned above, RPM is a system of thinking, and as such, it shifts your mindset in a way that you forget about fears and hardships and start living your full potential.
• Boosts your confidence — This methodology offers a unique way of turning your negative beliefs about yourself into positive ones. 
• Documents your progress — To stay on track and focus on your goals, RPM makes sure you review your progress — see if what you did so far was successful or needs improvement.

Rapid Planning Method (RPM): My results and final thoughts

I may say that no matter which technique or method you use to accomplish something in life, if you don’t change your perception first — your goals and desires are doomed to failure at some point.

Remember — positive thoughts can move mountains.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson that RPM taught me is to believe in myself and my potential. 

What I found extremely odd at first was building a habit of using a time tracking app to measure my time. Turning on a time tracker app each time I would start doing something was preposterous to me at that point. But, it’s incredible how you get used to it so quickly, and how, as soon as you press that ‘start’ button, you just want to get to work and make every minute count.

As far as my results are concerned, I may say that it took me a while to adjust to new changes and adhere to them religiously. Now, I don’t rush blindly into trying out numerous time management techniques, I get more things done without feeling burned out, and the habit of tracking my time sticks with me even when I’m doing some minor tasks around the house.

What keeps me going is the fact that now I never struggle to meet deadlines, my days run smoothly, I manage to do everything I plan in a day — efficiently and most importantly, stress-free. 

I don’t want to think of myself as a laggard who can’t do anything right anymore. RPM helped me create a new, exciting, and empowering identity that I’m proud of. Now, I am the master of my time.

Yes, it does take time and effort to adopt this system of thinking and put it into practice, but once you do, you’ll be able to get ten times the results. Finally, I’m giving RPM a well-deserved five-star rating!

FINAL RATING:

Wrapping up: RPM brings out the best in you

I would sincerely recommend the Rapid Planning Method to anyone who struggles to accomplish something in life — be it minor daily tasks, improving skills, or life-changing goals.

RPM will change the way you think in order to focus on the results you are after. 

Self-doubt and unmet goals will become a matter of the past — at least that’s what happened to me.

Have you heard about the Rapid Planning Method? Have you used it in practice? Write to us at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles. Also, if you liked this article, share it with someone else you know will find it useful.

To go deeper into the subject, we chose a “credible witness” to talk with — Juan Faisal.

Juan is a video producer, content creator, photographer, and pioneer freelancer himself — and he gave us some insightful thoughts and advice on how to “survive” as a freelancer.

We reached out to Juan because he promotes time tracking on his LinkedIn profile and talks about it fondly. As that’s just one of the things we have in common, we couldn’t resist getting in touch with him! 

In this interview, we asked Juan to share his knowledge and experience about:

• Video production (which is also his biggest passion), 
• Remote work, 
• Freelancing,
• His use of our time tracker Clockify, 
• Time management, and much more. 

Juan’s true passion — video and content production

Juan’s first encounter with creating content was when he was only 8 years old. He said that he would use a tape recorder and record radio shows for his family to listen to in their car. 

Juan’s first experience with the camera, though, was with his mom’s friend’s camera when he was 12 years old. 

He describes his first encounter with a camera as “creating magic.”

When it comes to video production, Juan states that he doesn’t really enjoy editing. What he loves most about video production is the “curiosity” aspect and throwing yourself into the unknown, never knowing what you’re getting into.

“I really enjoy knowledge. That’s kind of like the main driver. So it’s kind of going into this treasure hunt to learn about what you’re going to create and then seeing it come to life.”

The key skills a content strategist needs to have

The old adage “the customer is always right” certainly holds true in Juan’s case. When creating content, he always strives to put clients’ needs and wishes first.

Juan highlights the importance of being able to communicate with the clients and understand their expectations. However, he can’t emphasize enough the value of meaningful and effective communication within a team (if you are “lucky to have one”, as he also says).

“I don’t need to do everything. I have people that I can trust that are great, that are going to solve things in a different way. I need to be able to get out of the way. So right now, for someone at my station of career, that’s the most important skill — learning when to get out of the way and let your people do their thing and be good about supporting them and letting them fix things their own way.”

He further says that building effective communication in the workplace is a skill that needs a lot of time to develop — and that it took him years to learn how to talk to people effectively.

The challenges of video production

In our interview, Juan mentioned several times that he is a service provider after all. 

On that account, the most challenging thing about video production — according to Juan — is people management. 

Whether that’s dealing with clients’ expectations or differences of opinion within a team — making everyone happy is the most challenging thing.

“Sometimes it does feel like an art to just bring everyone together and get them to agree on what they want to see.”

Is there one-size-fits-all content?

In short — No. 

There is no formula for successful content marketing, according to Juan. 

While video content is an amazing tool for storytelling and drawing people’s attention — it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. 

“Not everybody observes knowledge the same way. So, that’s why I’m a big fan of repurposing content, because some people might choose to watch the video — others might be like: ‘I want to read on the subway since there is no signal for me to watch a video’.”

Juan believes that the perfect one-size-fits-all content is the one that:

• Meets customer’s needs, 
• Targets the right audience, and
• Ultimately, sells a product or service.

Juan’s remote work tips you wish you’d known about sooner

Juan shared with us some insightful remote work tips that we definitely wish we’d known about sooner! 

He started working remotely as early as 2008, and he struggled with concentration, time management, preparation, and much more.

So, according to Juan Faisal, these are the 4 essential tips for effective remote work. 

Tip #1: Isolate yourself

As a senior remote worker now, he admits that working remotely can get challenging.

Distractions are everywhere — but what Juan strongly recommends is having a dedicated space for working. 

Not a living room, couch, or kitchen table — we’re talking about a completely isolated room that nobody has access to but yourself. 

“The main thing for me to stay focused is having a dedicated space — you know, it’s the best thing for me. Right now, I’m lucky enough that I have this place where I get to work every day, within my home — but it’s just a room for working.”

Tip #2: Prepare for the unexpected

Since he travels to Argentina a lot (he is originally from Argentina), Juan makes sure that he always has a secure Internet connection. Preparation is crucial.

“When I go home to Argentina, many times, I don’t get the best connection. So, that stresses me out and makes me feel anxious. I have a harder time concentrating. Knowing what the Wi-Fi situation is going to be — helps focus a lot.”

Tip #3: Know your worth

Working as a freelancer sometimes feels like a never-ending worry — working long hours, taking on too many projects, struggling to find the right work-life balance, billing clients, and much more. 

Freelancers also lose track of time very easily and often suffer from overworking. 

But, despite all that, Juan has valuable advice for all freelancers out there: 

“For all freelancers — know your worth!”

Juan further explains that creatives often get lost in their work and don’t pay attention to the time they spend creating something. So, he strongly recommends time tracking as a means of achieving the right work-life balance, knowing whether a project is worth your time or not — but also billing your clients regularly.

“I think time tracking is crucial for you to understand which projects are not going anywhere, which projects you’re being good at, and which projects are not worth it.”

Tip #4: Set healthy boundaries with social media

Last but not least — distance yourself from social media. 

Not entirely, but create boundaries. 

As social media can increase anxiety and affect work performance, what Juan does to find the perfect balance is reinstalling social media on the weekends and deleting it on Sunday nights. 

“I always try to protect my mental health so I can focus on what matters — which doesn’t mean you ignore what’s going on. It’s just that you need to be good about being dedicated in a certain space and knowing when to stop.”

The importance of time management

In our interview, Juan told us about the early steps in his career — steps that tied into his views about time management. 

As a 20-something-year-old, he worked as a call agent — which he despised. However, it did teach him valuable lessons that he remembers even today: 

• How to talk to people in an effective way, and
• The importance of people’s time. 

“I think people trust you more when you show respect for their time.”

He further emphasizes that, as a freelancer, he is a service provider after all — he may agree or disagree with the methods of a client, but they are the ones who pay you for your time.

“I always try to keep that mindset that I’m providing a service and so I try to keep that service attitude about it.”

How to prioritize work and manage your time more effectively

One of the things that helped Juan distinguish between what’s important and what’s not is — upfront planning. Like many people, each Sunday, he starts to get the “Sunday scaries.” So, to fight off the feeling of dread that occurs every Sunday, he goes into his calendar and time blocks his workdays.

Juan always starts his days by tackling the most important tasks early in the morning. He believes he is “the sharpest” early in the morning. 

When you time block your activities, you can focus on your priorities and have a better understanding of how you spend your time. The time blocking technique allows you to split your day or week into smaller “blocks” for specific tasks or to-dos. 

Here is how time blocking looks like in Clockify:

Not only does the time blocking technique tell you what to do — but it also reminds you when to do it. Each specific block keeps you task-focused and doesn’t allow you to leave a task unfinished. Even Bill Gates speaks fondly of the time blocking technique and uses it to focus on specific projects at a time.

How Juan uses Clockify

Juan told us that he looked for a dependable time tracking app for quite a long time. Dealing with numbers and reports is not his favorite thing to do — so finding the right app sounded like a good plan.

“I’m a freelancer. I bill by the hour. So, not knowing what I did on Monday means that I either worked for free or I’m trying to guess by my emails — the work I did and how many hours. That’s stressful, at least for me.”

Even though it took him time and patience to build the habit of tracking time, he instantly clicked with Clockify.

Some of the main reasons he opted for Clockify were:

• The functionality, 
• The simplicity, and 
• The many customization options.

“With Clockify, it’s easy to get started —  as you get more comfortable and start playing around with it, you find you can customize many things. What I like the most about Clockify is that I don’t have to think about it. It’s solving something for me and it’s not constantly in my mind. It’s something that’s part of my day. I really appreciate that.” 

Juan’s favorite Clockify features 

Since Juan strives to provide services worthy of customers’ time and money, he says that he can’t allow himself to have an app that’s going to cause problems.

“When an app is not reliable, you’re not solving a problem. You’re becoming the problem.”

However, he has no such issues while time tracking. He says that one of his favorite Clockify features is the timer. The thing he loves most about it is the fact that the timer automatically stops when the screen is locked or when the computer goes to sleep.

Furthermore, he speaks highly of the invoicing feature which saves him time by creating automated invoices. 

Juan also says that, while using Clockify, he doesn’t really pay attention to the features — he says that it’s something that’s already there, embedded in his day-to-day. 

“Without Clockify, my day would be a lot more stressful. So, I just love the fact that I don’t need to think about all of the features. Honestly, I feel like I’m using 30% of the features of your app, so I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface. So that’s like, wow.” 

Wrapping up: Take the wheel of your freelance career

Alongside the benefits of a freelance career, come everyday struggles and challenges. 

However, while talking to us, Juan lifted the veil on some of the secrets of being a successful freelancer and offered practical advice on time management, remote work, getting paid, and much more.

In the end, it’s crucial freelancers understand the value of time ​​— tracking the hours you spend working on a client’s project is one of the most useful practices, both for your prospects of getting paid fairly and for the prospects of earning the client’s trust through timely work delivery.

Are you a freelancer? Do you have any valuable freelancing tips to share with us? Write to us at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles.

Do you occasionally feel like you completed countless activities during a working day but don’t seem to be productive at the end of the day? It’s probably because you didn’t prioritize your work accordingly and let insignificant tasks stop you from achieving an ultimate goal. This is where the pickle jar theory comes in. In short, the pickle jar theory is based on prioritizing your daily activities while respecting the time estimate for each.

This blog post will help you understand the gist of the pickle jar theory and how to successfully implement it in your daily routine.

The pickle jar theory explained

The pickle jar theory is based on a time management technique that prioritizes tasks and responsibilities in a specific order. This theory (also referred to as The bucket of rocks theory or The jar of life theory) was developed in 2002 by Jeremy Wright with the notion that time is a finite space that has limits. In short, the jar of pickles is an analogy where the jar represents our typical day, while the sand, pebbles, and rocks represent everyday activities. What’s more, some sources add another element to the analogy — water, which stands for private life. We can fill the jar with different tasks and activities. But, we need to respect a specific order and time estimate on each activity. Therefore, the pickle jar theory helps us estimate how long a piece of work (either rocks, pebbles, or sand) will take to complete.

To add more details to the bucket of rocks theory, here’s what type of everyday activities the sand, the pebbles, and the rocks represent:

• The sand represents all the small, trivial work such as social networking, chatting with colleagues, mind wandering, and other distractions that kill productivity at work.
• The pebbles symbolize tasks with higher levels of significance than the sand. Those include tasks that can be postponed or delegated to others. They are urgent tasks that can wait, such as phone calls, responding to emails, having meetings. They seem to require an immediate response, but, in fact, are not so important as rocks.
• The rocks signify the most important tasks during a workday. They have a long-term goal and can result in serious consequences if we fail to complete them. For instance, the rocks include actual writing and researching about the topic (for content writers), programming and testing (for software developers), and other crucial tasks that need to be completed to achieve the daily goals.
• Water stands for private life — spending time with family and friends.

The rules for implementing the pickle jar theory

To incorporate the bucket of rocks theory into your life successfully, you must give special attention to the order in which you organize your activities. If you, for instance, fill your jar — i.e., begin your day — with distractions such as chatting with colleagues or social networking and then continue filling your jar with pebbles — i.e., urgent tasks that can wait — you will find your jar almost full in no time. Now, there is no place to put the rocks — the most important activities during the day — in your jar. Thus, your day ends up being unproductive.

To get back on track and make your day more productive, try filling your “jar” with the most important tasks first (up to 4 items).

Then, slowly dose urgent (but not important) tasks.

In the end, deal with distractions.

This way, you will finish your most important tasks first and deal with the rest afterward. You need to bear in mind that highly productive people utilize their resources efficiently and are not obsessed with how much they did but what they did.

However, don’t forget the water, too. In the jar of life theory, water stands for family and private life. These family and private-related activities provide us with a supportive and relaxing environment which is crucial for growth and development in every aspect of life. In the next section of this blog post, we are going to give you an example of a pre-pickle and post-pickle schedule in the workplace.

Implementing the pickle jar theory in real-life (with examples)

Now that we’ve explained the theory and rules for implementing it, let’s provide a real-life example to see how it works in practice. We are about to give an example of an unproductive day and a very productive one relying on the bucket of life theory.

Your schedule prior to the implementation of the pickle jar theory

Before being aware of the importance of time management and implementing the pickle jar theory, your day probably looked something like this (assuming you are a content writer, for example):

If you consider the number of activities you did for this day — it actually seems like you finished a lot. However, if you take a closer look at what you really did for that day, you will find out that you let distractions (sand) and urgent, unexpected tasks (pebbles) take over your day.

First of all, this was a poor division of your workload. You started your day with minor tasks and distractions, and hence, barely managed to finish two important tasks (rocks) for that day. Moreover, you need to learn how to say “No” if you are already swamped with your work. You can see that you only had 45 minutes at hand to finish an important task (rock number 2).

In short, you tackled numerous tasks but left the most important ones unfinished — which probably left you feeling exhausted at the end of the working day.

Therefore, this day counts as unproductive.

Your schedule after the implementation of the pickle jar theory

If you want to bounce back from an unproductive day and make it count, take a look at how your schedule should look like after you implement the bucket of rocks theory in it (again, assuming you are a content writer):

If you take a look at your schedule with the bucket of rocks theory implemented, you can see that you did fewer but more important tasks. You managed to devote most of your time to the most important tasks (rocks). You made time estimates (e.g., two and a half hours for rock number 1: researching) and left enough time to complete the most important tasks in your schedule — the rocks. Thus, you increased your productivity by eliminating distractions (sand) and answering urgent tasks such as phone calls (pebbles) in a planned and organized manner.

Bear in mind that important things should be tackled first. Then, you can easily squeeze all the shallow work (emails, calls) into your day.

Advantages of the pickle jar theory

Apart from the many advantages that the pickle jar theory can offer us, we’ve selected seven benefits that will immediately persuade you to implement it into your life.

Great way to organize your day

In this article, we already mentioned how doing multiple things doesn’t necessarily lead to success but being frazzled and unproductive. Feeling overwhelmed by your workload is no stranger to working people. Yet, if you develop skills for time management, you will find your days organized and more productive. By integrating the jar of life theory into your daily routine, you take control of your day and have time for your private life, too. This time management technique will help you have a closer insight into important work and time estimates so as to better organize your workday.

Helps you prioritize your tasks

One of the main strengths of the jar of life theory is that it helps us prioritize our tasks more skillfully. When you know that you have one jar and need to fill it with up to four rocks, you need to get into deep thoughts to filter what’s important and what’s not. According to research on the mere urgency effect, people tend to complete urgent tasks over important tasks. Some of the reasons why people cling to urgent tasks are that they seem easier and payoffs happen sooner than with important tasks.

Therefore, in the light of setting bigger goals, one must separate spurious urgency from what’s important to achieve long-term results. For that purpose, you can opt for the jar of life theory to help you visualize a bigger picture and truly understand the importance of your tasks.

Gives you more free time at hand

When you incorporate the jar of life theory into your daily routine, you make time estimates for your workload, thus spending less time on shallow work. This means you will never bring unfinished work home again and expose your family to the tension that arises from working too much. Therefore, effective time management through the jar of life theory helps you spend more time with your family or friends and pursue hobbies, for instance.

Eliminates distractions

According to Cal Newport, the author of “Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World”, shallow work (pebbles and sand) is inevitable — but, must be kept confined so as to not hinder the performance of your important tasks. Moreover, in his book, he repeatedly emphasizes the importance of uninterrupted, deep work.

One of the main culprits for interruptions at work, he claims, are network tools. They include social media, emails, and text messages.

To prove his claim, he mentions J.K. Rowling and her aversion to social media. She was completely absent from social media at the time when she wrote her “Harry Potter” novels, even though that was merely the era of social media expansion (1997 – 2007). Her staff opened a Twitter account for her in 2009 but it was in 2011 when she wrote:

“This is the real me, but you won’t be hearing from me often I’m afraid, as pen and paper are STILL my priority at the moment.”

Newport also supports his claims by saying how Bill Gates isolates himself by going to the countryside to read and “think big thoughts”.

By following the pickle jar theory guidelines, you make time for your most important tasks and don’t let distractions interfere with your work. So, next time you reach for your phone during work — think about what successful people say about distractions and how eliminating them is the key to productivity and success. We’re not saying you will write the best-selling novel or become the richest person in the world, but it will help you reach your goals and acquire better time management skills.

Helps you overcome procrastination

Good organization and prioritization are some of the most beneficial techniques that can curb procrastination in the workplace. Being organized positively affects setting goals and stops you from making automatic habits that trigger procrastination. The bucket of rocks theory comes in handy due to its meticulous planning nature and triggering strong organizational skills. When you set goals and time estimates for your tasks, your brain receives signals that keep it alert and helps you overcome procrastination.

Prevents multitasking

It’s common knowledge that doing several things simultaneously hinders your performance. Switching from one task to another repeatedly makes you feel overwhelmed and results in decreased performance and diminished quality. This is where the jar of life theory comes to your help since it stops you from multitasking as well. Having a clear insight into your workload and time estimates, you will have fewer chances of multitasking again. It helps you set priorities and focus on one task at a time. Not only will you focus more, but you will avoid making mistakes.

Helps us make time estimates

Among other benefits, the jar of life theory helps us organize our workdays more meticulously by making work-time estimates. When you determine your “rocks of the day”, it’s quite easy to set time estimates for each and stick to them. This is a huge advantage of this theory since it helps you calculate your productive time or gives a report on how you waste your time, for instance.

Time management techniques for implementing the pickle jar theory into your life

There are several ways that you can incorporate the pickle jar theory into your daily routine. We suggest three effective techniques that will help you implement this theory more easily.

Time blocking

Being a parent is exhausting enough, but working long hours and not having time for family can put you in deep water. If you don’t organize your time efficiently, you won’t be able to be with your family and will eventually suffer from burnout. What can come to your rescue is a time management technique called time blocking. It successfully deters procrastination and controls your workload by allocating fixed blocks of time for separate activities. This way you have a clear insight into how much time you spend on each activity.

So, in the case of the pickle jar theory, you can assign a block of time for each rock in your work schedule. For instance, “working on rock number 1” from 9:30 A.M. to 11 A.M., “working on rock number 2” from 11:20 A.M. to 2 P.M., etc. Or you can use this supplementary technique so that you don’t miss important life events such as family gatherings, dance classes, birthday parties, etc.

Therefore, define your “rocks of the day”, set time blocks, and estimates for each. This way you see where your time goes and have control over your workload. For this purpose, you can combine the Pomodoro technique with time blocking to better estimate the time for each activity. This way of managing your time allows you to limit your work time by allocating how much time you want to work, and getting a notification when the timer reaches the allotted time.

The time blocking technique is a good choice for:

• Working parents who have difficulty maintaining a healthy work-life balance,
• Project managers who run several projects simultaneously,
• CEOs and productivity experts (Bill Gates is known for using this technique).

Tracking time

Do you ever pay attention to your screen time notifications? Scary statistics say that according to recorded data from 2019 and 2020, people spend around 2.4 hours a day on social media worldwide. That’s up to 20 hours a week!

Just imagine how much time you waste and all those distractions interfering with your productive work while shifting your attention all the time. It’s about time you start tracking your activities to reduce wastage and boost your productivity.

For that reason, start an experiment and automatically track your activities to monitor which websites and programs you visit most, and how much time you spend on shallow work.

This is where time tracking apps such as Clockify can pitch in to help you have a more detailed evaluation of where your time goes. For example, the auto tracker feature in Clockify will keep track of all active programs you use, websites you visit, and show it in the reports later on. You’ll be able to automatically track your computer activity to better understand how you spend time and how you can best manage it.

Keeping time records is good for everybody and here are some of the benefits of tracking your time:

Better knowledge of how much time you spend on different activities,

Understanding what you are doing wrong and how you can allocate your time better in the future,

Boosting your productivity,

Focusing on important tasks,

Minimizing or completely eliminating distractions.

To-do lists

Using to-do lists is not as easy as it seems. Sometimes we unintentionally make lengthy lists and swamp ourselves with work. Therefore, you can integrate the bucket of rocks theory and follow its guidelines to make effective to-do lists.

When you know your rocks, you can easily form a workable to-do list as well as postpone or delegate some tasks that don’t seem important at the moment.

Not only will you organize your workload better, but never miss an important event in your private life or go grocery shopping again.

To-do lists are a good choice for:

• Working people,
• Teams,
• Students,
• Homemakers.

Conclusion

We conclude that the jar of life theory is an easy and visually appealing way to better manage one’s time. It’s suitable for everybody — working parents, homemakers, and CEOs, who can gain tangible benefits from the pickle jar theory. Its simple guidelines help us distinguish between important and trivial tasks — hence boosting our productivity. So, find the most suitable time management techniques that can help you incorporate this theory into your daily life — and enjoy the perks of finishing your priorities on time and spending more time with your family or friends.

Brick and mortar professions have human resource departments that handle their payments, invoices, and PTO time. When you are self-employed, managing payments can rock the boat. It’s oftentimes daunting and quite common for employers to be tardy when it comes to paying. According to research by the Freelance Union, 8 in 10 freelancers deal with payment issues.

In order to avoid this from happening, we’ve prepared some ethical strategies that can help you manage your payments and maximize billable hours as a freelancer.

What are billable and non-billable hours?

Freelancers, as opposed to full-time employees, have the freedom to organize their working time and leisure time how they desire. However, the downsides of working as a freelancer sometimes put perks in the shade. In many cases, these downsides such as unwanted downtime, unpaid vacations, pension, and insurance. But, considering that a lot of freelancers charge their time by the hour, what often worries them is how to increase the number of billable hours. Before we deep dive into maximizing billable hours, let’s make sure you understand what billable and non-billable hours stand for.

Billable hours

When you are self-employed, you don’t have a human resource department to rely on to do the administrative job for you. Instead, you manage your labor hours, vacation, and billable hours by yourself.

Billable hours are the number of hours worked for which a freelancer bills the client. In order to calculate your billable hours correctly, you need to be very meticulous and rigorous — but remain ethical — otherwise, you will end up working for free or fired if you commit fraud.

For instance, in the case of a language tutor, the activities that constitute billable hours are exclusively teaching. In contrast, an attorney’s billable hours include meetings with clients, any form of correspondence with the clients including phone calls or emails, and working on the actual matter for a client.

Non-billable hours

The number of hours that a freelancer works but doesn’t bill the client is referred to as non-billable hours. Non-billable hours include the additional hours that were spent to get the work done but cannot be ethically billed.

For instance, freelance language tutors spend additional hours preparing for the class and providing extra material for which they are not paid. In the attorney’s case, non-billable hours include meetings with coworkers, answering calls and emails that are not directly related to the client, thinking and making strategies.

According to one research, a significant number of freelancers work additional hours so as to meet milestones. For instance, a software developer, from the same research, states that he works 10% more than he charges, around 50 hours a week. One of the reasons why this happens is due to the constant innovation of technologies that is oftentimes hard to keep up with. Thus, developers spend extra hours running tests and trying new things to deliver results and finish the work.

The additional activities like acquiring new skills, obtaining certifications, administrative work, etc. refer to non-billable hours that multiple freelancers spend doing their job but cannot bill.

Who works billable hours?

Freelancers make up a majority of workers who work billable hours — they refer to the people who are self-employed rather than working for someone else full-time, i.e., a company. A lot of freelancers work in customer service, IT sector, writing, education, accounting, etc.

However, there are a few other types of professionals that work billable hours besides freelancers. The calculation of billable hours, amongst others, applies to legal professionals, whether they be freelancers or work full-time for a company. This practice was introduced in the 1960s with the invention of the computer mainly to keep records of billable hours and put an end to unethical billing practices.

Professions that use billable hours when conducting work have a hard job making judgments about which activities constitute as ethically or practically billable. In the following section of this blog post, you can find how to calculate your billable hours easily but also maximize them, in a professional and ethical manner.

Strategies for maximizing billable hours and remaining ethical

We’ve prepared six useful strategies you might adapt to increase your billability yet remain sincere to clients. Therefore, if you are facing delayed payments or even nonpayments, here are some strategies that will help you get the most out of projects you do get paid for (or simply avoid wasting time on the wrong projects).

Avoid job scams

Perhaps this is the initial step you need to check off your to-do list. Do some research on the company you were hired by as a freelancer, see if they have an official website or social media presence. Moreover, look for reviews on legit job review websites, or try to reach out to employees in the company you are applying for.

Furthermore, there are companies that are legit but have a reputation for being late payers or even non-payers. Do your research and agree on payment terms with your clients in advance to have control over your cash flow. Avoiding fraudulent business proposals will save you from wasting your time and working for free.

Provide proof of your work hours

Provide your clients with a clear and transparent description of your billable hours. Vague descriptions such as “testing” or “doing research” can do more harm than good. Some clients will look for a needle in a haystack to dispute your invoices, delay payments, or don’t pay at all. Thus, write a thorough description of each billable activity, track your billable time to avoid misunderstandings, and build trust with your clients. This brings us to our next point.

Track your billable time

To better understand how you can maximize your billable hours, you’ll need to track and calculate them first. When you think about it, calculating billable hours seems like a walk in the park — you multiply your labor hours by your hourly rate. However, freelancers often manage multiple projects for several clients at once and charge differently for each. To prevent confusion and nonpayments, a freelancer should choose a reliable method for calculating billable hours. This is where technology comes in handy since you are not going to write everything down on paper (hopefully).

With that said, you can choose a time tracking tool such as Clockify, to track billable hours with ease. Simply, set your billable rate and start tracking your billable hours whenever you work on a project, as shown in Screenshot 1: Tracking billable hours. Make sure the dollar sign is checked (or disabled for non-billable activities).

Screenshot 1: Tracking billable hours

In order to see and analyze your tracked billable hours (and compare them to your non-billable time), go to the Reports section where Clockify automatically includes billable hours in your earnings as shown in Screenshot 2: Reporting. You can also export your report as a pdf or Excel file, or even send an URL link to your client, whatever suits you best.

Screenshot 2: Reporting

Only when you start keeping a record of your time, can you see how you spend your time while working, and how you can organize your day to spend more time on billable activities.

Take caution when creating invoices

Are you sure you’re always diligent when including billable time in client invoices? Maybe you’re not billing for everything you should, simply because you’re not including all billable entries in your invoices. To avoid this, you can use an app that will create invoices for you.

For example, you can also use Clockify for this purpose to create invoices based on the billable time you’ve just tracked.

Simply, enable invoicing in the settings section, enter your company address in the section below, and start creating invoices.

The best thing about managing invoices this way is that you can automatically populate your invoice by importing your tracked billable time. When your invoice is ready, you can download it and save it in pdf format to be easily shareable with your clients.

Screenshot 3: Invoice example

Using a tool such as Clockify, you can avoid missing a billable entry or two, and forgetting to bill for something you are supposed to.

Adjust your approach to your profession

When looking for ways to maximize your earnings, always adjust your approach to your profession. Take legal professionals, as an example. Legal work includes a vast number of activities that cannot be practically or ethically billed. A lawyer can’t bill the client hours spent on meetings, administrative work, or committee work. For instance, if a lawyer bills the client seven hours, it means he or she will spend up to twelve hours in the office.

Due to the billable nature of their job, they suffer from burnout, lack of private life, and social isolation. Additionally, billing fraud is common and can result in serious consequences for the legal professionals who try it.

To avoid this from happening, legal professionals can do the following:

Provide your clients with transparent and detailed invoices by tracking your billable time.

Communicate with your clients frequently and have clear policies regarding rates.

Delegate non-billable tasks such as administrative work to legal assistants or secretaries.

Use a billable hour chart to prepare time entries for invoicing more accurately and avoid padding hours since it’s unethical. So, if you worked for less than an hour on client-related things and don’t know how to properly bill them — this method will come in handy.

This chart is used to easily calculate chunks of an hour worked. It is based on increments of 1/10th of an hour. For instance, if you worked for 20 minutes at a rate of $180 per hour, look at the chart to find the time increment. In your case, that would be 0.4.

In order to calculate your billable time, multiply the time increment by your hourly rate. So, 0.4 x $180 = $72. You should bill $72 to your client.

To make your life even easier, we’ve prepared a free billable hour calculator for you.

Download the Billable hour calculator

Treat yourself as a brand

As a freelancer, you need to treat yourself as a brand, establishment, and as a result, others will do so too. This will indirectly maximize your billable hours — because it will increase the chances you’ll be paid. Therefore, be professional.

Don’t write sloppy emails, and try to reply to your emails as soon as possible (if time differences allow so). According to Jon Younger, the coauthor of Agile Talent, you should send invoices weekly or each time you finish the job since it is “a signal that you consider your time valuable.” In the case of complex projects that can last up to a few months, he suggests milestone payments or payments in chunks. Younger says: “You don’t want to work for three months on a project only to have the client say, ‘I hate it. And I will only pay you for 50%.”

Additionally, don’t agree to work on something without receiving a contract with the project’s scope, visible payment terms, and conditions. Read the contract carefully to avoid any fraud or misunderstanding later on.

Present yourself as a professional who delivers consistent and quality work yet respects honest and transparent communication.

Conclusion

Whether you are a freelancer or work in an industry that requires billable hours, choose a strategy that suits you best and integrate it into your work routine. Sure, there are activities you simply cannot bill, but using the strategies from this article may help you acquire new management skills and utilize your time a bit efficiently.

Moreover, maintaining an open and truthful billing practice will earn you status as a valued professional and attract quality clients in return.

However, one cannot go without the other since they are interdependent and go hand in hand.

In this blog post, we will talk about the differences between productivity and efficiency, their correlation, and some useful tips to increase them.

What is productivity?

Productivity is performance — tendency towards making the most out of available resources. Due to the competitive market today, entrepreneurs are more inclined towards results and numbers. However, productivity is not solely the number of products produced or services provided within a specific period.

Productivity is indeed the output (i.e. produced goods or services), but one that is the result of the input (i.e. used resources). Or as the National Bureau of Economic Research proposes, productivity refers to the “units of output produced per unit of a particular input.”

If we produce more or better output using the same resources, productivity will increase. Equally, if we use fewer resources to produce the same output, we also increase productivity.

So, productivity means much more than just numbers. It’s the measurement of the performance that is gained using specific input. When you focus on productivity, you focus on achieving more using the same (or fewer) resources.

Example of productivity at the workplace

Let’s say you are an HR manager, and your average time to interview a potential employee is thirty minutes. If your company solely focuses on productivity, they will probably instruct you to interview two candidates within the same timeframe (thirty minutes).

Therefore, you are trying to find a way to accelerate the process, omit some standard questions, and decrease your candidate’s speaking time.

Finally, you succeed in interviewing two candidates within the same timeframe. However, you are afraid you didn’t make the right decision due to a lack of time when getting to know your candidates. Moreover, you experience burnout because of the pressure to do more using the same amount of resources (which is time, in this case).

In short, solely focusing on productivity and getting more things done while using the same resources may not result in better quality.

What is efficiency?

Sink and Tuttle (1989) describe efficiency as “doing things right.” Simply put, efficiency is the degree to how well resources are utilized to achieve the output. When you focus on efficiency, you focus on achieving the same using fewer resources.

Companies that improve labor efficiency are reducing hours, workforce, or budget to produce the same output. This is done to save and increase profitability.

If productivity focuses on results, efficiency is all about the resources invested to achieve those results.

Example of efficiency at the workplace

You are a content writer and you write for a blog. You need to finish your blog post in five working days. On average, you can write 700 to 800 words a day (together with research, brainstorming, etc.).

Now, your manager tells you that you will need to finish your future blog posts within three working days. There has been some labor shortage in the company lately, and a decreased number of employees will have to achieve the same output. Therefore, you need to do the same work now but using fewer resources i.e. time.

You somehow manage to finish your blog post on time, but you worry that you didn’t do enough research and answer the topic well.

Consequently, doing the same work while using fewer resources may not result in better quality either.

Correlation between productivity and efficiency

So, productivity means doing more work during the same time frame, while efficiency means doing the same amount of work in less time. Even though productivity and efficiency are two separate things, we must know that they are interdependent. If productivity refers to the quantity of the output produced, efficiency would be the quality of that output. So, if there is resource scarcity, the process to do the work is less efficient and reflects poorly on the output — productivity. Productivity is ultimately contingent on the resources, i.e. efficient usage of them.

In essence, when the quality, i.e. efficiency is added to get the output, i.e. productivity, we get true productivity.

Example of productivity vs efficiency in manufacturing

In the 1970s, the top manufacturing output countries were the USA, USSR, and Japan, ranking China fifth. However, in 2010, China overtook the USA and ranked first place in the highest manufacturing output in the world (which it still holds today).

According to 2015 research, China leads the world with $2.01 trillion in manufacturing output, placing the USA second with $1.867 trillion and Japan with $1.063 trillion in manufacturing output. Moreover, China accounts for 20% of manufacturing output worldwide.

How did the Chinese accomplish that?

China owes its flattering title to low input costs. In 2018, manufacturing wages in China were $5.51 per hour while in the USA, the wages were $26.99 per hour. Low costs of production, including workforce, materials, and numerous government subsidies, all contribute to high production outputs.

But, one must wonder, if productivity is the result of the input — in China’s case, low-paid workforce and raw materials — is it a quality result?

When you take hourly wages in China and the USA into consideration, there is a significant deviation indeed. That’s why you will find the price of, for instance, unbranded headphones in China (or on their numerous shopping websites) to be twice or three times lower than in the USA. The quality, therefore, is poorer as well. Thus, you get what you paid for.

From this example, we can conclude that a high productivity rate doesn’t necessarily result in quality goods or services. China is well-known for its cheap products, and they will always have buyers indeed. However, one can achieve the best ratio when successfully balancing both productivity and efficiency. But, first, you’ll need to calculate productivity and efficiency in your business.

How do you calculate productivity and efficiency?

Calculating productivity helps your business to adapt and adjust in order to achieve better results. By doing so, you can point at shortages or actions to be taken to improve productivity. Moreover, you can have a clear insight into predicaments that might have interfered with productivity.

When you calculate productivity, you control:

• Resource estimations and allocations,
• Goal setting,
• Improvement,
• Budgeting.

Also, when you calculate your or your business’ efficiency, you can see how resources are utilized and avoid wasting.

Productivity formula

Use this simple equation to calculate your or your employee’s productivity. You can do it for each team member individually or the entire team.

TOTAL OUTPUT / TOTAL INPUT = PRODUCTIVITY

Let’s take a look at the example with the content writer. So, the content writer writes 800 words and in order to do so, it takes her 8 working hours. The output would be 800 words, and 8 working hours would be the input, the resources (time in this case) that are invested to achieve results. If we want to calculate the content writer’s productivity, we must divide 800 words (output) by 8 working hours (input).

The equation goes as follows:

800 / 8 = 100

So, the content writer writes 100 words per hour. By taking this result into consideration, she may have a closer look into her productivity and the things she can do to improve it, perhaps.

If you, for instance, want to calculate your business’s productivity on a larger level, you can do so by following the same equation. Say your business manufactures $80,000 (output) worth of goods or services per 1 week. In order to produce the goods and provide the services, it takes your business 1,300 labor hours (input).

Take a look at the equation again:

80,000 / 1,300 = 61

The number we’ve got is 61, and that result represents how much dollars is earned for each labor hour. The result: $61 per 1 labor hour.

By measuring your or your business’s productivity, you can have a closer look at the utilization of your resources, and it will help you be more productive with them.

Efficiency formula

Calculating productivity will help you get a closer insight into quantity while calculating efficiency will help you evaluate the quality. We don’t know what is the quality of the goods manufactured or services provided when we calculate productivity. We just get the numbers. Maybe 100 words from the previous example is productive work, but we don’t know if it is high-quality content.

Use the following equation to calculate your or your business’s efficiency.

( Expected labor hours of work / actual labor hours worked ) x 100% = EFFICIENCY

Maybe the content writer is expected to work 8 hours a day. But, let’s say she actually finishes her work in 6.5 hours a day. If we divide 8 (her expected labor hours) by 6.5 (actual hours worked) and multiply that by 100, we will get the efficiency of the content writer’s work.

Take a look at the equation:

( 8 / 6.5 ) x 100 = 123% efficiency

A ratio higher than 100% indicates greater efficiency. That is to say, the content writer works 1.5 hours less than expected, so she is 23% more efficient.

Let’s say you want to calculate your business’s efficiency on a weekly level. If we take a look at the previous example, it takes 1,300 labor hours weekly to produce $80,000 of output.

In this case, we are not interested in productivity, so we leave $80.000 aside. Instead, we take 1,000 (expected labor hours) and divide it by 1,300 (actual hours worked), and multiply that by 100 to get the efficiency of the workers.

( 1,000 / 1,300 ) x 100 = 76% efficiency

This result indicates that workers need more hours to deliver results, hence, their efficiency is lower than expected. This is a simple equation that can help a business have a closer look into their employees’ efficiency and react if needed.

A free productivity and efficiency calculator

We’ve prepared a free productivity and efficiency calculator for you so that you never experience a stall in productivity or inefficient use of resources again. In Screenshot 1: Productivity and efficiency calculator, you can see how it looks and how it is easy to use.

Screenshot 1: Productivity and efficiency calculator

Download the Free productivity & efficiency calculator

How to increase productivity and efficiency at work?

Whether you are a company that wants to increase the productivity of your employees or an individual trying to boost your performance, doing so will provide you with various benefits. Increasing productivity for companies will result in better profit and economic growth. On an individual level, boosting productivity can help you obtain higher wages or additional benefits and perks at work. Employees who are satisfied with their working conditions tend to be more productive at work hence provide better results. Moreover, satisfied and engaged employees are more likely to be efficient and show a prudent use of resources.

Try incorporating the tips we’ve prepared for you into your daily routine to increase your or your employees’ productivity and efficiency.

Tips for businesses

No matter how well your business is going, you must always keep an eye on productivity and efficient use of your business’s resources. You can’t allow unforeseen costs and poor utilization of resources since competition is out there, waiting for you to slip. If you would like to boost your profits while making the most of your resources, read the following tips.

Solicit employee feedback

Conducting feedback from your employees can help you better understand their needs, opinions, and viewpoints hence boost your company’s productivity. Create surveys and organize team meetings regularly. Meetings can indirectly reflect a company’s culture. If everyone is quiet during the meeting or even too agreeable, something must be wrong. When a company provides a welcoming and safe environment, employees are not afraid to share ideas and are more likely to achieve productive results.

This way, you will achieve a better understanding of your employees’ productivity, how they utilize resources at their disposal, and what’s stopping them to achieve their goals. Consider having a check-in with your employees once a week at least.

Encourage learning opportunities

According to research, additional training and knowledge enhancement on current jobs have a beneficial impact on employees’ productivity. The key is to keep enhancing and improving your employees’ skills and knowledge. Provide them with learning opportunities including different seminars, language classes, and workshops. What’s more, introduce a mentoring program in your workplace. Novice employees will benefit from having a mentor since they will feel more encouraged and less frightened to do the work. In addition, as an employer, you can offer tuition assistance to motivate employees to improve their knowledge and encourage their professional development.

Have a clear company vision

When a company has a clear vision, it can create long-term and consistent results. Apart from creating results, it unifies everyone into a team and promotes teamwork. Moreover, it boosts employees’ morale and motivation. Therefore, a clear vision aids in creating a productive environment at work.

Have your employees track time

Tracking your employees’ time can be beneficial to both you and your employees’ performance. You can have a better insight into your employees’ daily activities and improve workload distribution among teams. They can achieve skills to use their time more efficiently and avoid poor resource utilization. Avoid outdated time trackers such as a punch clock, and opt for a tool that is rich in features and easy to use.

Thus, you can try out Clockify — a time tracking tool that offers the basic time tracking features for unlimited users and projects, and all that free of charge.

Timekeeping in Clockify can maximize productivity within your team and help you efficiently utilize resources (time, team members, and budget) without wasting them.

Efficiently allocate resources

It is a huge responsibility and concern to allocate resources efficiently. We’ve already said that true productivity depends on efficiency, i.e. quality utilization of resources. When you efficiently allocate time, people, money, and equipment, you avoid missed deadlines, unnecessary expenses, and a dysfunctional workplace. Remember that productivity refers to the output that people achieve with the efficient utilization of money, time, and accompanying equipment.

Tips for individuals

There are times when we all experience a stall in productivity and when we grasp at straws to use our resources efficiently. What you can do is take a look at the things that interfere with your productivity and introduce changes to your daily routines. Increase your productivity and use your resources efficiently with the tips that we’ve prepared for you.

Stop multitasking

Research shows that juggling multiple tasks at the same time prolongs the completion of tasks and has a detrimental effect on productivity. It also states that the more tasks you take on, the less productive you become. Therefore, instead of doing several things simultaneously, prioritize your workload and resolve important (not urgent) tasks first. This way, you will utilize your resources efficiently and never experience a stall in productivity again.

Organize your life better

If the current organizational methods you are using are doing more harm than good, consider changing them and adopting new ones into your daily routine. Try with simple workplace decluttering or introducing to-do lists to help you track your tasks more efficiently.

Have you ever heard of a time management method called time blocking?

By using this method, you divide your workday into blocks of time. You dedicate each time block to a specific task and set a timeframe for each. For example, research time from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., writing time from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., lunchtime from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., etc. Follow your time blocks accordingly to be more efficient with your time. Make the most of your workday by implementing minor organizational changes in the workplace.

Track your productivity

As an individual, you can also track your time in order to be more efficient with it and deliver consistent output. By tracking your time, you can see where your time goes and boost your productivity. If you are prone to procrastination, try out the Pomodoro technique that offers working in 25-minute intervals, followed by 5-minute breaks. It helps you focus on the task at hand, and millions around the world use it to improve productivity. Therefore, track your time to boost your productivity and improve your time management skills.

Eliminate distractions

Do you have a constant urge to check your social media? According to one 2017 study, social media is one of the main culprits for productivity deterioration. Cut off distractions by installing software for blocking irrelevant applications and websites during work hours. Additionally, turn off notifications and don’t be afraid to say “No” to your coworkers. Staying focused will help boost your productivity and use your resources more efficiently.

Use technology

Make technology an internal part of your workdays. It can save your time and speed up processes significantly. When you use technology, you efficiently allocate your resources. There is no need for you to waste your resources by doing things manually. Technology will efficiently allocate your resources and minimize the risk of mistakes. Keep in mind to use reliable tools only.

Conclusion

Balancing efficiency and productivity is walking a tightrope, but it is crucial in delivering consistent results. Whether you are an individual or an organization, taking both factors into consideration plays a pivotal role in achieving success. Remember that everyone faces obstacles from time to time. Try incorporating the tips we’ve prepared for you into your daily routines to overcome obstacles as efficiently as possible.

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to run multiple projects, you need to be well acquainted with the project management methodologies. It requires a lot of practice, switching attention from one project to another together while following the deadlines.

This blog post will help you recognize some of the challenges you may encounter when managing and tracking multiple projects, and introduce you to the best strategies and tools to overcome them.

Who manages and tracks multiple projects?

Even though managing and tracking projects involve many stakeholders, ultimately the person who holds primary responsibility for their success or failure is the multi-project manager. It’s a huge burden to take on. However, only the ones with the greatest organizational and communication skills can attain not the best but consistent results.

Common multi-project manager competencies:

• Possesses an innovative thinking style,
• Isn’t detail-oriented,
• Possesses multi-tasking skills,
• Able to switch over from one project to another,
• Deals with stress effectively,
• Deals with conflicts within a team,
• Uses resources effectively,
• Juggles team and customer’s needs.

Experienced project managers possess both soft and hard skills to be able to run multiple projects systematically. Remember: A top project manager invests 90% of their time in communicating with the team. Therefore, open communication within the team is the foundation in managing and tracking multiple projects at once. Additionally, dealing with a bunch of freelance jobs can also be considered as “managing and tracking multiple projects” hence we can say that freelance workers may also be multi-projects managers too.

Problems that may arise when managing and tracking multiple projects

Running a single project involves many steps that one should take, and the road can get bumpy along the way. Now, imagine managing and tracking several projects simultaneously. Juggling multiple projects at once may bring along many predicaments to the people in charge. Therefore, it’s crucial to recognize those problems that may arise in the process. Only when you are aware of the problems, can you successfully overcome them and deliver results.

We’ve prepared a list of the most common problems that may arise when managing and tracking multiple projects at once.

Overload

When allocating the right people to run several projects at the same time, it’s essential to think about the workload. If, for instance, three people are assigned the workload that requires at least six people, problems may arise. Project overload results in impaired performance and high levels of stress within the team. Consequently, the quality of deliverables will suffer. Moreover, a single freelancer who takes on too many projects at once can also suffer from overload or even worse — burnout. When the workload is equally allotted, team members will feel less pressure hence deliver better results.

Undefined priority

When juggling several projects at once, it is oftentimes necessary to prioritize them. An urgent project is not the same as an important project. Sometimes, decision-makers leap to conclusions and prioritize projects based upon their tendencies or urgency. As a result, they end up with poor outcomes.

Using the wrong tools for your needs

For delivering consistent results, using the right project management and tracking tool is of the essence. Avoid keeping notes in several different places and using an outdated punch clock machine. Opting for the inconsistent tools that are oftentimes outdated or even lack the features you need could lead to general confusion within the team and missed deadlines. Hence, choose a tool that offers effective collaboration and time tracking within your team. This way, all stakeholders will have clear visibility into the work scope at any given time and never miss a deadline again. Later in this post, we’ll introduce you to a convenient tool that will help you manage and track your team’s work effectively.

Resource allocation

Another concern of a multi-project manager is: “How to allocate resources accordingly?” According to research findings mentioned above, a multiple-project manager often deals with resource deficits. When running multiple projects at once, certain resources need to be shared.

Resources shouldn’t be over-allocated nor under-allocated. For instance, a conference room is a resource that should be equally allocated to everyone, not unavailable in the morning, and empty in the afternoon. On the other hand, if some team members don’t have any scheduled tasks, they become under-allocated. Furthermore, it can result in employee dissatisfaction since some teammates may not have anything to do while others are overbooked.

The multi-project manager’s job is to be familiar with resource availability at all times and equally assign them when running multiple projects.

8 strategies to manage and track multiple projects effectively

You need to juggle customer requirements, project plans, scopes, team members, budget… and all that multiplied by three or even five projects simultaneously. Sounds impossible? It doesn’t have to be if you opt for the right strategies. That’s why we’ve prepared 8 strategies to help you manage and track multiple projects effectively.

1. Learn how to run a single project

If you are new to project management, you need to comprehend that you can’t jump into running multiple projects at once without knowing how to effectively run a single project first.

The project management process kicks off with the project starter meeting where all the objectives and requirements are presented by the sponsor of the project. After that, you need to meet those requirements and create your statement of work according to the project starter. Your statement of work, also known as the “scope of work”, needs to define the entire scope of work including the costs, timelines, and expected deliverables.

Project Management Institute’s book A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge defines a statement of work as “a narrative description of products or services to be supplied under contract.”

Simply put — learn how to run a single project first and running multiple projects will come (almost) naturally.

2. Develop a plan

Whether you are running a single project or a set of projects, you need to develop a project plan for each project separately. Only then will you be able to keep track of projects activities and provide your team with a clear work scope.

The project plan includes:

• Projects requirements — Schedule a meeting with all stakeholders and gather the requirements collectively (don’t have one-on-one meetings).
• Project scope — Define the scope of your work and exclude irrelevant things.
• WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) — A method for breaking the project down into smaller pieces that helps you make a budgeting plan and a timeframe for each task.
• Schedule — A developed schedule will help you estimate how long a particular task will take to complete a project.
• Budgeting — To clearly define your budget, you need the WBS. Don’t forget to include risks in your budget plan.

When you have a transparent plan, both you and your team members will have a clear picture of the work scope and always stay on task. What’s more, you will be able to switch over from one project to another effectively without losing precious time.

3. Determine a priority project

When managing and tracking multiple projects, there are many strategies that can help you run them smoothly. We want to give special attention to project prioritization. A priority project for a stakeholder is not necessarily a priority for an organization. Giving priority to projects can be a huge undertaking for a decision-maker who is usually a multi-project manager or a senior manager. To make sure you successfully define a priority project, there are some steps that can help you make an effective decision.

We’ve prepared five steps that will make prioritizing easier.

Set a goal

When determining a priority project, one must always consider the long-term goal. If you don’t have a clear goal, projects are doomed to fail eventually. When in doubt, ask yourself questions such as: What I am trying to accomplish? Why is this project important? When knowing objectives, you focus on the most important steps to deliver results.

Systematically prioritize tasks

If, for instance, there are ten projects to prioritize, the decision-maker should number the projects based on priority 1 to 10 — being the least important one. Moreover, to determine a priority project, attention should be given to which projects are dependant on the other ones. Only when a predecessor project ends can a dependent project begin.

Assign resources

High-priority tasks are given resources first. Moreover, if several ongoing projects don’t share any resources, decision-makers allocate necessary resources to priority projects first.

Distinguish between urgent and important tasks

According to research, people choose to perform time-sensitive tasks first, i.e. urgent tasks, rather than important tasks that have long-term results. This is because important tasks are usually more intimidating. To distinguish between what’s urgent and what’s important, you need to get out of your comfort zone and deep dive into resolving important tasks first.

Schedule priority meetings

Finally, priority meetings should be held to determine priorities. They don’t have to be separate meetings as long as all decision-making stakeholders are present and concerted.

Prioritizing your work is an amazing strategy that saves your precious time and effort when managing and tracking multiple projects at the same time. Follow the steps accordingly, and we guarantee you will never fail projects again.

4. Don’t allow distractions

Being busy doesn’t necessarily lead to productivity. So, try to manage distractions such as responding to chat messages, talking to coworkers, or checking notifications. Automate your email responses to save time, and don’t let trivial distractions get in the way of prioritizing your work.

Also, learn how to say “No”. If you don’t learn how to say “No”, you’ll find yourself swamped with work. You already have too much on your plate — juggling several projects at once is stressful enough. Saying “No” is beneficial to you and your business. Just be straightforward, kind, but firm. Eliminating distractions at work will declutter your mind and keep you focused.

5. Have regular meetings

Regular meetings are of the utmost importance since 90% of project management is about communication. All stakeholders should be present at the meeting and if some of the decision-making people are missing — reschedule the meeting.

A top project manager has an agenda at least 24 hours in advance and shares the PowerPoint presentation prior to the meeting. This way everyone has a clear view of the project and its objectives. Remember: manage the meeting — not the presentation slides. Moreover, one meeting should only cover one topic.

These guidelines will help you manage your team effectively and get fruitful results.

6. Use the right tool for your needs

Experienced project managers can testify how important it is to have all information stored in one place. When your tasks are scattered across various tools, neither you nor your team members get a clear picture of the work scope.

But, which tool should you use?

There are so many project management tools available, and one can be in a ​​quandary for a reason.

When opting for the right tool, a quality managing and tracking tool should:

Be convenient and easy to use (no one likes complex and confusing tools).

Track time and progress on a project.

Keep an eye on the budget and notify you when the estimated budget is reached.

Break down projects by tasks.

Provide project and task deadlines.

Be shareable and visible to your team at all times.

Moreover, we must draw your attention to using the right product management tool as well. While the project manager’s job is to deliver the product successfully and lead it through different stages of the project, the product manager’s job is to make sure customer requirements are met afterward. In order to do so, a product manager must opt for a suitable product management tool that will make the product onboarding run smoothly.

You should also bear in mind that no tool will do the work for you. Carefully study its features and learn how to use them accordingly.

7. Adjust to change

As a multi-project manager, you probably know that projects change over time. Changes in project management are almost inevitable, especially if you run multiple projects at once. Without having a change control procedure, you will lose control over your work, and projects are condemned to failure as a consequence.

When you assess the issue, you need to determine your next step to solve it. Maybe you will need to integrate changes regarding your work scope, budget, or timeframe. Bear in mind that sometimes an issue doesn’t require any action at all.

According to PRINCE2, “there are only two reasons to implement a change: to introduce a new benefit or to protect an existing benefit.”

Nevertheless, when running multiple projects, changes are often bound to happen. So, if you are well-informed, you will not have trouble accessing them.

8. Delegate your work

Sometimes you will need to assign responsibilities to other people in your team. Since you can’t do everything by yourself, you should build trust within your team and delegate tasks accordingly.

However, even when you assign responsibilities to other people, that doesn’t mean you are no longer responsible for the outcome. Your job is to monitor the work in progress and exert control over it. Bear in mind that delegating doesn’t mean micromanaging.

Therefore, connect with your team so that you can have an understanding of what they’re doing. It makes your life easy knowing that you have open communication to ensure that things are on track.

Tools for managing and tracking multiple projects

If you are new to managing and tracking several projects simultaneously, you will see that it can be quite an undertaking. Without using the right strategies and tools, you will end up scratching your head eventually.

When running several projects at once, you need a quality tool that is rich in features and easy to manage. There are multiple project management tools out there, and they surely do the job well. But, one must be selective and consider all facts when choosing the right tool.

In this section, we want to compare two tools that can help you manage and track your projects with ease.

Managing and tracking multiple projects in Excel

Microsoft Excel is a simple project management tool that uses spreadsheets to visualize, plan and monitor small or mid-sized projects. It contains many analytical tools for efficient analysis and several project management templates.

Excel uses the Gantt chart — a horizontal bar chart that is used for project management. Gantt chart provides a graphical representation of schedules, deadlines, resources and helps monitor them.

The good thing about Excel is that it offers various templates that help monitor and track tasks and their progress in projects.

Apart from Excel, people also use Google Sheets, Libre OfficeCalc, as they offer similar features.

In this section, we will take a brief look at the most important elements in Microsoft Excel’s multiple projects tracking template.

Create a project plan

In image 1: Creating a project plan, you can see the place where you fill in the information regarding the project’s name, customer name, and the responsible manager. On the right side of the template, you can see all the tasks presented in the Gantt chart.

Image 1: Creating a project plan

Also, you can choose your projects from the drop-down menu and add details for each. You can add as many projects as you wish. When you add or remove a project, it automatically updates in the Gantt chart.

Fill out a datasheet

Image 2 Datasheet shows you the number of tasks in each project, and this is where you keep track of their status. Tasks between 1% and 25% are at the initial stage. Those tasks which status is around 50% are in the middle stage and are half-completed. The tasks that have a status between 75% and 99% are in the final stage and are about to be finished. Tasks with 100% status are completed entirely.

Image 2: Datasheet

In the datasheet, you can add or remove tasks for each project. In the responsible column, you can assign a responsible person from your team for each task and write their names.

Finally, set the start and finish dates of your projects in the start date and days required columns.

Create a projects summary

In image 3 Project summary, you can see the projects summary. This section allows you to have an overall view of your projects. Everything you did in the datasheet will be visible here. Also, you can add new projects here and they will automatically show up in the Gannt chart together with the percentage of their completion.

Image 3: Project summary

In the datasheet, you are able to see the status of each task separately. However, in the project summary, you can have an overall view of each project’s status.

Take in the overall impression

Basically, running multiple projects in Excel spreadsheets can provide you with a detailed overview and catchy data visualizations. It is an affordable tool that performs multiple activities and quite a number of people are acquainted with Excel.

Yet, it can turn into a vicious circle since it requires manual input. Even though it provides a clear overview of the statistics, progress, start and end dates — learning the syntax takes skill. That can be time-consuming and challenging to manage, especially for beginners. Time tracking and budgeting require entering multiple formulas, too.

Another con is that it has security issues. Sharing project data via email can jeopardize your organization’s privacy.

To avoid that, it is worth considering using cybersecurity tools where you can keep your data safely across your organization without any potential threat from malicious activities.

Overall, Excel is a good choice for small projects within small organizations. However, if you are looking for something more advanced and rich in features, you will need to opt for an additional tracking and managing application.

Managing and tracking multiple projects in Clockify

The timekeeping application, Clockify, offers project management features that people working on multiple projects will find useful. It’s a time tracking application that offers the basic time tracking features for unlimited users and projects, for free.

It makes managing and tracking projects very convenient, transparent, and visually appealing. As a highlight, you’ll be able to track your team’s time and progress, set budgeting, and make time estimates for your projects easily.

In this section, we’re going to deep dive into Clockify’s rich features and capabilities regarding managing and tracking multiple projects.

Add projects, tasks, and define access

First, you can add as many projects and tasks as you want and track time on each task separately. Assign the person responsible for each task, set time estimates, and mark tasks as done when complete.

Image 4: Tasks

The Access tab offers you the ability to mark the projects as public so that everyone can track time on them. Mark your project as private, and only the people you add to the project will be able to track time on it.

Image 5: Access

There are three access levels:

• Admins (people who can see and edit everything),
• Regular users (people who can track time and, if enabled, create projects and tasks, and see status),
• Managers (people who can manage specific projects, see the status, add members to the projects, and see time for their projects and users).

Change the project settings

In the setting of a project, you can personalize your projects by changing their names and categorizing them by clients. Also, you can use a color palette to visually differentiate projects.

Image 6: Project settings

This is also the place where you can set billable hourly rates. You can also set how you want to track your project’s progress — manual estimation or task-based.

Track the project statuses

In the status tab, you can compare the estimated versus track time and track progress. This is the place where you have a holistic view of your projects’ tasks, progress, assignees, and budgeting.

Image 7: Project status

Data is visually presented so that you can have a clear view of your project’s progress, billable and non-billable hours.

Once again, take in the overall impression

Clockify is an intelligent and easy-to-use timekeeping application that can greatly help you manage your projects. You can track real-time or enter your time spent on a task manually. It also notifies you when the estimated budget is reached and provides you with a clear insight into your projects’ data and progress.

A huge time-saving advantage of Clockify, compared to Excel, is its simplicity. Let’s look at an example. You’ve probably come across situations where clients had multiple projects with thousands of tasks per just one project. Imagine entering all that data manually. You don’t need to worry about that any longer since you can directly import a CSV file into Clockify.

Moreover, you can track time within other web applications. If you are using a project management tool that doesn’t possess a timekeeping feature, such as Trello, install the plugin and Clockify will track time directly in Trello’s cards/tasks. When you start the timer, the right project and task will be automatically created in the time tracking tool, based on the information in Trello.

Clockify also integrates with Asana, Jira, Quickbooks, and many other project management tools.

Managing and tracking multiple projects simultaneously has become a common practice in the fast-paced world we live in. Luckily, Clockify saves precious time and does the job automatically.

Conclusion

Tracking and managing multiple projects at the same time is a complex and daunting undertaking. A multi-project manager or a freelancer holds a huge responsibility juggling multiple projects, team members, and client’s requirements simultaneously.

Using the right strategies and opting for a quality managing and tracking tool can make this process a well-oiled machine.

Moreover, don’t forget to build trust within your team, and learn from your past projects. Each successfully carried out project will bring you more knowledge, and you will proudly enjoy your job even more.

These unwritten rules cultures pass on to their children, nurturing their traditions and keeping them from fading. In this blog post, we will take a look at different ways cultures view time use, as well as how they perceive punctuality, waiting, and the time spent silent.

What is time in society and culture?

Time is an important element in society and culture. It was psychologist Robert Levine who analyzed different cultures and their attitude towards time. He found out that the more economically developed countries like the USA, Germany, or Japan are fast-paced. That is to say, they greatly value time, since “time is money”.

On the other hand, countries with poorly developed economies are slow-paced. Cultures such as the Middle East, Latin America, or Eastern Europe nurture a more relaxed attitude towards time. They are more family and socially oriented.

Sometimes, however, these orientations may not be as clear-cut. For example, even though the Japanese appreciate time and punctuality, they are a fast-paced living culture that views social relationships as important.

Thus, the way people behave towards time depends on their cultural traditions, beliefs, and socioeconomic status.

Timekeeping in different cultures

We’ve already mentioned that Western and Eastern cultures have different attitudes towards time. The same applies to how they track their time.

Western cultures (including some parts of East Asia, such as Japan) tend to measure their time by the clock. According to their understanding, each activity should have a precise beginning and end.

On the other hand, measuring time in Eastern cultures is event or personality-related. That is to say, they don’t let time interfere with their judgment. They will gladly prolong the meeting or schedule it for the next day if participants have family-related obligations. Each activity or event should have a natural beginning and end.

Different understandings of time come to attention when people from different cultural backgrounds come to have a formal meeting together. Cultures that measure time by the clock will expect all participants to be punctual, whereas event-time cultures wouldn’t be so strict. Therefore, different time understanding can lead to misunderstandings between cultures — such as the ideal time when members of a multicultural team are expected to arrive at a meeting.

Time orientation

The way we look at the different eras in time also reflects our time understanding. This is referred to as time orientation.

For example, nations with a long history that survived wars, had past achievements, or lived in monarchies hold on to the past more than nations with a relatively short history.

Therefore, certain cultures are past, present, or future-oriented.

We’ve prepared a more detailed description of each orientation below.

Past-oriented cultures

These cultures don’t have long-term perspectives and avoid risking by introducing changes.

Italy is an ideal example of a past-oriented country. Italians are known for their exquisite craftsmanship and artistic history. They stick to their past achievements and obtain new ones relying on the knowledge of their ancestors.

Moreover, Britain and China are past-oriented since they have a long history too. Like the Italians, they are proud of their past achievements and live their lives respecting their traditions and beliefs.

Interestingly, even though the Chinese are traditional and past-oriented, they do have a long-term perspective. They cherish their traditions yet carefully pave the way for the future of their heirs.

Present-oriented cultures

Present-oriented cultures include the majority of Latin American and African countries. For them, what happened in the past — should stay there. What’s more, they are laid back about future events. They give little attention to such events since they consider them uncertain and unknown. Therefore, these cultures rely on immediate results and tend not to have detailed plans for the future.

Future-oriented cultures

Logically, we can come to the conclusion that cultures that live their lives by the clock are future-oriented.

The USA is such an example.

They live in the present to the fullest — but are oriented towards future events. This may have to do with the fact that they are a relatively young country, at least compared to European countries. Besides, they are known to be thorough planners. They thoroughly plan their vacations, meetings, and important events beforehand. Time waste is simply an unwanted concept.

Chronemics

Do you and your friends meet strictly on time, or is it acceptable to arrive late in your culture? The answer lies in the role of time in communication, also known as — chronemics. People and organizations in different cultures have different understandings of the use of time in communication, specifically, nonverbal communication. We’ll single out two types of such time use: polychronic time (P-time) and monochronic time (M-time).

Event or personality-related cultures use the polychronic, whereas by-the-clock cultures use the monochronic approach. We need to grasp this to be able to function in culturally diverse environments.

In line with that, people who often migrate or travel long distances for work have a greater chance of learning about and adapting to culture-based different time use — simply because they are exposed to such cultural diversity more often.

Polychronic approach

People with an inclination towards the polychronic time approach are emotion and event-driven. Therefore, they are more people-oriented because they put family and social life before work. This time use is prevalent in Latin American, African, and Middle East countries. Their attitude towards work includes doing several things at once without paying too much attention to time. P-time people don’t stick to the schedule so rigidly. In addition, polychronic organizations are externally focused and their primary concern is customer satisfaction. They follow market trends and prioritize customer feedback.

At work, P-time people tend to:

• Have a flexible attitude towards schedules and plans,
• Group tasks together and perform them simultaneously,
• Build strong relationships with people,
• Not judge tardiness,
• Frequently change, delete, or procrastinate items on their To-Do lists,
• Prioritize tasks and adjust them to their needs.

Monochronic approach

This approach includes doing one thing at a time, strictly sticking to schedules, and making thorough plans. People who are comfortable with this time use are task-oriented. Therefore, they don’t let anyone and anything interfere with their daily goals. Monochrons mostly belong to Western cultures (North Americans and Western Europeans), as well as some Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. However, on the whole, these cultures are more a combination of monochronic and polychronic time use. For example, when it comes to business and deadlines, they incline towards monochronic time use. At the same time, when it comes to activities that include building relationships with people, they incline towards the polychronic approach. In other words, these activities are spontaneous and not thoroughly planned. Another important point to add is that the beginning and ending times of after-hour events are not set for cultures following the monochronic approach.

At work, M-time people tend to:

• Never multitask,
• Thoroughly plan and schedule their activities,
• Not tolerate tardiness,
• Stay at work until everything is finished,
• Never miss deadlines,
• Not waste time making small talks at work.

Monochronic and polychronic cultures in business

Monochronic and polychronic cultures may have misunderstandings in business encounters. For instance, polychrons don’t have a defined time frame for each meeting. Eastern people start their business meetings by getting to know their partners more and giving them time to introduce themselves. Their meetings last until they achieve goals in the course of nature. For them, exchanging business cards is a whole process that takes time. Conversely, North Americans, who are monochronic, like to get to the point and achieve goals in a defined time frame. They have no time to waste.

For a business, it’s of the utmost importance to establish a time culture. According to research, around 20% of expats who moved abroad for business returned home early because they couldn’t adjust to a different culture. This usually happens because expats go abroad unprepared and unaware of cultural differences, which include differences in cultural perceptions of time. They assume business rules are the same everywhere. What’s more, executives may expect expats to get the work done without considering such cultural differences.

An example of a cross-cultural misunderstanding between a monochronic and a polychronic culture

A North American flies to Istanbul for an annual meeting with his Turkish partners. The North American — punctual as he is — finds it very odd to see people mingling and chatting during work time. He also seems surprised that the meeting didn’t start on time and that his partners extended it spontaneously. What he doesn’t know is that Turkish people put great value on building social relationships. Thus, good relationships between coworkers are of the essence. Turkish people run meetings on the spur of the moment, without forcing them to end at a certain time to achieve instant goals.

Different cultures should be aware of the cultural differences in order to enjoy their encounters more and obtain mutual benefits. Hence, you should always research the cultures of your teammates (if they are different from your own), to avoid surprises.

How to prevent cross-cultural misunderstanding when doing business

For the purpose of establishing a successful overseas partnership, some ground rules need to be defined. Companies that have a positive outcome when sending people abroad follow specific rules:

• They only send culturally literate people or people who find it easy to adapt to changes.
• They send people who voluntarily agree to work abroad, after reaching a mutual decision.
• Expats and hosts should get familiar with each other’s customs to avoid misinterpretations.
• Executives should prepare their expats in advance.
• Expats should dismiss any stereotypes about certain cultures (e.g. All Chinese people eat dog meat — this is incorrect, as only a minority located in Guangxi and Guangdong regions does so).

When understanding each other and respecting cultural differences, both sides can generate innovative ideas. Moreover, expats should not be afraid to communicate with locals even though their local language may not be advanced. Once they start communicating with locals more, they will likely start adapting to culture-specific elements of their everyday lives with greater ease — including how they should perceive time in this culture.

How cultures perceive punctuality, waiting, and silence

In 1959, anthropologist Edward Hall described cultural rules of time as the “silent language” in his same-titled book. According to him, time can sometimes convey clearer messages than actual words. In line with that, people in India are comfortable with sitting in silence for hours, as opposed to the USA, where sitting in silence would feel awkward. In this section, we’ll talk about how different cultures understand other aspects of time: punctuality, waiting, and silence.

Punctuality

In his book, A Geography of Time, Robert Levine talks about his experience working as a psychology professor in Brazil. He describes how anxious he was and how he anticipated language barriers there. But, he had no idea that the biggest eye-opener would be differences in attitude towards time and punctuality. He found it surprising that students would often come to class late for more than an hour (for a lecture that lasted two hours). Additionally, they would stay long after the lesson was officially over. Levine’s Brazilian students didn’t seem to be bothered by minutes or hours as his students back home in California. They would spend the last ten minutes looking at the clock and jostling each other to leave the classroom.

At the same time, punctuality-conscious countries such as Germany, the USA, or Switzerland apologize for being five minutes late for a meeting. In fact, in these countries, coming on time for a meeting is considered late. Participants should arrive ten to fifteen minutes before the meeting. According to their beliefs, time is money, and it dictates the flow of life, whereas polychrons have a more casual attitude towards time. The Swiss are the epitome of punctuality. When you say Switzerland — the first things you think of are their watches and accuracy.

Waiting

In Eastern cultures, where the polychronic time approach prevails, people don’t find waiting so concerning. Queuing is an everyday thing in polychronic cultures. If the client in a bank is an acquaintance of the bank officer, it’s perfectly fine if they indulge in a private talk. In addition, there is a rule of hierarchy in these cultures. High-status people have multiple meetings throughout the workday and thus don’t need to apologize for being late. Brislin and Kim described waiting as an “indication of status” and that “the more power and influence you have, the longer you can make people wait for you.” In India, therefore, the word waiting is not in the dictionary — the law of the strongest will prevail. The one who pushes through the crowds will go first.

Monochronic people think of waiting as losing precious time and money. Japanese trains are one of the most punctual ones in the world. On one occasion, they made a public statement at the company’s website where they apologized to their passengers for being 20 seconds early.

The statement says:

“On November 14, at approximately 9:44 A.M., a northbound Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company (main office in Tokyo, Chiyoda Ward, President & CEO Koichi Yugi) train left Minami Nagareyama Station roughly 20 seconds earlier than the time indicated on the timetable. We deeply apologize for the severe inconvenience imposed upon our customers.”

Silence

Is sitting in silence a waste of time? Eastern cultures are quite comfortable being silent. They think of it as a valuable time where one can reconsider their decisions or actions. Asian people are very respectful and would remain silent throughout the entire conversation and never interrupt a speaker. But, this silence may have an additional meaning. For instance, if the Japanese remain silent during a business meeting — they are not comfortable with a proposal. Therefore, they are waiting for a concession. On the other hand, Western cultures may find silence awkward. As a result, they try to fill in the awkward silence with small talk. In Italy or Spain, everybody speaks at the same time, and interrupting a speaker is not disrespectful. Furthermore, remaining silent after a question means that you don’t know the answer.

Which attitude towards time should prevail, in multicultural work?

When doing business together with people of different cultures, a question may arise: “Which attitude towards time should prevail?” The monochronic approach which meticulously tracks time and thoroughly plans, or the polychronic approach — i.e. the more spontaneous one?

Ultimately, it all comes down to who is economically “stronger” or dependant on something or someone. Yet, for a truly successful and respectful international partnership, both sides should be familiar with the customs, show mutual understanding, and respect. They should meet halfway in order to come to agreements and collaborate successfully.

Conclusion

There is no “right” or “wrong” time use. Each time perspective has its advantages and disadvantages and is inherent to a specific culture. The world has become a huge melting pot and the beauty of each culture lies in its unique traditions and values. We need to grasp the differences in time use to be able to function well in certain situations. Achieving knowledge on cross-cultural differences is a long-lasting process. However, it’s worth the effort since it offers business benefits and unforgettable memories.

Now, many companies offer their employees workweek schedule alternatives and among them is the 9/80 work schedule. The majority of employees would agree that the best work schedule is one with the most time off. The 9/80 work schedule could be the one they were longing for.

In this blog post, we will tell you everything you need to know regarding this type of work schedule — how it functions, its pros and cons to both employees and businesses, and whether it can be suitable for your business.

What is a 9/80 work schedule?

Simply put — 9/80 is a compressed two-week work schedule where employees have one day off every other week. Meaning, employees work nine hours a day every Monday to Thursday, and on Fridays (in the first week), they work for eight hours (=44 working hours for week #1). The next week they also work 9-hour days from Monday to Thursday and get Fridays off (=36 working hours for week #2). The cycle repeats again the upcoming Monday. Thus, employees have a 3-day weekend, but that scheduled day off can be any other day of the workweek.

In essence, a 9/80 work schedule is an alternative work schedule.

According to recent research, 67% of businesses with 500 employees or less offer some form of alternative work schedule to their employees.

Apart from the 9/80 work schedule, there are other alternative schedules in the USA employees can choose from. Workers can choose between schedules such as 4/10, 3/12, and our topic in this blog post — 9/80.

How a 9/80 workweek schedule works

For instance, your regular workweek schedule is from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, with Friday as a scheduled day off. Here’s how your compressed workweek schedule would look like (without a lunch break).

Whether you are an employee or a business owner, you need to carefully track your or your employees’ worktime because it takes some time to get used to a new schedule and integrate it into your daily routines.

For this purpose, you can try out an employee time tracker application that is simple and convenient to use, such as Clockify. With it, you can keep track of your clock-in and clock-out times, and ensure you adhere to your work schedule, no matter its type.

9/80 work schedule template

Since it may seem confusing to calculate your hours according to a 9/80 work schedule at first glance, we’re also including a free 9/80 work schedule template you can use, to help you grasp the concept. Here, you can enter your clock-in and clock-out time and easily calculate your total hours when using a 9/80 work schedule:

How to run payroll for a 9/80 workweek?

In a 9/80 workweek schedule, the total hours worked for the first week are 44 hours, and for the next week 36 hours. Paid workdays in a compressed workweek are handled in a two-week period to avoid paying four hours (from the first week) of overtime.

Let’s assume that you work Monday – Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (without a lunch break). The first workweek will end at 12:00 p.m. (noon) on the first Friday (=40 paid hours), the new week will begin at 12:01 p.m. and end the next Thursday at 5:00 p.m. (=40 paid hours). This is how payroll in a compressed 9/80 workweek schedule is handled.

The payroll system needs to be carefully handled in order to accurately track billable and non-billable hours to avoid any misunderstandings or even lawsuits. Bear in mind that this is just an example scenario where an employee starts their work at 8:00 a.m. and ends at 5:00 p.m. without a lunch break. As with any other schedule, a 9/80 must include a lunch break of 30 minutes to 1 hour.

California Labor Code 510 (which we will discuss in more detail below) states that everyone who works over 8 hours a day is eligible for overtime pay. But with a 9/80 work schedule, this is not applicable. Overtime work in a 9/80 schedule is calculated on the following principle — working more than 40 hours a week before noon on Friday is considered overtime. In that case, employees must be paid 1.5 times their hourly wage for the overtime hours.

Leave days in a 9/80 workweek schedule

As the payroll system is handled differently with this alternative schedule, the same is true of sick and vacation days. If a sick day takes place between Monday and Thursday, it counts as a 9-hour sick day. If it happens on a Friday, it counts as an 8-hour sick day. The same rule is applied for vacation days.

However, when it comes to national holidays, the situation is slightly different. Let’s say Christmas falls on your scheduled day off. In this case, you are entitled to a holiday ‘credit’ of 8 hours which you will be able to use within the next 12 months. Moreover, if a national holiday falls on a Monday (9-hour workday), it is counted as a regular 8-hour holiday + you receive 1 hour of vacation credit, which you can use later on.

How is a 9/80 work schedule approved? (California Labor Code section 510)

According to law, California Labor Code section 510 sets the requirements for implementing a 9/80 work schedule. Before even considering 9/80 for your business, it must be approved in a secret ballot election by at least two-thirds of the employees in a certain work department. An employer is obliged to disclose wages, hours, and benefits in a written form in both English and non-English language (if more than 5% of employees speak a different language) and hold the election to their own expense during working hours.

The results from the election must be handed over to the California Division of Labor and Research. Also, if one-third of employees file a petition to revoke an alternative schedule, a new election shall be held within 30 days after the petition.

When an organization or company elects a 9/80 work schedule for a specific department or a shift, affected employees fill in a form where they choose their day off between Monday to Friday. If, for instance, they choose their day off to be Wednesday, they have to pick between two options: Wednesday A or Wednesday B, depending on whether they want to begin a work month with the first Wednesday off or the next (in a two-week timeframe).

Scheduled day off is fixed, and once established, it cannot be changed unless in exempt cases where the request is consulted with a supervisor or manager. There are exceptions where certain groups of workers can be exempt from this work schedule. Single parents with small children, people with certain medical conditions, or university students who work and study can ask to be excluded from this schedule. Groups of workers such as customer support specialists and computer operators who maintain 24-hour coverage are also excluded from the compressed workweek schedule.

All the steps above should be followed accordingly in order to avoid any penalties or lawsuits.

An example of a 9/80 work schedule: Clif Bar & Company

Clif Bar is an American food company that produces energy drinks and power bars. It is popular among cyclists, climbers, and other outdoor enthusiasts.

They believe their employees’ time off is precious and, they’ve reportedly integrated an alternative 9/80 schedule as an optional work schedule for their employees. Having a healthy, stress-free work environment is the secret to their success. The 9/80 work schedule offers Clif Bar’s employees the opportunity to spend more time with their families doing enjoyable and healthy activities. Moreover, this company wants to help their employees shorten running their errands as well, so they offer additional perks meant to help create 3-day weekends for their employees as enjoyable and fulfilling as possible.

The owner of Clif Bar, Gary Ericson, believes this alternative work schedule results in employees’ satisfaction, boost in motivation, personal growth, and increased productivity at work. His employees’ well-being is the key to success according to Ericson, and a 9/80 work schedule helps them achieve it.

According to job reviews from several websites, the 9/80 work schedule and relaxing atmosphere at work are actually the two most important benefits of Clif Bar & Company, as rated by current or former employees. So, this type of alternative work schedule works for them.

What are the advantages of a 9/80 work schedule?

Whether you are an employer or employee, dealing with changes is never an easy process. You need to adapt to different work habits and integrate them into your or your company’s daily routine. Following is a list of advantages of a 9/80 work schedule from both employee and employer’s points of view.

Advantages of a 9/80 work schedule concerning employees

Both you and your family members will likely need to manage major life changes. Still, the good side of this life-changing situation is that you will be able to spend more time together. We’ve prepared a list of advantages when initiating a 9/80 work schedule as an employee.

• More free time — People have more free time on their hands, thus they can maintain a healthy work-life balance. In a USA survey from 2006, 151 cities were surveyed where HR professionals talked about the benefits of alternative work schedules. Healthy work-life balance was the number 1 benefit, with 74.1% of cities confirming this. With this schedule, employees can enjoy their day off running errands or even pursuing a hobby. Not only will you have more free time, but also you will be able to enjoy the benefits of having a long weekend and plan a 3-day trip with your family or friends.
• Choice of the day off — Employees have the freedom of choosing an extra day off.
• Less commuting time — If you are a commuter, with a 9/80 work schedule you will avoid usual traffic jams at peak hours when leaving work one hour later. People who work nine-to-five and live in big cities spend at least an hour commuting or stuck in traffic jams thus they arrive home after 6 p.m. That is almost the same time 9/80 workers arrive home but still have a day off every other week.
• More time for a part-time job — Having an extra day off may be an opportunity for some to find a part-time job. You can make some extra money on the side working a freelance job since they are in high demand nowadays.
• Higher motivation — A 9/80 work schedule is a great motivator for all people who integrate this schedule into their work routines since they obtain an additional day off to look forward to. That can boost employees’ morale and even their performance at work.

Advantages of a 9/80 work schedule concerning employers

As we’ve covered how this alternative work schedule has benefits for employees, the following benefits concern a business.

• Perspective staff — When employees see that a business offers alternative options such as choosing a work schedule, the majority will think fond of it. Ambitious employees will rarely settle for poor conditions at work, and this kind of incentive might seem appealing to them.
• Fixed schedule — A 9/80 work schedule is fixed and is effective throughout the year, so employees are not allowed to ask for frequent changes (unless in emergencies).
• Decreased tardiness and absenteeism — Employees who work from 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. are more likely to avoid traffic congestions at peak hours and less likely to be tardy. With 9/80, employees have more free time on their hands, which helps them organize their work and life in such a way that they are less likely to be absent from work due to personal issues.
• Improved employees’ performance and productivity — Employees feel more motivated and show quality work when they have an extra day off to look forward to.
• Low costs — A 9/80 is simple to implement and only obliges the employer to pay for the voting expenses. In the previously mentioned survey from 2006 about alternative work schedules, 16.5% of the respondents discovered other organizational benefits such as energy and utility costs reduction.

What are the disadvantages of a 9/80 work schedule?

A 9/80 has a lot to offer to both employers and employees, but there are some drawbacks to this work schedule, too. Following is a list of disadvantages from both employees’ and employers’ points of view.

Disadvantages of a 9/80 work schedule concerning employees

We’ve prepared a list of some drawbacks of a 9/80 work schedule that have negative impacts on employees.

• Not suitable for all — This work schedule does sound appealing to a lot of employees, but it doesn’t have to mean all people prefer it. Single parents or people who work two jobs may find this work schedule too tiring and might have extra costs such as hiring a nanny. The same 2006. survey showed that 7.1% of cities stated this schedule increased daycare costs.
• Fixed work schedule — As we already mentioned earlier, a 9/80 schedule is fixed and cannot be modified in any circumstances. Employees need to fill in a timesheet a year ahead and in unforeseen circumstances, they are not able to ask for time off.
• Tiring workdays — It takes a lot to handle when you think that you have to work for 9 hours a day and commute for another hour or even more. This could lead to stress and anxiety. In addition, many people opt for overtime work to earn more money, but with this schedule that would be very difficult to manage.

Disadvantages of a 9/80 work schedule concerning employers

There are also possible drawbacks from the employers’ points of view.

• Scheduling — The 2006’s survey also showed that 38.8% of surveyed cities had difficulties with scheduling. Employers might have trouble dealing with unforeseen circumstances when employees with major decision-making roles have their scheduled days off. Communication with suppliers and customers during days off is often negatively affected too. If scheduled days off are not equally distributed within a department, it can lead to confusion and missed deadlines.
• Poor performance — Not all characters can embrace this work schedule successfully. Some employees might not be able to adapt to this schedule easily. Thus, their performance might fall below the required standard.
• Lack of overtime hours — Even though employees work one hour longer with this schedule, some businesses still require overtime work. Following the rules of a 9/80 work schedule, only a few workers would apply for overtime work since that would be too tiring to handle. One solution would be to add an extra shift which could result in spending a lot of resources.
• Expenses with leave days — When an employee asks for sick leave or vacation days on a 9-hour day, the company loses 1 hour of work. Also, if a holiday falls on an employee’s day off, they are entitled to 8 hours of holiday credit which is another expense for an employer.

Would a 9/80 work schedule work for your business?

Changing a work schedule is a major life change and should be consulted with your employees. You should both explain your points of view and make a joint decision. Bear in mind that this work schedule doesn’t work well with small businesses due to a lack of staffing and the ability to cover shifts. Also, this work schedule is more suitable for IT industries and knowledge-based companies rather than manufacturing factories.

If you plan to implement this schedule into your business, it is crucial to provide your employees with a clear company policy regarding wages, overtime, scheduled days off, vacation leave, etc. Last but not least, you should collect regular employee feedback on their satisfaction to create open and honest communication.

Wrapping up

Whether you are an employee or a business owner, adopting a 9/80 work schedule may be a challenging but also ambitious undertaking. This change in work schedule must be done in accordance with the rules that we’ve mentioned in this blog post. Everyone must be familiar with the system to avoid misunderstandings and untidy work schedules.

The 9/80 work schedule will boost productivity and motivation at work and allow everyone to enjoy an extra day off. With the proper implementation, both businesses and employees can benefit from such an alternative work schedule.

Last year showed us how unpredictable life can be — some things that we took for granted are now appreciated more than ever. Fulfilling hobbies being one of such things. Namely, one OnePoll study conducted in the USA in 2020 stated that people opted for hobbies during the pandemic more than ever. And, productive hobbies are the type of hobbies that are useful, at any time.

Productive hobbies can make your workdays more relaxing and your lives fulfilling and effective. They are a perfect solution for keeping you in better physical and mental health, boosting your knowledge, and improving your social life.

In this blog post, we’ll show you a list of fun and productive hobbies you can take on and explain how beneficial they can be. We prepared five different categories of hobbies and made sure there is something for everyone:

1. Productive hobbies that make money
2. Productive hobbies that save money
3. Productive hobbies that build on your knowledge
4. Productive hobbies to do at home
5. Stress-relieving hobbies

What is a productive hobby?

When you say ‘hobby’ — you probably think of an activity you do in your spare time. But, by ‘hobbies’ in this blog post — we mean productive ones. Productive hobbies don’t mean working and being burdened with the outcome. On the contrary, they are both enjoyable and beneficial.

A hobby is productive if it:

• Affects the way you think;
• Elevates your mindset and strengthen your body;
• Helps you acquire a new set of skills;
• Keeps you motivated and makes you happy.

In case you are still wondering how a hobby can be productive, hang around with us. Here are some great benefits of productive hobbies.

Benefits of having a productive hobby

Apart from being fun, productive hobbies can also benefit you in different ways. The following are some benefits of having a hobby that is productive.

Stress relief

Stress accumulation harms both your physical and mental health. It drains your energy, gives you aches, and leaves you anxious. After a hard day at work, your hobby is something you look forward to. Doing something you love will make you feel relaxed and joyful. And as Phyllis McGinley said: “A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.”

Additional income

Imagine doing something for fun and getting paid for it. Sounds too good to be true? Stay with us and read the list of Productive hobbies that make money later in this post.

Meeting new people

Pursuing group hobbies can add more people to your friend list and enhance your interpersonal skills, too. When you communicate with new people, you improve your cognitive functions, boost self-confidence, and broaden your mind.

Learning new skills

Productive hobbies give us a unique opportunity to acquire new skills and be more successful in other areas of our lives. The key is to pick up a hobby you like and enjoy doing. Only then will you benefit from a hobby and acquire a new set of skills.

Spending more time with friends

In this fast-paced environment we live in today, it takes a lot of skill to organize your life effectively and make more time for friends. When you have a mutual hobby, you can hang out more often and remain effective. Find something you are all passionate about and enjoy your quality time together.

Active aging

According to the AGS’s study, the concept of ‘active aging’ among elderly people consists of having hobbies and enjoyable activities. The study has shown lower scores in depression, dementia and higher scores in the frequency of laughter and overall happiness for those who had hobbies.

What are the most fulfilling hobbies?

The answer to this question is not easy since this is very individual. We all have different personalities, and the best way to choose the right productive hobby is to match it with your character. Your character influences what kind of hobby you’ll pursue. For some, the right hobby may be gardening or knitting. For others, it may be cooking or reading.

In any case, there is no point in doing something that you find daunting or dull. It can make you feel anxious and stressed out, and hobbies should be satisfying — not frustrating.

5 top-level categories of productive hobbies

Now that we’ve discussed the benefits of pursuing a productive hobby, let’s go through the list of productive hobbies to pick up, merged in five different categories.

1. Productive hobbies that make money

Earlier in this post, we mentioned productive hobbies that can help you make a fast buck. We singled out the following ones for you.

Gardening

For those lucky ones who live in houses, gardening can be a brilliant idea. Not only will you be able to plant your fruits and veggies, but you will also be able to sell them locally. We also have good news for those living in apartments — community gardens in big cities are growing more than ever.

Studies by TPL show that the number of shared community gardens has increased 44% since 2012. So, you can sell your healthy products to your neighbors, and boost both your mental and physical health along the way.

Writing

You can turn your passion for writing into a lucrative hobby since freelance jobs for writers are in demand more than ever nowadays. If you are good at writing, you should consider pursuing this hobby and making extra money. You can consider writing for blogs or news portals, take on a job as a copywriter, or even try applying as a journalist for the local newspaper. And, that’s just scratching the surface — there are plenty of other writing opportunities you can consider if you dig deeper into the subject.

Online tutoring

Teaching classes online is a high-in-demand job on the market nowadays. This can turn into a hobby because it is flexible, lucrative, and can enhance your language and interpersonal skills. You can choose from teaching languages, math, delivering presentations, and motivational speeches. This can be a small and simple business you do when you have free time and just feel like doing it. The choice is up to you.

Sewing

Everybody keeps asking you favors to do alterations on their clothes and duvet covers? If your answer is ‘Yes’ — it’s time to charge for your services and think of turning your hobby into a lucrative business. We all know how costly these alterations can be, so why not do something you are very good at and earn extra money. You can make an online ad and be specific on the sewing services you want to offer. Consider starting from simple alterations and repairs, and maybe you will improve your skills and start designing your own clothes eventually.

Knitting

Winter accessories can cost a fortune, especially if they are made of natural wool. Get your grandma’s knitting needles back in action and start making money. You can design unique pieces and sell them locally. One qualitative study shows that knitting aids in feelings of depression and chronic pain. Thanks to the rhythmic hand movements, release of serotonin is triggered. One participant in the study stated:

“The only time I could significantly reduce the pain was either when I took a large amount of painkillers or when I could concentrate on knitting. Knitting became my drug of choice.”

2. Productive hobbies that save money

Yes, you heard it right — you can also pursue a productive hobby and save money. These are some ideas we have for you.

DIY holiday decorations and presents

When holidays start approaching, everybody catches the holiday shopping fever. We are not aware of a great deal of money we spend on holiday decorations and presents each year.

According to a Christmas spending study from 2019, each American spent an average of $882.45 on presents, decor, food, and travel.

Just imagine how much money you can save if you decide to make your own holiday decorations and presents. There are so many DIY tutorials on the Internet that can help you do this. Plus, imagine the look on your family’s faces when they see you’ve put your heart and effort into making them unique presents.

Thrifting

Another productive hobby worth trying that saves money includes second-hand shopping. Experts believe this market will beat fast fashion twice the size by 2030 (and by ‘experts’ — we mean one and only Harper’s Bazaar). When you go out to the street, you see people trying to keep up with the latest trends, and we all know that can be financially draining.

Next time, instead of heading to huge shopping malls that can often be tiring, go to a local vintage or second-hand store to find hidden gems. Additionally, visiting flea markets is a fantastic idea if you like vintage and antique items. Thrifting can be a great pastime if you are currently unemployed, too — you’ll stay stylish, but save money in the process.

3. Productive hobbies that build on your knowledge

Productive hobbies help you improve your existing skills and acquire new ones.

Cooking

Learn how to cook and plan your meals ahead of time. It can be demanding to find time for cooking healthy foods, but if you organize your time efficiently, you can save time and prepare cooked meals for the next few days. Cooking helps you acquire planning skills since it’s a whole process from going grocery shopping to actual preparing and cleaning up.

Learning foreign languages

One of the best things you can do to boost your knowledge is to start learning foreign languages. Some people find this daunting, but if you look at it as a fun hobby that you can benefit from, maybe you will change your mind. People who love to travel will find their stays more authentic when speaking several languages since they can explore outside the tourist bubble. Also, learning a foreign language may be a fun and productive hobby you can do with your partner or friend. You can be each other’s motivation and support.

Reading

No matter if you like reading a lifestyle magazine or academic literature, it’s important to keep reading. A study conducted by the American Academy of Neurology in 2013 stated that reading together with other mental activities reduces stress and prevents cognitive decline as you age. Reading an appealing book is a much better idea than social networking for hours.

4. Productive hobbies to do at home

The lockdown changed our daily routines tremendously and gave us a lot of free time. We are all trying to put 2020 behind us, but it surely taught us that we must be on the alert. In line with that, we’ve prepared some productive hobbies you can pick up when staying at home.

Candle making

If you are looking for a way to express your creativity, you can opt for candle-making. You can make your own unique and organic candles from natural ingredients. You will never have to go to a store again to buy commercial candles if you pursue this hobby. After all, commercial candles contain paraffin wax —and, when you make your own candles, you can opt for natural beeswax. Making candles has therapeutic effects since it reduces stress and makes you calm. When you feel stressed out or anxious, light up your custom-designed candle, enjoy the scent and be proud of yourself because you did something productive at home. If you get really good at candle-making, maybe you can consider selling candles and make this another productive hobby that will help you earn extra bucks!

Jewelry making

Jewelry-making boosts your creative side and improves your imagination. Order various beads, pendants, and other supplies for jewelry making online and start beading. This way, you will have custom-designed jewelry. If you start getting positive feedback and admirers of your work, you can consider selling your pieces of art online.

Watching makeup tutorials

Putting makeup on your face can sometimes boost your confidence and highlight your beauty. However, cosmetic services can often be quite costly. The good news is that many makeup artists have their online channels where they explain step-by-step how to apply makeup.

By watching these tutorials, you can learn effective techniques on how to apply makeup like a pro. And, once you get really good at it, you will never again have to pay a fortune to beauty salons. Just, invest some money in your makeup tools and practice whenever you have spare time. Positive feedbacks and comments will start coming, that’s for sure!

5. Stress-relieving hobbies

Staying healthy and working longer weekly hours is a daunting task, and if we don’t pay attention to our mental health, it may take its toll. It takes a lot of skill to maintain a balance between work and family, but only those who manage their work successfully can afford themselves the luxury of having a hobby. Once you understand how to better organize your work, you can turn to productive hobbies that will help you de-stress.

Exercising

Not only will doing sports benefit you physically, but it will also make you feel calmer even a few hours after the actual activity. Studies have shown that by doing sports, you will get rid of accumulated anxiety and stress.

Jogging is a brilliant idea since it’s cost-free, and you can do it whenever you want. If your schedule is tight, consider tracking your time effectively to make sure you go for a run each time you plan. Consider some group activities, such as CrossFit training, if you want something more challenging that involves a group of people.

Meditating

When talking about stress-free hobbies, we can’t forget to mention meditation — an activity that was popular even in Ancient India. Meditation can be highly productive because it helps you build skills to manage stressful situations and help you be your best self. Just a 10-minute meditation a day can help you cope with anxiety, be more patient, and calm.

Conclusion

No matter which productive hobby you decide to pursue, it’s crucial to have at least one fulfilling hobby and incorporate it into your daily life. Hobbies are beneficial for our mental and physical health, social life, and even our career. Choose a productive hobby that matches your character and that makes you happy. In the end, that is the most important thing.

Do you assign a job to every dollar you earn or do you just go with the flow when it comes to money management?

Do you control your finances or do they control you?

You don’t have to answer out loud — if you choose at least one of the latter options, just keep reading.

In this article, we’ll learn what expense tracking is, why you should do it, and we’ll offer you some resources that can help you regain control of your finances, both personal and business.

What is expense tracking?

Whether you’re unsure where exactly your paycheck goes (and why it goes so fast) or you are aiming to take the wheel of your business finances, tracking your expenses can come to your rescue. In a nutshell, expense tracking is a budgeting method for keeping a record of all expenditures throughout a period of time and avoiding getting off-track in your budget.

In order to avoid budget overspending or even underspending, a distinction between booking and posting processes must be made (we’ll talk more about this in the Categorize your expenses section in this blog post):

• Booking stands for recording the expenditures
• Posting is the act of “assigning expenses to a specific account” or placing the expenses in the right category

On this blog, we talk a lot about time tracking and how it helps you become aware of how you spend your time and if you need to implement some changes in your schedule. Similarly, expense tracking helps you have a clear overview of where your money goes, what expenses you can cut off, and helps you create a good weekly or monthly budget.

Expense tracking as an individual

You may think that minor expenses such as getting a bottle of water or a cup of coffee to go seem irrelevant, but when you accumulate all those expenses monthly, the sum you get doesn’t seem irrelevant anymore. Try it for yourself — the average price for a cup of coffee in the US (without milk and tip) is roughly $2.70. Let’s say you purchase a cup of coffee 20 days a month — $2.70 multiplied by 20 is $54 monthly for “just” a cup of coffee now and then. And perish the thought you drink mocha every morning!

Expense tracking for businesses

Businesses are sometimes not aware of the huge amounts of money they give to pay credit card fees and rates (not to mention interest rates and debts due to late payments). As with cups of coffee, they seem irrelevant when you look at them separately, but when accumulated they can cause major headaches to the business owners.

Minor expenses only seem harmless because we don’t look at them as a whole, aggregated cost. Therefore, expenses, whether minor or major, should be noted and tracked to stay on top of our finances and develop better money management skills.

6 Reasons why you should track your expenses

Meticulous expense tracking can bring along a wide range of benefits. If you are a small business owner, tracking your expenditures (office supplies, utilities, salaries, subscriptions, mileage, etc.) helps you run your business smoothly and efficiently. The same goes for individuals. When you are aware of expenses such as food, bills, mortgage payments, entertainment, taxes, and similar expenses, you develop better money management skills.

Apart from better managing your cash flow, reducing your tax liability, and making sure your business runs smoothly, we’ve listed 6 additional reasons why expense tracking is important.

1. Puts you in control of your finances

As Francis Bacon said, “Money is a good servant, but a bad master.”

While “just go with the flow” is not a bad motto to have, it can’t be applied to managing money (at least not if you want to keep it). You have to control your money instead of letting your money control you. Tracking your expenses will help you stay on top of your budget and not overspend or waste money on things you don’t need.

2. Keeps you focused on your financial goals

Being in control of your finances makes you more focused and more confident when it comes to reaching your financial goals. Expense tracking will ensure you’re on the right path and putting money towards your priorities, whether that’s getting out of debt, saving for a house, or investing in a new business venture. Having a long-term financial goal will make expenditure monitoring more bearable and even joyful — depending on what your goal is.

3. Reveals spending issues

The first step to solving a problem is knowing what the problem is.

When you start tracking your expenses, you can see if you have some bad spending habits (no judgment, we all do) or a budget category that you need to reevaluate.

It will also make you catch personal expenses you forgot about, such as unnecessary monthly subscriptions for a magazine you don’t really read or a streaming service you barely use. The same goes for business expenses. Office supplies are necessary but they can cost a fortune especially if you don’t control its replenishment. Assign a few people from your company to be in charge of buying office supplies and making detailed estimates and reports on them.

When you track your expenses, you see where your money goes and put an end to wasteful spending habits.

4. Makes business forecasting easier

If you are running a business, you need to make sure that business expenditures are regularly tracked and justified. Expense tracking makes business forecasting easier, as you can make more educated guesses based on all the data you gathered.

Also, it will facilitate calculating your business’ profitability. Therefore, you can easily see if you’re making money and how much, attract more investors, keep your employees happy, and fund your day-to-day expenses.

5. Helps you stick to your budget and cut out impulse spending

Expense tracking makes you aware of how much you’ve already spent and how much more you can spend in each budget category. Being aware of the amount of money you have at all times can help you cut unnecessary costs.

What is more, it will motivate you to spend your money consciously, instead of impulsively and recklessly. Knowing that you’ll have to write down that you wasted your hard-earned money on something trivial (those new pair of boots you’ve never worn yet) will make you think twice if you actually need that thing. So, next time you experience a quick dose of dopamine hits while out shopping, ask yourself a question: “Do I really need this?”

6. Helps you solve problems on time

When you track your expenditures, you know how much money you have at all times. That means that if a certain amount of money disappears from your bank account, you’ll notice. When it comes to finding out if your account was compromised, it’s better to know sooner rather than later. That way you can take the necessary steps to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

Frauds are not the only problem that can occur — unexpected costs can pop up anytime. When you’re in control of your finances, they’re not as big of an issue as they could be if you were freestyling your monthly money management.

How to track expenses?

Regardless if you are a small business owner or an individual, to balance the books and stay within the budget, you need to develop an efficient expense tracking system that will do the job for you. There is no strictly “fixed” or “defined” way on how exactly you should keep an eye on your expenditures. However, we’ve carefully selected 5 universal steps you can take to track your expenses efficiently, whether you are an individual or small business owner.

Step 1: Categorize your expenses

When you start categorizing your expenditures, you get a better grasp of your finances. Therefore, we want to introduce you to a seemingly old-fashioned but quite effective categorizing method — envelope budgeting.

This method helps you determine in advance how much money you can spend in each spending category — food, utilities, office supplies, entertainment, etc. When you carefully make budget estimates for each category, put them into an actual envelope. This way, you will have a clear insight into how much money is at your disposal and avoid overspending. In addition, if you prefer a more modern way to categorize your expenses, opt for a tech tool that works on the same principle. Categorizing your expenses will help you manage your budget more wisely, or even build up your saving account (if you are left with some money in a certain envelope, you can add it to your savings).

As far as a business is concerned, perhaps the actual envelope method for categorizing your expenses is not the most convenient. Conversely, find accounting software that will automatically organize your spendings into categories for better insight into trends over time.

Be that as it may, placing expenses into different categories helps you have a holistic view of your expenditures and breaks bad spending habits.

Step 2: Track your expenses regularly

Ideally, you should track your expenses as soon as you make them. All expenditures need to be accounted for and recorded without any further delay. You need to develop a regular habit to record those expenditures since sloppiness while doing so will do no good to you nor your budget.

With that being said, you can set daily or weekly reminders to build better budgeting habits and never overlook an expense again.

As a business owner, keeping track of your employees’ business hours manually sounds terribly inefficient. Conversely, use a time tracking software that will track your employees’ time (billable or non-billable) and log those hours in an online timesheet automatically. Setting reminders and tracking your or your employees’ time can help you monitor your expenses in an organized way. By doing so, you will never forget to pay your bills, for instance, or pay your employees on time.

Step 3: Keep a thorough paper trail

By this, we don’t mean you should pile up dozens of papers in your drawers. For starters, when managing personal expenses, gather up all financial documents and other valuable papers lying around the house. Then, organize them in a file folder by categories such as receipts, tax records, certificates, warranties, policies, etc. If you don’t prefer a traditional file folder, you can opt for cloud-computing technology and store your documents digitally.

Small businesses must have a workable record-keeping system to organize their invoices, bank statements, payroll records, and other business-related expenditures to be able to meet IRS requirements accordingly.

No matter what method you opt for, categorizing and storing your valuable papers is essential for tracking your expenses accordingly. You never know when you are going to need the receipt from the phone you bought recently (take advice from an expert in buying faulty goods and — successfully — returning them).

Step 4: Keep a monthly expense report

Now that you’ve recorded your expenses (by hand or digitally), it’s a wise thing to analyze and review them on a monthly basis. This way, you can see where your money went, consider if you need to implement any changes or alter your spending habits.

For that being said, you can track and write everything down (if you prefer more traditional report keeping) or opt for a budgeting app that will do the job automatically by exporting data into PDF, CSV, or Excel reports.

Business owners can also export reports digitally (doing it by hand in the digital era would be tedious), but also analyze their balance sheet, cash flow, profit, or potential losses at the end of each month. In such a way, they can have an insight into their equity, assets, liabilities, or remain prepared for unexpected expenses perhaps.

We can conclude that this step is crucial for sticking to a household budget or maintaining a successful business (or even reaching certain financial goals). Keeping records and analyzing your expenses monthly can surely bring you peace of mind.

Step 5: Find a suitable tool for expense tracking

There is no one perfect way to record your expenses. While some people are comfortable using a simple expense ledger or a check register where they write down purchases by hand, others prefer feature-rich budgeting apps for tracking money on the go. You can use accounting software or spreadsheet software for both personal or business purposes. Find your “style” and what works best for you— the choice is all yours.

In this section, though, we want to present you with 8 expense tracking apps that we carefully reviewed and tried out ourselves. Not only these apps are time-saving but also applicable to both households and businesses. Let’s get started.

Clockify

Clockify lets you easily track and record your household’s or your employees’ unit-based expenses such as hours, mileage, days, project-related expenses, fixed fees like salaries, overtime pay, reimbursements, etc. If your expenses have a unit, the amount will be automatically calculated and you can change the unit price in the settings as well.

Additionally, attach a receipt for accounting purposes and choose between various save options (.png, .pdf, etc.) with up to 5MB file size.

Here’s how creating expenses in Clockify looks like:

Don’t worry if you can’t find an expense category you need in the drop-down menu. In Clockify, you can custom create expense categories that immediately become available when recording expenses. Edit or archive expense categories at your convenience without impacting existing expenses. Clockify offers admins to see, edit, or add new expenses for other people, or even lock adding or editing expenses for pass dates.

The expense tracking feature in Clockify also allows you to create:

• Invoices 

Create custom invoices and choose the date range and how you wish to display them (by project, user, category, etc.). Edit them later on without affecting the tracked expenses. Bear in mind that ​​only billable uninvoiced expenses are imported into invoices.

• Reports 

Later, create predefined range reports (from this month, this year, etc.) or custom-made reports or filter them by any criteria such as user, category, status. Finally, export them in CSV or Excel files.

• Templates

Use free expense report templates to seek reimbursement for business-related expenses. There are various available templates for things like business travel expenses, project expenses, business lunch expenses with clients, or lodgings during business travels.

Clockify overview: 

Easily creates custom expense categories,

Automatically calculates unit-based expenses,

Creates custom invoices,

Creates predefined or custom-made reports,

Offers free expense report templates,

Suitable for individuals, teams, businesses.

Expensify

Expensify is a tool used for automating expense management and receipt tracking.

Expensify makes expense reports on the go, making it a great choice for those who take business trips frequently. Another standout feature is that you can both scan/take photos of the receipts and the app will automatically read the receipt and log the data while organizing the expenses by categories at the same time.

What’s more, you can link your bank account to Expensify to automatically import expenses or link it to your GPS to calculate your mileage expenses easily.

Finally, Expensify automatically generates and submits expense reports for sharing or downloading.

Expensify overview:

Scans and automatically logs expense data,

Exports reports automatically,

Syncs with a bank account or GPS to track mileage expenses,

Safe to use since it’s protected by world-class security standards,

Suitable for businesses.

Intuit-Quickbooks

Intuit Quickbooks is a smart accounting tool for small and growing businesses. When you sign up, you need to answer a couple of questions, so that the site can accommodate your specific type of business. Quickbooks helps you stay organized with its user-friendly interface. Scan your receipts and attach them to business expenses or track your mileage making logging miles a breeze.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is an amazing additional feature if you’re (as the name of the app suggests) self-employed, as you can easily separate business and personal expenses while efficiently tracking and managing both. It also estimates your taxes and syncs with the tax-prep software TurboTax to ease the taxation process.

Intuit Quickbooks overview:

Captures and scans receipts,

Categorizes and organizes expenses automatically,

Sorts business from personal expenditures,

Reminds you of tax due dates,

Suitable for individuals and businesses. 

Intuit-Mint

Continuing with everyone’s favorite app by Intuit — Mint is a personal finance tool. This powerful app allows you to:

• Connect all of your accounts (checking or savings accounts, credit cards, loans, investments, mortgages, etc.), and show transactions across all linked accounts,
• Get notified if subscription costs increase or when your bills are due,
• Create a personalized budget,
• Track spendings by categories,
• Monitor your credit score.

All of that is packed in a user-friendly interface available to everyone. Mint is great for maintaining a household budget and improving your spending habits with custom goals such as saving for a house, preparing for the future, etc.

Intuit Mint overview:

Organizes your budget and controls your cash flow in a streamlined way,

Monitores bill due dates,

Encourages saving,

Easy-to-use interface,

Shapes your budget according to your spendings,

Suitable for personal use, self-employed individuals.

YNAB

YNAB stands for You Need A Budget — and you really do. If you’re not sure how to create one, this award-winning app may be your cup of tea. Their strategy has four rules:

1. Every dollar should be given a “job” / a purpose even before it’s spent.
2. Break down your big, less frequent expenses (e.g. Christmas gifts) into smaller chunks that you can pay monthly.
3. Think ahead — if you are left with, for example, $50 in the bills category at the end of the month, leave it for the upcoming bills. This way, you build up your budget for paying bills so that you don’t leave your account overdrawn.
4. Be purposeful with your spending and live within your means.

YNAB uses the zero-based budgeting system which proposes you assign your entire monthly income to your expense categories until you’re left with $0 on your account. The features of the app include tracking your spending, flexible data export, switching between multiple budgets, as well as syncing with multiple devices and a large number of banks.

YNAB overview:

Helps you prioritize your expenses,

Great for managing bills and achieving financial goals,

Takes a forward-looking approach in managing your finances,

Suitable for personal use.

Wally

Wally is an app for managing your personal finances and maybe even your side hustles. You can track your expenses, either manually or by taking photos of receipts, and categorize them.

They aim to help you save up, so you can:

• Track your income and see your projected savings for each month,
• Budget to suit your needs,
• Track your progress,
• Stay accountable with real-time updates, among many other features.

Wally overview:

Promotes saving habits by setting saving goals (buy a new car, renovate a house, etc.),

Bank syncing,

Keeps an eye on your budget,

Provides its users a holistic view of their finances and spendings,

Suitable for personal use.

Personal-Capital

Personal Capital is stated to be the number one budgeting app by Forbes magazine itself. Apart from tracking your expenditures and cash flow, it distinguishes itself from other apps thanks to its outstanding saving tools, advisory system, investment analysis, and more. Create your retirement plan by linking your accounts to this app and following its meticulous analysis and target recommendations. Or, use their investment checkup tool that shows you how to rebalance your investments in order to achieve better financial results. They even have their own capital advisors whom you can contact to discuss your portfolio.

Personal Capital overview:

Great for managing your net worth,

Provides hands-on advice on your investments,

Amazing analysis charts,

Helps develop investment strategies and achieve long-term financial goals,

Suitable for investors, planning a retirement fund.

PocketGuard

PocketGuard is another budgeting app that earned an enviable position on the Forbes best budgeting apps list. Spreadsheet lovers will enjoy using this app since, among other options, you can export your transactions to Excel as well. You don’t have to worry about security issues because this app is secured with biometrics and a PIN code. PocketGuard offers a holistic view of finances and expenses using a pie chart that helps you customize expense reports.

PocketGuard “guards” your pocket as the name itself proposes. It gives you a clear insight into how much money you have after paying all bills and other expenses. If, for instance, you pay your monthly bills, PocketGuard will notify you about your current balance and help you reach your saving goals.

They have an amazing blog where you can find out practical tips and tricks on how to manage your money better, avoid debt, stay on budget, and more.

PocketGuard overview:

Keeps you from overspending,

Helps set long-term saving goals,

Suitable for personal use.

Conclusion

Expense tracking is a useful practice whether you need to do it for your business or you’re just trying to take your personal finances to the next level. It puts you in control of your finances, keeps you focused on your financial goals, reveals spending issues, makes business forecasting easier, and helps you stick to your budget and solve eventual problems that may occur as quickly as possible.

That’s okay, it happens to the best of us.

In this fast-paced life we live in, everybody’s trying to utilize their time better and make the most of their workday. You know that friend who is a full-time working parent, manages to finish their work, cooks lunch, and hits the gym in the evening?

I’ve always thought they had some superpowers or something since they make it look so easy and effortless. But this is far from true. It takes a lot of effort and skill to manage time wisely and increase productivity.

So, the question is: How do they do it? How to stay productive and successfully manage your time in the fast-paced world we live in?

As Queen Elizabeth II, who remained productive even during the worst of times, declared:

“Thank goodness for technology.”

In this article, we’re going to go over our top pick productivity resources in each of 5 different categories:

1. Apps
2. Websites
3. Blogs
4. Youtube channels
5. Podcasts

These productivity resources can help you boost your productivity and make efficient use of your time whether you are a working parent, homemaker, entrepreneur, leader, student, and more. After all, being productive is an individual thing. Some people benefit from reading while others tend to watch videos or use numerous apps that help them organize their days better. That’s why we’ve prepared something for everyone.

Apps to boost your productivity

Why do things manually, when apps on your desktop or portable devices can make your life so much easier? One Google research found that “75% of people say their smartphones help them to be more productive.”

With that said, we’ve selected some apps (available across devices and operating systems) that will guarantee an increase in your productivity whether you want to build better work habits, lead a more successful business or household, or pass your exams with flying colors. Let’s get started!

Clockify

Great for: time management

Clockify is a time tracking tool that offers the basic time tracking features for unlimited users and projects, free of charge. However, Clockify is not solely a time tracking app. What helps it stand out from the rest apps is its rich list of numerous features.

In Clockify, you can:

Track time — start the timer or manually type in your time later on,

Track billable and non-billable hours,

Create invoices — automatically populate your invoice based on your billable or non-billable hours,

Set project budget and estimates,

Manage and track multiple projects simultaneously — directly import a CSV file into Clockify and it automatically recognizes and arranges all data within a second,

…and the list goes on. In addition to tracking time and other amazing features, you can track time within other web apps since Clockify integrates with Jira, Asana, Trello, Todoist, and many more. Clockify has all the features that one team or business needs in one place.

Who can use Clockify?

Anyone who wants to keep track of their time for business or private purposes — working people, students, housemakers, businesses, teams, etc.

Use it on: Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, Google Chrome, Firefox, and Edge

Cost: Track time for FREE for unlimited users and on unlimited projects and upgrade when you need extra features.

Pumble

Great for: efficient team collaboration

Pumble is a free team communication platform that allows you to have private one-on-one conversations with your coworkers in private channels, group chats within your team, or public conversations in public channels. Create channels of your choice and send invitations to your teammates to have confidential conversations.

What I find irritating when using different apps is when they don’t provide a search history option. Pumble accelerates this process by providing its users with this life-saving option together with replying messages into threads — very practical to avoid channel cluttering.

Who can use Pumble?

Suitable for team collaboration across different professions and businesses such as software development, customer support, marketing, health care, sales, education, etc.

Use it on: Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android.

Cost: Pumble is FREE for its basic features. You get extra features for $1.99/month/user in the Pro Plan and even more features in the price-upon-request self-hosted version of the app.

Forest

Great for: staying focused

Forest is another app that helps you stay focused by “planting” a virtual tree. Your tree keeps growing while you stay focused on your work. If you leave the app before time’s up — you’ll kill your tree.

The app partners with real tree-planting organizations so users can use virtual coins they get in the app to plant real trees around the globe. Forest planted 1,216,975 real trees so far and the number keeps growing each minute. Therefore, help Earth by planting a real tree yourself and build better work habits by diminishing your procrastination habits forever.

Who can use Forest?

Anyone who benefits from visual stimulation and deals with procrastination; Students reported a boost in their productivity since Forest helped them decrease their screen time.

Use it on: all iOS devices, Android.

Cost: $1.99 to purchase.

Freedom

Great for: staying focused

Freedom is an app that helps you stay focused. It blocks distractions by shutting off network and Internet access for a specified amount of time. Distractions such as social networking, online shopping, games… just name it, Freedom controls them and keeps you focused on what matters. What’s more, it can block distractions on all of your devices simultaneously. Freedom’s users reported a boost of 2.5 hours of productive time each day by using it.

Who can use Freedom?

It’s great for writers, researchers, journalists, editors, developers, students, all those people who deal with distractions surrounding them.

Use it on: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome, Linux.

Cost: A monthly plan is $6.99, or buy a yearly subscription for $2.42 a month.

Todoist

Great for: making traditional to-do lists

If you like traditional to-do lists, this app is for you. Have peace of mind by keeping all of your to-do lists in one place. You can divide your tasks into different categories, color-code them, and set their priority level. Moreover, share your lists, tasks, or files within your team, or even assign tasks and set due dates.

Todoist also integrates with other top platforms such as Clockify. So, by installing an extension, you can track the time of your tasks directly in Todoist and run reports in Clockify later on.

Who can use Todoist?

Designers, developers, freelancers, entrepreneurs, small businesses, students.

Use it on: Mac, iOS, Linux, Android, Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Gmail, Outlook.

Cost: There is a free version but it’s quite limited; A pro version will cost you $3 per month if you decide on a yearly subscription, or $4 billed monthly; Business version is great for teams $5 monthly (yearly subscription) or $6 billed each month.

Remember the milk

Great for: managing tasks

Remember The Milk is a task management app that allows you to manage tasks from a computer or smartphone, both online and offline. The system distinguishes between personal and professional tasks, but you can also custom sort your tasks by date, priority, task name… you name it. The new custom sorting and grouping feature does it all. What’s more, with the new Smart Add option, you can include task properties (like due date, etc.) when adding new tasks.

One other thing to have in mind — Hey Alexa, Remember The Milk now integrates with you! Alexa can now remind you about your tasks, due dates, or even ask Alexa to give a task to a contact.

Who can use Remember The Milk?

You know when you go to the store to buy one thing but end up buying everything but that in the end? If your answer is “yes” — this is the app for you.

Use it on: Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Linux, Android, Fire, BlackBerry.

Cost: If you want to upgrade to the pro version and get additional features — $39.99 a year; Otherwise, it’s free.

Timepage by Moleskine Studio

Great for: planning

Timepage is a smart calendar app made by a company that’s world-famous for its luxury notebooks, planners, and journals — Moleskine. It has a modern and elegant design, but it also allows rich customization of the interface. Sync your calendar to maps, weather forecasts, contacts, or even Uber — this way you don’t need to set up anything new. Try out the newest Heatmap option to know when your busiest days are.

Who can use Timepage?

Great for busy bees, entrepreneurs, business people, etc.

Use it on: iOS only.

Cost: $1.99 monthly, $11.99 yearly, or $29.99 for family sharing.

Google Calendar

Great for: simple and easy planning

If Timepage is too fancy for you, there’s always a good, old Google Calendar. Make the most of your days by keeping track of important events and meetings, as well as time blocking and setting reminders. Quickly and easily schedule events and receive notifications about upcoming events. Share your schedule within a team, receive, or send invitations.

Who can use Google Calendar?

Individuals, businesses, teams, students… basically anyone who wants to keep track of their calendar using a clear and easy-to-use interface.

Use it on: Web, iOS, Android.

Cost: Free for personal use and small teams, the business version is $5 monthly (per user) or $50 yearly (per user).

If This, Then That

Great for: task automation

IFTTT is the best way to combine all your devices, apps, and services together so as to function in completely new and powerful ways. It’s named after a programming conditional statement “If this, then that.”

IFTTT makes all your devices and apps compatible with each other. It’s widely used in smart home automation systems. For instance, using your voice to control devices and appliances in your house — “When you come home, turn on the heating.” Or use it for social networking — “If I add a new photo in Instagram, save it to Dropbox,” etc. These “connections” are called Applets.

This app is great for reminding you about minor tasks throughout the day.

Who can use IFTTT?

True tech lovers.

Use it on: iOS, Android.

Cost: While IFTTT standard is free, IFTTT pro costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 yearly.

Evernote

Great for: saving all valuable items in one place

This is an amazing organizing and note-taking app. With this app, storing your to-read articles, books, recipes, and tickets has never been easier. I’m the kind of person who saves all receipts of purchased items in one folder. But, this is quite risky since receipts can fade eventually. With Evernote, you can even take pictures of your receipts and safely store them in a custom folder. Everything you save and store in Evernote immediately syncs between all your devices.

Who can use Evernote?

Basically anyone.

Use it on: Web, Android, iOS, Mac, Windows.

Cost: Free version is just fine for personal use but quite limited regarding space; Other deals start from $8.15 monthly.

Habitica

Great for: building better work habits; Amazing productivity tool for learning

Habitica is an app that makes building good habits a game. Create your custom avatar and then go on a quest of building new habits, crushing your daily goals, and breezing through your to-do lists. As you accomplish your tasks, you earn points that level up your character.

By checking off tasks on your to-do list, you earn rewards and unlock new game features. This keeps you motivated to “beat the game” thus you stay more productive during the day.

It motivates you to work out, have healthy habits, and keep track of your school or work.

Who can use Habitica?

It’s an amazing productivity tool for students who like to play video games. This way, they can enjoy playing a game while building better learning habits.

Use it on: Web, iOS, Android.

Cost: Free to play, $4.99 monthly subscription for a fully unlocked version.

Pocket

Great for: storing everything you find on the Internet in one place

If you need a place to keep track of everything cool you find on the web, Pocket is an app for you. It lets you save articles, videos, and stories from any publication, page, or app and curate your own space filled with everything you can’t wait to learn. Put all your favorites in your “pocket” and access them even when you are offline.

Who can use Pocket?

Great for writers, researchers, editors, teachers, book lovers.

Use it on: Web, Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, Blackberry.

Cost: There is a free version, but a premium version is $5.44 per month or $49.61 per year.

Noisli

Great for: making a pleasant learning setting and focusing

Noisli is a background noise generator for making a pleasant environment to work and relax. It has high-quality ambient sounds to help you focus while working and boost your productivity. There is a myriad of sounds that you can choose from such as soothing nature sounds, animals, weather, etc.

Perfect for dorms or shared study places where you have difficulty concentrating. Create your custom soothing sounds and fuel your creativity!

Who can use Noisli?

An aiding productivity software perfect for university students who live in dorms or shared spaces.

Use it on: iOS, Android, Chrome.

Cost: The basic version is free, while the pro version is $10 monthly, and the business version is also available and it’s $24 yearly.

X1 Search

Great for: finding things easily and accelerating search skills

Do you have problems finding things on your computer? X1 Search helps you accelerate this process and finds desktop files, emails, SharePoint data, attachments, and more within a second. Save your time and boost your productivity with this search and productivity tool. Their motto is “Stop searching, and start finding!”

Who can use X1 Search?

Great for IT departments.

Use it on: Windows.

Cost: Free 14-day trial, but you need to contact for pricing.

Websites for better productivity

Apart from numerous practical apps, countless websites can give your productivity a great boost. We did some research and selected some websites that will help you be more efficient in a variety of ways and create a better work-life balance.

Grammarly

Great for: correcting writing errors and giving writing suggestions

If you write a lot, a tool like Grammarly is a must. It’s your online writing assistant that checks your punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors in real-time (for free).
If you upgrade to the premium version, it unlocks additional features: clarity-focused sentence rewrites, tone adjustments, inclusive language, word choice, formality level, fluency, and additional advanced suggestions that are really worth it.

Who can use Grammarly?

Great for writers, editors, students.

Use it on: Web, iOS, Android, Mac, Linux, Windows.

Cost: There is a free version, but they offer great deals such as $12 monthly.

Hemingway Editor

Great for: giving writing suggestions

Hemingway Editor is another writing tool that will help you make your writing bold and clear. It highlights lengthy, complex and hard-to-read sentences, common errors, as well as the passive voice. It also functions as a word counter and gives you an overall “grade’ of your writing. It’s a great productivity tool for students to help them write better and give useful feedback on their writing.

Who can use Hemingway Editor?

Writers, editors, students.

Cost: Free, but there is a full version that is $19.99 to purchase.

Udemy

Great for: learning new skills or enhancing knowledge

Whether you are a student or a working professional, there are skills that you should probably keep enhancing. Or maybe you have a topic you want to learn more about, but are not sure where to start?
On Udemy, you can find online courses on a wide variety of topics: from business and IT to design and photography. Learners around the world reported starting new careers and succeeding in their current jobs. Or, become an instructor at Udemy and teach millions of students around the globe!

Who can use Udemy?

Students or anybody else interested in enhancing their skills.

Cost: Courses start from $11.99.

Coursera

Great for: learning new skills or enhancing knowledge

Just like Udemy, Coursera is a good place to find online courses. On Coursera, you can find courses from world-class universities and companies, as well as get certificates and degrees.
It also provides free learning resources for universities and college students.

Who can use Coursera?

Anyone who wants to enhance their knowledge or maybe change their career path.

Cost: Most of the courses are free, but you need to pay a fee for a certificate of completion.

Audible

Great for: listening to audiobooks

If you like reading, but lack time to sit down and read a physical book, Audible may be a good choice for you. It’s an audiobook and podcast service that allows you to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content.
If you find activities like commuting, walking, exercising, or cleaning boring — listening to audiobooks is a great way to make that time more interesting and productive.

Who can use Audible?

Busy bees who don’t have time to sit and read or those who can benefit more from listening.

Cost: Deals start from $7.95 per month.

Trello

Great for: project management

Trello is a free web-based Kanban-style tool that will help you with managing tasks and projects. It’s great for teams. You can organize them into boards and assign tasks, see who’s working on what, what’s done, and what’s yet to be done. Don’t forget to track time on your or your team member cards.

Who can use Trello?

Great for teamwork.

Cost: There is a lot you can get in the free plan, and pricing starts at $5 per user, per month, when billed annually.

Do nothing for 2 minutes

Great for: taking a short break from work

Productivity is not only working 24/7, it’s also taking a break and letting your mind rest. During particularly stressful days, go to this website and do nothing for 2 minutes except breathing and listening to the waves. There is a timer set for 2 minutes. Relax and do nothing during that time.

Who can use Do nothing for 2 minutes?

Anybody who occasionally feels overwhelmed with work.

Cost: Free.

Sleepyti.me

Great for: calculating sleep time

As we mentioned above, rest is an important aspect of being productive, especially a good night’s rest. Use this site to calculate what’s the best time to go to sleep so as to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to get things done. Also, learn about the benefits of sleep and useful sleep facts on their website, too.

Who can use Sleepytime?

Anybody who occasionally has trouble sleeping.

Cost: Free.

Blogs about productivity

If apps and websites didn’t “do the job” to help you increase your productivity, there are numerous blogs that are worth visiting as well. Don’t blame yourself for low productivity but start seeking help from others.

However, by “others” we mean professionals who are experienced in this field and legit blogs that can give you science-backed tips and practical advice.

The good news is that we did some careful research and selected the top blog picks out of millions of productivity blogs out there.

Clockify

Great for: practical time/project/team management tips and tricks, and much more

Okay, yes, we do recommend our blog.

But, why would you read our blog?

Our experienced and schooled writers work tirelessly to write about tracking and managing time, as well as managing teams and projects. You can find an abundance of practical advice — from tips on how to stay focused with all the distractions around you to creating a good work environment and promoting teamwork.

Not to mention that all of our articles are accompanied by really cool illustrations, free templates, to-do lists, and free calculators that you can use to calculate your hourly rates, payroll, your productivity and efficiency, and many more.

James Clear

Great for: productivity hacks, building better work habits

If you read the book Atomic Habits, the name James Clear may sound familiar to you.
This author and a former athlete writes about creativity, decision making, focus, habits, his life lessons, motivation, productivity, and self-improvement. Not only does he provide value, but he’s also a good storyteller, so his articles are pretty enjoyable to read.

Lifehacker

Great for: help getting hired, be more productive at work, and many useful “how-to” topics

This blog covers a wide range of topics including practical tips for staying productive at work. Their motto is “Tips, tricks, and downloads for getting things done.” Apart from blog posts, they have a wide range of videos that can teach you useful “how-to” tricks and tips. It’s worth checking out since it will help you become a true “life hacker” yourself.

Cal Newport

Great for: eliminating distractions to boost productivity

Great for: burning topics, learning how to eliminate distractions, book reviews, and much more

Cal Newport is another familiar name — you may know him as the author of Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In a Distracted World. On his Study Hacks Blog, he writes about topics such as working remotely, the neuroscience of busyness, the productivity funnel, and social media addiction. This is a legit blog that provides research-backed facts and advice on productivity, and more.

99U

Great for: design lovers, personal growth, remote work

Adobe’s 99U is a resource and event series to help creatives build careers, supercharge their work, and make their ideas happen. Not only can you find interesting articles accompanied by beautiful visuals, but also interviews and guides on topics such as productivity, personal growth, staying motivated, remote work, and many more. All posts are accompanied by stunning illustrations that help visualize the content.

Benjamin Hardy

Great for: building confidence, career development

Benjamin is an organizational psychologist and the author of Willpower Doesn’t Work and Personality Isn’t Permanent. On his blog, he helps people with their careers and self-confidence, as well as finding their passion and purpose. You can find articles on creating your future, success, waking up early, and many other topics. His blogs are featured on Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, etc., so feel free to enjoy his content and rely on his useful advice to increase your productivity and success.

Influencive

Great for: young entrepreneurs and business people

Influencive is a digital publication for entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses. Learn more about business, marketing, and self-development, while reading interviews with entrepreneurs about their journey.

SUCCESS Magazine

Great for: success-driven people, productivity strategies that leaders and success experts use

SUCCESS magazine has been around longer than the Internet exists, since 1897. Since then, they’ve been offering advice on best business practices, inspiration from successful people in business and entertainment, and motivation to become the best version of yourself.

Their mission is to bring you thought leaders and success experts and reveal their key ideas and strategies to help you excel in every area of your personal and professional life.

The Muse

If you need career advice, check out The Muse. They are a job-searching platform, but they also offer practical advice on finding a job, exploring different career paths, and succeeding in the job you already have.

Productivity YouTube channels

Here are some useful and informative, yet entertaining Youtube channels that produce quality content about productivity and related topics.

Keep productive

Great for: different productivity tool reviews and impressions

Keep productive channel’s description is “your ultimate guide to productivity software.” Their goal is to help you with finding productivity tools that suit you best. You can find tutorials, news, and guides, as well as interviews with professionals on productivity and how they use their tools.

CrashCourse

Great for: studying and simplifying school curriculum

Extremely popular among high schoolers since it offers very simple and visually aiding explanations and content. They cover a wide range of subjects such as geography, science, history, literature, and more. Speakers in the videos offer detailed explanations of different topics thus helping students understand them easily and more efficiently.

Study to success

Great for: student productivity app reviews and time management tips

Another useful channel for young students and even university students. Not only does this channel offer amazing learning tips, but also detailed reviews of practical learning apps and time management methods that help students increase their productivity. Moreover, she gives impressions and reviews of different stationery that help students be more organized.

Rowena Tsai

Great for: making the most of your days, changing bad habits that ruin productivity

Rowena’s content is focused on personal development and being productive by changing your mindset and developing positive habits. Her videos will teach you something in a way that feels like talking to a friend; they are also very aesthetically pleasing and calming.

Thomas Frank

Great for: productivity app reviews and impressions, effective studying and learning, defeating procrastination

Thomas makes content about productivity that can help you whether you are in school, university, or work. He covers a variety of topics related to productivity, from effective studying and dealing with procrastination, to ways to improve your writing and how to resist people manipulating you.

Amy Landino

Great for: time management tips, making every day as productive as possible

Amy is a Youtuber that is known for her videos about time management, calendar blocking, and morning routines that involve waking up super early in the morning. On her channel, you can learn what morning pages are and why they are important, how to actually wake up early, and how to calendar-block, among many other things. If you are a true morning lark and tend to wake up at 5 A.M., then this channel is definitely for you!

Lavendaire

Great for: monthly planning, self-improvement

Aileen, a girl behind the Lavendaire Youtube channel, makes videos on personal growth and productivity, intending to help her viewers create their dream life. Other than productivity content, she creates videos about journaling, self-love, psychology, as well as lifestyle content. At the end of each month, she does a monthly “reflection” and monthly planning to see how she did in the past and plan her next month so as to help her subscribers successfully do the same.

Matt D’Avella

Great for: productivity tips from the angle of a minimalist

Matt is a productivity YouTuber, filmmaker, and minimalist. He also does (and films) 30-day experiments, such as quitting social media, taking cold showers, or meditating for 1 hour for 30 days. What I like about his content is that not only are the videos themselves interesting to watch, but also aesthetically pleasing and practical due to the amazing productivity hacks that he often shares.

Gillian Perkins

Great for: starting your own business

Gillian’s channel covers the topics of starting your business, entrepreneurship, making money, and motivation. Her goal is to teach aspiring entrepreneurs how to start and grow profitable businesses that allow them to work from home.

Muchelleb

Great for: building better work habits, productivity routines

Michelle makes videos about creating an intentional life, simplifying, and getting things done. She’s particularly interested in talking about self-compassionate productivity and behavior change through experimentation. She makes a lot of content about habits, to-do lists, organizing your life, and self-care.

Nathaniel Drew

Great for: productivity tips and advice, travel

Nathaniel makes videos about living intentionally, language learning, self-exploring, and searching for mental clarity in a busy, overflowing with information 21st century. As he travels the world, he also makes vlogs and an occasional short film.

One Percent Better

Great for: productivity book reviews

One Percent Better posts animated book summaries, mostly on topics about productivity, self-improvement, and psychology. If you’re interested in any of those (if you’re reading this, you probably are), this channel can be a great way to find new books to add to your “to read” list or, if you don’t have time to read the whole book, at least introduce yourself to new ideas and concepts.

Ali Abdaal

Great for: productivity hacks, success

If you’re a student looking for productivity tips, check out Ali Abdaal’s channel. He graduated in medicine from the University of Cambridge and he has a lot of videos on how to study for exams. Recently, he has been posting content about productivity, lifestyle, and tech.

Podcasts that will motivate you to be productive

If you didn’t find anything useful from our list so far, maybe you can consider listening to podcasts. We’ve prepared a list of podcasts that can come in handy when you struggle at work or just want to hear out some hacks on how to improve your productivity a bit more. So, if you like listening to podcasts, here are some you have to give a listen to.

Impact Theory

Great for: building an empowering mindset, secrets to success

Impact theory is an interview-style podcast that lets us go inside the mindsets of the world’s highest achievers, hosted by Tom Bilyeu. Other than things you can implement, it gives you a lot of food for thought, motivation, and inspiration.
Every episode ends with a question “What impact do you want to have on the world?”

Getting Things Done

Great for: personal growth, GTD productivity methodology

Getting Things Done is a podcast by David Allan, the author of the same-titled book. If you like the book, you’ll like the podcast too. It offers advice on organization, productivity, creativity, and time management.

The podcasts include personal and professional stories, as well as practical tips about GTD systems.

Accidental Creative

Great for: bringing new ideas to life, interviews from top leaders, and practical ways to lead a team more effectively

If you see yourself as more creative than organized, you may enjoy this podcast. Its mission is to help creative people do brilliant work, have better ideas, collaborate seamlessly, and thrive under pressure.

The Tim Ferriss Show

Great for: time management tricks, productive habits, and advice from successful people

In each episode, he deconstructs world-class performers from many different areas (investing, sports, business, art, etc.) such as Hugh Jackman, Maria Sharapova, LeBron James, and 500+ more to extract the tactics, tools, and routines you can use. This includes books, morning routines, exercise habits, time-management tricks, and much more.

He also shares his own life experiments (Newsweek even called him “the world’s best human guinea pig.”)

Harvard Business IdeaCast

Great for: burning topics, career development, improving work performance and productivity

Harvard Business Review’s podcast is a weekly podcast that features leading thinkers in business and management.

Back to Work

Great for: productivity hacks and tools, after-work discussions

Hosts Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin host an award-winning podcast about productivity, communication, work, barriers, constraints, tools, among many other topics. You can also enjoy their humor and a deeper look into the topics they talk about.

Beyond the To-Do List

Great for: practical productivity strategies from experts

Erik Fisher talks with productivity experts about their practical productivity strategies in their personal and professional lives. They explore all aspects of productivity and the true end goal of it — living a meaningful life. Not only can you hear about their successes but also lessons they learned from failure.

How I Built This

Great for: experiences from inspiring entrepreneurs and what’s behind their success

The host, Guy Raz, dives into the stories behind some of the world’s best-known companies. It tells stories about the journeys of innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists and the movements they created.

Before Breakfast

Great for: productivity advice on successful morning routines

Before Breakfast is Laura Vanderkam’s podcast. Every day, there’s a new bite-sized episode in which Laura shares a time management strategy or answers a listener’s question. Her mission is to give listeners practical tools to feel less busy and get more done throughout the day.

Wrap up

We honestly hope you found a worthy productivity resource for yourself. All the apps, websites, YT channels, blogs, and podcasts are trustworthy, regularly updated, and safe to use. We made sure there is something for everyone, from working people, homemakers, organizations, freelancers to students who occasionally struggle with their curriculum and need aid to improve their productivity and boost morale.

Enjoy exploring these productivity resources as much as we enjoyed researching (and trying out) them!

We’ve grown to like challenges and want to get the most out of our careers:

• Constant growth,
• Evolution, and
• Enough free time to appreciate our accomplishments.

But, how exactly can we branch out in our careers, without risking failure? Is that even possible?

It is, through clear career goals.

Career goals are statements that you set for your professional progress. 

Maybe you want to perfect your second language to land international clients, or you take up a writing course to improve your blog. Or you want a promotion that demands you make more sales, so you set goals to improve your productivity.

These are just some examples of goals, and there are no limits to how short- or long-term they can be. It all comes down to your personal wishes.

In this article, we’ll be discussing:

• The importance of career goals
• Career goal types
• How to set your career goals successfully 

…all this while providing career goal examples so that you can have a better grasp of how to successfully set career goals for yourself.

What is a career goal?

A career goal is a target — something you aim to achieve in your professional life. 

It can be attending training to enhance your management skills or something more long-term, such as climbing the corporate ladder.  

Now, to achieve your career goals, should you follow your dreams? 

You can, but remember that “a goal without a plan is just a wish” — as stated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Take Nikola Tesla as an example. A brilliant man whose inventions changed the world while often remaining mysteries to the world. 

However, Tesla was not a businessman, and he died broke since he was never interested in monetary gain — so others took credit for his work. 

He was passionate about electrical engineering — but struggled to pursue it as a career.

Now, I admire Tesla — we get one Tesla in a million years — but if it weren’t for Edison, Westinghouse, or others who reshaped his passion into a lucrative business, would we ever be able to see his inventions and brilliant ideas come to life? 

Maybe not. 

In conclusion, just because you love doing something, it doesn’t mean you possess the necessary skills to turn it into your career goal and benefit from it. 

In the next section, you can read about the importance of goal setting in your career. 

Why are career goals important?

Just like life goals, career goals are essential to personal development.

A hundred years ago, people didn’t have much choice concerning their career since it was predetermined by their social class or inherited from their parents. 

But, with the opening of the first vocational bureau in 1908 in Boston, people started to get more opportunities to work in different areas of the same field and even change careers if they wanted to. The word “career” got a new meaning, and people started to pursue career goals to enhance their professional development. 

Today, apart from having more job opportunities, here are 5 other reasons why setting career goals is beneficial:

Reason #1: Career goals improve your skills

When you set clear career goals, you push towards your target, and consequently, you may learn a lot along the way. 

Maybe you’ll need to enhance your skills to achieve a certain career goal, such as learning a new language or obtaining a computer science certificate. 

So, apart from achieving that career advancement you were aiming for, you may also get a chance to diversify your skills and/or perfect your craft.

Reason #2: Career goals help you use time more effectively 

Do you feel like you work non-stop and that overworking has taken a toll on your health?

If your answer is “yes” — consider setting an achievable career goal. 

Whether that’s changing your occupation for good or doing something less radical — you will surely start to notice that how you manage your time has improved as well. When you know where you are heading, you effectively utilize your time and put an end to time wastage. 

Using a time tracking tool can help you have a timeframe in mind making your goal more achievable and realistic as a result. 

Make sure your time tracking tool can:   

Track time you spend on activities in real-time (or lets you enter time manually) 

Make precise time estimates

Track progress 

Export detailed reports 

Reason #3: Career goals boost your self-esteem

Achieving your career goals gives you a sense of personal satisfaction, appreciation, and confidence. 

Whether you get a bonus or just a pat on the back — you accomplished something. You pursued your career goal, and now you feel on top of the world and want to achieve even more. 

Reason #4: Career goals help you find a sense of purpose 

Wandering around without any aim and doing the same job without promotion for decades will eventually lead to dissatisfaction — one way or another. Would you rather complain about how you haven’t moved up the career ladder for years or do something about it? 

When you set yourself a career goal — whether long-term or short-term — you feel motivated to work, improve, and find a reason to wake up in the morning. If it means leaving your job or even changing your profession completely, so be it. 

But, bear in mind that you can’t just leave your job without having planned what to do next. We’ll talk about this in more detail later in the article.

Reason #5: Career goals eliminate procrastination for good 

I couldn’t help but notice that people who repeatedly brag about their future career plans rarely ever do something to bring them to life. This usually happens because they want to make a change in their career but don’t know how, so they keep procrastinating. 

What can actually help them achieve their future career plans is setting a clearly defined career goal. 

When you do so, the habit of procrastinating diminishes as goals become real and achievable. 

—

So, we explained why career goals are important — let’s now see what types of career goals you can pursue.

What types of career goals are there?

When it comes to career goals, there is no universal division into types. 

However, in this blog post, we will classify goals based on the time required to complete them.

We will also give career goal examples based on their focus for each.

Therefore, career goals can be:

• Short-term
• Long-term

Short-term career goals

As the name itself implies, short-term goals are usually set to combat a temporary work obstacle or a current hiccup in your career path. 

Everything that you can achieve within 6 months to a year is considered a short-term goal.

What’s more, short-term goals are most commonly just steps towards achieving a long-term goal. 

Long-term career goals

Long-term career goals require more patience and dedication and take longer to achieve than short-term goals. These are usually the goals related to significant career milestones, such as getting a promotion or starting your own business. 

—

To better understand short-term goals and long-term goals, let’s look at a couple of examples.

Short-term career goals (examples) 

The following are examples of short-term and long-term career goals that deal with enhancing your education, personal skills, productivity, efficiency, work/life balance, and more. 

Example #1: Short-term goals focused on enhancing your knowledge

A short-term goal focused on enhancing your knowledge can be finishing a course (they usually last from 2 to 12 months — depending on the field of study) for a new skill set. 

If you, for instance, want to learn QA software testing to advance your computer-based skills, it will take no longer than a couple of months to finish the course. It is relatively quickly achievable and helps you improve your knowledge. 

Other short-term goal examples focused on education include: 

• Attending seminars, 
• Enrolling in online courses, 
• Finding a mentor, etc.

Example #2: Short-term goals focused on self-improvement

It’s always a good idea to work on yourself — you’ll feel more confident, and others will more gladly cooperate with you. 

Therefore, opt for a personality development seminar or watch life-coaching videos if you don’t have time to attend a seminar in person. 

You can also: 

• Read books on self-improvement, or 
• Keep a journal.

Example #3: Short-term goals focused on boosting your productivity

There are no instant solutions to boosting productivity, but there are some short-term goals focused on productivity advancement that you can achieve shortly.

For instance, if poor time management hinders your productivity, maybe you should consider working on your time management skills. For this purpose, you can use a productivity tracker app that easily identifies where your time goes, keeps you focused on critical tasks, and increases your productivity as a result.

Other short-term goals focused on productivity include: 

• Changing your work routine, and 
• Finding your most productive time of day — i.e. understanding if you are a morning lark or a night owl. 

Example #4: Short-term goals focused on using your resources efficiently 

Say you are a small business owner and overhead costs keep rising. Since efficiency means doing things right — you have trouble allocating resources (in this case, funds) accordingly. 

What you need to do is set a short-term goal to manage your money wisely without damaging your business. Therefore, you should start keeping track of your company’s expenses (like mileage, meals, day rates, etc.) and choose between a traditional expense ledger or opt for an expense-tracking app that can do the job automatically.

Other short-term, efficiency-based goals include: 

• Eliminating distractions, or 
• Organizing daily meetings.   

Example #5: Short-term goals focused on increasing work/life balance

With the increase of remote work comes an opportunity to achieve the perfect work/life balance. 

Nowadays, many companies offer flexible work arrangements, and the hybrid model is proclaimed to be the future of work. This means that you can successfully combine both working in the office and from the comfort of your home. 

Therefore, if your company offers such an arrangement, make the most of it to spend more time with your family or socialize with your colleagues.

Combining the two work models may save you from commuting, working long hours, and may lower the risk of burnout — altogether, you can create a perfect work/life balance.

Other short-term goals focused on improving your work/life balance include:

• Learning how to say “No”, 
• Taking regular breaks, 
• Prioritizing your work, etc.

Long-term career goals (examples)

Here are some examples of more ambitious, long-term career goals that take longer to achieve.

Example #1: Long-term goals focused on enhancing your education in the long run

An educational goal that you want to accomplish in the future could be finishing college. That’s something that requires up to 10 years to complete, while physician studies can last even longer than a decade. 

Thinking about which college you want to enroll in is a tough decision that you probably start thinking about when you are in high school. You make that long-term goal based on your skills, knowledge, and interests.

Other examples of long-term goals focused on education include:

• Learning a foreign language, or
• Gaining a master’s degree or Ph.D.

Example #2: Long-term goals focused on sharpening your soft skills  

A long-term goal focused on personal development can be developing better communication skills in the workplace. 

If you feel like you are being “kept out of the loop”, or as if you “can’t fit in” — maybe you should start enhancing your soft skills. This includes practicing active listening and public speaking, reaching out to your colleagues (also a great way to build good relations within your organization), showing empathy, etc. 

This is considered a long-term objective since improving your soft skills and building effective communication in the workplace don’t happen overnight. Even after you accomplish this, you need to keep working hard to maintain your skills.

Other long-term goals focused on personal advancement include: 

• Becoming a better team leader, or
• Managing emotions at work.

Example #3: Long-term goals focused on inducing changes into your work habits

If you want to increase your productivity for good, apart from enhancing your time management skills, think about doing something that will bring lasting results. Of course, this will take more time and effort.

You can create a schedule that you are going to stick to. For that purpose, try using the time blocking technique that lets you organize your day by allocating small blocks of time for each activity or task — to make your schedule more manageable. 

Creating such a schedule will lay out what you will work on and when. Not only will you produce better output but also avoid procrastination. 

Bear in mind that achieving such a goal requires patience — since building a habit of creating a workable schedule is a lengthy process that takes time. 

Other long-term goals that may help you better your work habits include:

• Taking frequent breaks, or 
• Breaking bad habits.

Example #4: Long-term goals focused on setting a financial goal for your future

Let’s say you want to map out a thorough retirement plan. This is a long-lasting undertaking, and you should start thinking about it as soon as you can. 

You will need to map out a detailed financial plan such as leaving aside 10% of your income each month or avoiding spending money on unnecessary things. 

You can perhaps divide this long-term goal into small short-term goals and celebrate milestones. Those “sub-goals” can include: 

• Tracking your expenses, or
• Setting a savings account.

Example #5: Long-term goals focused on decluttering your life

By decluttering your life, we mean getting rid of everything that stands between you and success. 

Start with reducing clutter in your home, phone, computer, and workstation (whether that’s an office or your home). Then, slowly work your way to more complex ‘decluttering tasks’. 

These may include some bigger undertakings such as:

• Organizing your days better,
• Learning how to prioritize tasks, and 
• Delegating everything you possibly can. 

Finally, don’t forget to reevaluate your relationships and figure out which ones might harm your well-being.

Decluttering your life is a long-lasting process, and it involves many steps before reaching your final goal.

How to set your career goals successfully

Now that you’ve read some examples of short-term and long-term goals, you are probably wondering: How can I achieve such career goals?

Although there are no strict guidelines on how to set your career goals (whether short-term or long-term), we want to emphasize some universal steps you should take along the way. 

These steps outline a simple and effective strategy as you start your journey to setting career goals:

1. Find your personal motivation and self-discipline
2. Find support from those close to you
3. Break down your goal into manageable pieces
4. Be SMART with your goals
5. Track the progress of your career goals
6. Take time to reevaluate and modify your goals as you go
7. Balance career goals and personal life
8. Define your career goal statement

Step #1: Find your personal motivation and self-discipline

Motivation is a fickle emotion that is very difficult to grasp. We often believe that we can only get things done if motivation strikes us at just the right time. 

Sadly, that is not the case.

Instead, we tend to get much more done when we exert discipline. 

Did you know that you can create motivation, instead of waiting for it to come around?

Here are just a handful of ways to motivate yourself:

1. Make a reward system for yourself after reaching specific milestones,
2. Analyze your lack of motivation to find out what prevents you from moving forward,
3. Have a planner specifically for career goals, and write down everything you’re planning to achieve, and
4. Team up with a friend, or find support within your family.

Step #2: Find support from those close to you

We’ve mentioned that a friend or a coworker who has similar goals as your own can be a good motivator.

There is something in creating a “tribe” of like-minded people for the purpose of support, resource sharing, and helping each other grow. 

Additionally, it is great for accountability when you can’t keep your word.

Therefore, if you have a problem acting on your resolutions and promises, find someone who will hold you responsible for them.

Step #3: Break down your goal into manageable pieces 

Now, it’s time to chunk your goal down into smaller pieces. 

This way, you’ll have a better idea of the tasks that need to be completed to successfully reach your goal. 

For example, to earn a programming certificate, you’ll need to complete tasks such as:

• Ensure you have a computer with an i5 processor or higher
• Balance your current job or classes with the programming course
• Practice and do homework regularly
• Call your developer friend when in doubt 

You can create simple “To-do” lists that help you keep track of all your tasks or activities and unburden your mind from remembering everything.

Step #4: Be SMART with your career goals

Let’s revisit the example we’ve previously mentioned. 

Once you’ve defined your future goal — to earn a programming certificate — it’s not enough to say “I want to earn a programming certificate” to attain that goal successfully. 

Instead, make your goal “smart” and incorporate the SMART goal criteria into your goal-setting process. 

In other words, ensure your goal is SMART: 

• Specific, 
• Measurable, 
• Attainable, 
• Relevant, and 
• Time-bound.

Specific career goals  

You need to provide more details about your goal. 

Try answering the questions “What?”, “How?”, or “Why?” to make your goal more distinct.

Therefore, saying “I want to enroll in an online course so that I can earn a programming certificate and find a job in the IT industry” will make your goal as specific as it can be.

Measurable career goals 

To make your goal measurable, you need to make sure there are specific indicators that show if you’ve made progress along the way. 

When making the goal measurable, answering these questions can help you:

• “How many/much?”
• “Can you measure the outcome?” 

Your measurable goal should sound something like this: “I will pass the test for a certain certification level.”

Attainable career goals 

Do you possess the necessary skills to finish the programming course? Do you have all the necessary resources? 

Therefore, your attainable goal should sound something like this “I possess some basic hard skills such as HTML and CSS knowledge, therefore, I have the necessary base for successfully completing the course.”

Relevant career goals

Do you feel like your future career goal is something that really interests you? 

Your relevant goal should say: “I’ve always been interested in computer science, and this course will boost my knowledge and increase my chances of getting a job in the field.”   

Time-bound career goals 

Finally, answer the question “When?” since every goal needs to have a target date. 

Try setting a realistic time frame so that you don’t end up disappointed or discouraged to move on. 

Therefore, your timely goal now sounds like this: “I’ll have classes four times a week for two months. I suppose if I commit myself to regular learning and practicing, I will be able to pass the exam by December.”

Step #5: Track the progress of your career goals

We’ve mentioned that the only way to reach your milestones is through discipline.

By working towards your goal regularly, you increase your chances of succeeding. 

For example, you can do small programming tasks every day to practice for a certification test.

However, for the majority of us, forming a habit proves to be much harder.

The easiest way to track your goals is via a suitable app. This is especially useful if traditional habit tracking doesn’t work for you.

Here’s how you can easily track your daily goals in Clockify — as the tasks pop up, you simply start the timer. When you’re done, you stop the timer, and voila! It’s as easy as that.

Furthermore, in Clockify, you have the option of planning out your tasks for the entire week or even month. 

With such clear overviews of your tasks, you will be able to stay on top of your goals easily.

Here is what it looks like in Clockify:

When the week passes, you’ll have a clean-cut overview of the time spent on career-related goals. These can help you regroup your tasks and make any necessary changes to your schedule.

Step #6: Take time to reevaluate and modify your goals as you go

It’s perfectly normal to realize that your professional goals evolve and change over time — especially earlier in life.

Maybe you’ve been working as a programmer for a few years now and found out in the past few months that you’re gaining interest in QA. 

Or, it turns out you are really good at mediating between teams and understand the production pipeline well enough to try project management.

The point is — it’s okay to reassess your goals in the process and make any changes you deem necessary.

How to know if you should change your career goals

When talking about redefining your career goals, this important question always comes up. We take our careers seriously, so, naturally, we’ll question our choices.

Let’s take a look at the signs that show you if and when you should modify your goals:

• The amount of effort you’re putting in overshadows the reward,
• You no longer find joy in pursuing a goal,
• It’s beginning to negatively impact your personal life,
• You realize the goal is actually not as important anymore, or
• Unexpected life changes occur.

Make it okay with yourself to come back to your goals and reevaluate them every now and then.

Especially if you’ve realized that a different career path suits you better.

Chasing a goal just to achieve it — even though you know it’s a dead-end — is just a waste of time and energy. 

It’s better to give up, count your losses, and move on in another direction.

Step #7: Balance career goals and personal life

It’s not easy to balance work and life, especially if you’re setting new career goals for yourself.

And, even with a support system within your friends and family, the idea of dedicating so much time to your career can seem gloomy.

Not everyone is up for the “grind”.

As a matter of fact, multiple media outlets today are speaking up against the “rise and grind” culture. At Clockify, we’re of the same mindset. There is no real success if you nearly lose yourself by the time you reach it. Health and sanity should always come first. 

With that in mind, here are some tips on how to pursue your goals in a healthy, balanced manner.

Tip #1: Decide how far you are willing to go

In time, you’ll want to find out what your absolute limits are and stick to them. 

If achieving a certain goal will say, have you work 100 hours a week while you can barely manage 60, then you need to know if the goal is worth the sacrifice. 

Deciding how far you are willing to go early on will immensely help balance out your work and life.

Tip #2: Try making smarter choices

You don’t have to take every opportunity that comes your way. Some will be beneficial for your career, while others will be a dead end. Take the time to assess which ones to accept and save yourself some time you would otherwise waste.

Choose experiences that will move you forward, teach you something new, and add significantly to your life. Everything else will just be pointless.

Tip #3: Find someone you admire to mentor you

How can a mentor help your work-life balance? It’s actually quite simple.

People who have been in your shoes before have seen all the challenges, ups, and downs this path brings. They will know best what kind of traps lie ahead. 

Moreover, good mentors will give priceless advice on overcoming said obstacles and teach you valuable shortcuts and tips on how to choose the best opportunities for yourself.

Their advice will save you a lot of time and energy that you would waste on trial and error.

Step #8: Define your career goal statement

Now that you’ve learned enough about setting career goals, it’s time to leave a paper trail of your well-established goals for the future. 

That is precisely what a career goal statement is — a written description of your long-term professional plans.

Goal statements describe your aspirations, skills, or job titles that you would like to earn in the future to level up.

You can attach yours to a job application or cover letter to provide a better grasp of your future career plans and directions.

Career goals statement (examples)

Take a look at some career goal statement examples below: 

Career goal statement example #1:

“My career goal is to get promoted to a software application developer within the next 2 years. To do so, I must level up my programming skills, make sure I have the necessary equipment, take programming classes, and keep up with programming trends.”

Career goal statement example #2:

“I’ve been a senior officer for a year and a half now, and I aspire to move up the career ladder and become an assistant manager in less than 2 years. My responsibilities will entail supervising employees during day-to-day tasks, so I will have to sharpen my soft skills, as well.”

Career goal statement example #3:

“I will obtain a buyer’s agent real estate license within 6 months. To do this, I will complete a real estate course, and then I will be able to act on behalf of the buyer.”

Conclusion: Career goals point your life and career in the right direction

While your career path can seem complex, it can also be interesting and versatile once you begin the journey. Setting goals for yourself is not only good for getting a better position, a promotion, or switching to a higher-paying job — It’s beneficial for your personal growth as well. 

Career goals can help you learn more about yourself as a person. They reveal your skills, your interests, mental toughness, and your overall outlook on life. 

Of course, don’t forget that the road to an attainable career goal can get bumpy, and you need to stick to your plan to carry it out successfully.

With that being said, this journey should excite you. So, grab the proverbial bull by the horns, and good luck!

Do you have a career goal? How did you achieve it? Write to us at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles. Also, if you liked this article, share it with someone else you know will find it useful.

“It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently.” — Tony Robbins

We all set goals — both business and personal. Goals may differ in complexity, size, or due dates. However, they have one thing in common — if we don’t keep track of our goals, they are doomed to fail eventually. 

Therefore, it’s not enough to just set a goal and sit tight — setting a goal is only half the job. To make progress toward achieving them, one must carefully keep track of their goals’ progress. 

How can we keep track of goals effectively?

While simple pen and paper may work for some — the majority of people would still opt for a computer-based tracking system or a smartphone app. 

As a matter of fact, according to a two-year study among 811 people with weight problems, the utilization of the computerized tracking system helped them achieve their ultimate goal — losing excess weight. 

The participants used different tracking software to record food intake and physical activity. This resulted in increased weight loss compared to the participants who used such software less. 

Therefore, goal-tracking tools allow us to self-monitor our behavior while providing direct feedback on our progress and motivating us to achieve more.

Who can use goal tracker tools?

The other day, out of the blue, my mom asked me how many steps I made yesterday. I bafflingly answered: “I have no idea.” Then, she told me I should start using a pedometer app to keep track of my fitness goals.

Inspired by my mom, I did some research — how many people track their steps, i.e. their health goals?

Interestingly, millennials are not the only ones who utilize different goal tracking apps day-to-day, according to Statista. Yes, people aged 30–39 (41%) are among the most frequent users of apps related to health tracking. But, a whopping 25% of people aged 50–59 and 21% of people aged over 60 reported using some goal tracker app to track their fitness goals.

Anyone can benefit from goal-tracking tools — since most of them are quite easy to use and customize.

In the following paragraphs, we’ll talk about the most prominent goal-tracking apps currently available on the market. These apps can help you track progress toward achieving your goals.

The best goal tracking apps you can use

Sometimes, it’s difficult to find a goal tracking app that covers everything we need.

So much time is spent looking for a good app that we often grow tired of testing them out and just give up. Then our goals get a setback for a while, until we’re motivated again to research the app stores. 

Only to be disappointed again or settle for a sub-par app that we give up on a few days later.

Here’s the truth — we don’t know ourselves that good.

Because, depending on our type of goal-setter and goal-getter, some apps will work while others won’t. 

That is why we decided to test out apps that play on different kinds of motivations. 

Going through the list, you’ll better understand what type of person you are and which goal tracking app will suit you the most.

In short, whether aimed at personal, fitness, or business goals — these are the best goal tracker apps in our experience:

1. Clockify
2. Coach.me
3. Habitica
4. Evernote 
5. Way of Life 
6. Strides
7. ProProfs Project
8. Goals on Track
9. nTask
10. Toodledo
11. ClickUp
12. Lifetick 

For a more in-depth review of each one of these apps, keep on reading.

1. Clockify — best for detailed goal-tracking

Clockify: “Everything you need for tracking goals, without costing a fortune”

Why Clockify?

Clockify was created with the clear intention to help you track progress on your tasks or projects. While it’s perfect for team projects — it’s also an amazing tool for personal use. The best part is that Clockify is quite handy at tracking goals as it gives you an accurate look at your workweek. From there, you can see how much you worked towards the goal and where you wasted time. It’s easy and precise for those who want to track their goal progression in greater detail.

​​How to track goals in Clockify?

To keep track of your goals in Clockify, you need to set your goal as a project and break it down into more manageable tasks. Next, you start tracking how much time goes into finishing those tasks. Clockify will then track progress on each task separately.

The Clockify website offers a plethora of to-do list templates — so you can easily monitor all your tasks — whether work tasks, school assignments, or daily chores around the house. 

After a certain period, you’ll have a deeper understanding of how much time went into the project since Clockify gives you detailed reports on your time use. What’s more, you can set estimates for activities to later compare tracked vs estimated goal time. 

Clockify is especially useful for freelancers and people looking to kick their own startup into high gear. If you want to improve your focus on career-oriented goals and stay on track with your professional life, then this app is perfect for you.

The free plan offers an unlimited number of goals, projects, progress reports, and users. 

Once you start using Clockify, you become an avid time-tracking passionista.

2. Coach.me — great for personal growth

Coach.me: “A home for ambitious people”

Why Coach.me?

Coach.me works as a community-driven accountability app, plus you can opt-in for consultation calls with various coaches — fitness, productivity, mindfulness, business coach, and many more. It relies more on positive reinforcement. 

So if you’re not the type to want a supervisor emailing you, and you prefer to go through procrastination struggles with like-minded people — this could be the app for you.

How to track goals in Coach.me?

After signing up, you set a custom goal you want to follow or choose one from their suggestions. Each goal has a community tied to it — members and coaches. Aside from being a standard goal tracking app, you can also turn on the “Get Props” option which allows other users from the same community to check in on your progress.

It offers to hire a specialized coach for your specific needs. 

You can’t add check-ins further than seven days back if you forget to check in for the day.

3. Habitica — a gameful way of setting goals

Habitica: “Gamify your life”

Why Habitica?

Formerly known as HabitRPG, it was created by Tyler Renelle who wanted a way to track his goal progression. Over the years, it grew into one of the most prominent gamified goal-tracking apps. It’s colorful, resembles a medieval adventure-style game, while your real-world actions affect your in-app character and environment.

How to track goals in Habitica?

Habitica lets you create your character, choose a class (wizard, knight, rogue, etc.), and then set the daily habits you want to track. Each performed task gives you experience points. You can use these to power up and tackle more demanding tasks. 

You can also team up with friends and family or join a guild centered around a common goal (ex. no sugar for a month). Rewards come in the form of avatar items, experience points, and loot that you can use in-app.

It boosts your motivation to carry on with your goals by giving rewards.

Tech-savvy users can benefit from this app more. 

4. Evernote — best for keeping a goal-based journal

Evernote: “Focus on what matters most”

Why Evernote?

Bullet journaling has exploded in popularity in the past year. Creatives across numerous social media platforms have started a new aesthetic trend by showcasing their decorated bullet journals. For the same reason, those who can’t afford fancy-looking stationery turn to apps like Evernote. 

It offers a high level of customizability if you prefer to keep your goal tracking in the form of a journal.

How to track goals in Evernote?

Evernote lets you upload photos, pictures, links, and notes that reflect your day. While keeping an accent on storing notes and online snapshots you found relevant, the app still boasts a to-do list that can closely track your goal progression.

It offers a time-tracking integration.

Its free plan is quite limited. 

5. Way of Life — best for breaking bad habits

Way of Life: “Changing habits is hard, having the right tool is half the battle”

Why Way of Life?

Way of Life uses a unique color-coded system where all you have to do is color in the required fields each day. It’s visually inviting, as you’re motivated to keep your streaks green. Breaking a habit means having to color in a field with red, which ruins the momentum. Graphs are there to give an overall look at your goal progress.

How to track goals in Way of Life?

Way of Life is based on creating simple lists. You can write a goal (in-app called journal) and then set how often you need to perform related tasks to stay on track. There is the option to write up notes for each day in case you want to comment on, say, how many pages of a book you read that day. 

All in all, Way of Life represents slightly more simplistic journaling while letting you jot down everything important related to the goals.

It’s visually appealing and it helps break bad habits.

The free plan has a limited number of goals.

6. Strides — best for setting SMART goals

Strides: “Track anything you want…any way you want” 

Why Strides?

Strides is an extremely flexible app since it allows you to customize your goals to fit your specific needs. Whether you want to track progress on your projects, reach a target, or drink more water — Strides has it all. 

To make sure your goals are smart, Strides will help you incorporate the SMART criteria into your goal-setting process easily. 

How to track goals in Strides?

Strides has a clear dashboard where you can see all your goals listed at a glance or add new ones. You can choose from a plethora of templates or make a custom goal. The best thing about Strides is that it allows you to create smart goals by making a thorough plan for each. You can later set reminders, add time, due date, statistics, or even see a goal forecast that the app creates automatically.

Finally, export neatly organized progress reports to see how you’re doing across your goals.

The green and red bars visually help you see if you are on track (green) or behind pace (red).

You need to shift to a paid plan to track more than three goals and get progress reports.

7. GoalsOnTrack — if you prefer keeping a journal for your goals 

Goals On Track: “Achieve more by doing less”

Why GoalsOnTrack?

GoalsOnTrack is a goal management software for high achievers. It helps you set SMART goals and break them down into smaller subgoals. The Goals tab lets you organize all your goals by category, time frame, and status. To maintain the momentum and keep you motivated to achieve your goals — GoalsOnTrack keeps track of your goals’ progress. 

Furthermore, it creates detailed action plans with to-do tasks and reminders for reaching your goals. Apart from that, with GoalsOnTrack, you can start building good habits — whether for work or personal life. 

GoalsOnTrack can transform you into a high achiever by keeping a journal for your goals due to a built-in journal tool.

How to track goals in GoalsOnTrack?

When you open the home page in the GoalsOnTrack app, you will see three columns:

1. Goal widgets with progress and actual metrics.
2. Tasks to be done listed by date.
3. Habits that you want to build and you can check them off as you go.

When you click on the Create Goal tab, you can see a detailed form that you should fill in with the information about the goal. This includes start/end date, how you want to track your progress (whether by the total outcome from all tasks, total progress from subgoals, etc.), add a description and/or a picture to personalize your goal. 

Most importantly, you can break down your goals into subgoals and tasks to be done. This is a helpful feature since it lets you have a detailed action plan to achieve your goals more successfully. The app lets you see your progress automatically. 

Now, it’s time to take action!  

You can create goals from built-in goal templates.

There is only a free trial.

8. nTask — best for agile enthusiasts 

nTask: “Get more done with nTask”

Why nTask?

Apart from their numerous project management features, one of the newest updates is the interactive Kanban board and custom statuses. 

To make sure you achieve your goals and stay on track, nTask lets you set deadlines for your goals, update statuses, create milestones, prioritize your goals, and much more.

How to track goals in nTask?

Even though nTask is not solely a goal tracking app, it does let you track progress on your tasks and reach your goals thanks to its amazing Kanban boards. 

Simply create a workspace, add new tasks, give status to your tasks (ex. in-progress tasks, in review, canceled), select date and priority, and start tracking the status of your tasks. 

It uses Kanban boards for better task management.

Users claim the support team needs a long time to respond to tickets.   

9. Toodledo — best for To-do list lovers 

Toodledo: “Get more done, your way”

Why Toodledo?

With Toodledo, you will never forget or fail to reach your goals due to its extensive to-do lists, notes, custom lists, and habit tracking features. What’s best about this app is that it uses customizable alarms so that you complete tasks on time. Toodledo reminds you about your tasks and habits via email or mobile app. It even offers a location-based reminder so when you are close to a place where you have tasks to do — the alarm reminds you about your tasks. Toodledo breaks bad habits since it supervises your wellness and monitors your eating habits, too.

How to track goals in Toodledo?

Let’s say your goal is to avoid eating junk food. Simply add a new habit in the dashboard and mark it with a check, number, or star rating. Then, choose a schedule — the days you wish your habit to recur or simply set a reminder. In the Inbox section, you can see habits that need to be logged for a specific day. After you’ve done your habit, mark it the way you chose prior — by clicking the check, picking a star rating, or typing a number. 

Below each habit, you will be able to see a habit chain that will show how many days in a row you’ve logged your habits. As your habits progress, you can check which ones are trending and how’re doing with logging. Another great thing is that at any time, you can adjust your habits manually. 

It offers audible reminders and a time-tracking integration.

No color-coding to distinguish the progress of goals. 

10. ClickUp — helps teams keep their goals on track

ClickUp: “All of your work in one place: Tasks, Docs, Chat, Goals, & more” 

Why ClickUp? 

ClickUp lets you stay on track to achieve your objectives using measurable targets and tracking your progress along the way. It’s convenient for teams since ClickUp allows you to share your goals inside your organization, control who has access, easily manage view or edit permissions. ClickUp uses the OKR goal-setting framework (Objectives and Key Results) as a very transparent way of creating measurable goals and engaging team members to make sure everyone is going in the same direction.  

How to track goals in ClickUp?

After you create a new goal in ClickUp, simply name your goal, set a due date, and share access with others. You can track the progress of your goal by creating a target. Targets are measurable milestones that you should do to achieve your goal. It’s like breaking down your goals into smaller pieces. 

ClickUp allows you to create different types of targets: numerical, monetary, true/false, or task targets. This hands-on feature allows you to categorize your targets accordingly and finish them more easily. 

You can add widgets to track your goals on the go.

Users reported issues with tracking time on your tasks.

11. Lifetick — makes your dreams come true

Lifetick: “Goal setting — made simple”

Why Lifetick?

Lifetick is another time tracking app that uses the SMART goal methodology. It’s perfect for setting education, health, finance, or family goals. Share your goals with friends, family, or colleagues since Lifetick has the option of sharing your goals with others to ensure you work together as a team. 

Keep a personal diary with Lifetick with the intention that you track your metrics and don’t forget your previous accomplishments. 

Finally, Lifeticks offers detailed reports with various charts to have a better understanding of your goals and tasks.

How to track goals in Lifetick?

Create a custom goal in Lifetick by giving it the magnitude — choose from easy, doable, daunting, or audacious. Lifetick wants to make sure your goals are smart, so you will be asked to check if your goals follow the SMART goal criteria before you start tracking them. 

What’s interesting about Lifetick is that it has a separate Dreams tab where you can capture your aspirations — things you want to do before you die, things you want to do but don’t know when, and similar. You can create these and, when ready, convert them into goals to start working toward. 

It allows you to review your achievements in a date-sequenced journal.

The app lacks goal-tracking features compared to other apps in this blog post. 

What is the takeaway?

Well, first and foremost – there are as many goal tracking apps as there are people. Every now and then a new one gets released, catering to a specific audience. As they evolve and branch out, they still fall into several broad categories:

• Detailed goal trackers
• Simplistic
• Accountability apps
• Atypical
• Journal-like

Depending on the type of goal-getter you are, you’ll find that some types suit you better than others. Once you know that, it’s easier to find the perfect one.

Happy hunting!

How did you track your goals so far? Did we help you find a goal-tracking app that suits your needs? Write to us at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles.

In this blog post, we’re going to define career burnout, introduce some research and statistics on burnout, talk about its symptoms, causes, and preventive measures for overcoming this harmful condition.

What is career burnout?

Burnout is not an official medical term but a consequence of dealing with prolonged stress and being overworked.

There is also no official definition of burnout — some most common symptoms typical for burnout include mental (or physical) exhaustion, reduced performance, listlessness, and cynicism, among others. 

Most commonly, it’s work-related, and this type of burnout is referred to as — career burnout. 

However, burnout can be associated with other aspects of life such as caring for ill or old family members, children with special needs, or even romantic relationships. 

Professional burnout is common among nurses and other healthcare workers. 

According to a study on consequences of early-career nurse burnout conducted in 2020, out of 2,474 nurses, 12.3% reported high levels of burnout symptoms during the early stages of their careers. 

During the first three years of their career, they came across the most detrimental effects of burnout: cognitive problems and insomnia.

As of May 2019, burnout has officially been recognized by the World Health Organization and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an “occupational phenomenon” — with the possibility of it being proclaimed a proper disease in the future. There is currently further research looking to provide additional information about burnout and distinguish it from other conditions.

Worst real burnout cases

41% of people who clock in 50+ hours per week say their companies don’t address burnout, and 36% don’t know whether employee wellness programs are even an option. 

But, there are ways you can help yourself, once you get to know what burnout really means.

To acknowledge the fact that burnout is “out there”, we visited Reddit and discovered hundreds of burnout-related topics (the truth is — we didn’t have to search far). 

Therefore, according to several discussions on Reddit, real people have suffered severe cases of burnout, which proves burnout is not to be taken lightly: violent daydreams, mental breakdowns, and sudden resignations seem to be only half of the story. 

Let’s take a look at some of the most detrimental cases of burnout from personal experiences:

Daydreams about accidents

Daydreaming about getting into minor car accidents to rest at a hospital seems to be quite common.

Imagining how it would be to fling oneself in front of a moving vehicle is another popular fantasy.

One of the more severe cases is daydreaming about the elevator cables snapping while you’re riding said elevator to a high floor.

Resignations

Some other burnout victims have reportedly slammed their laptops in their client’s faces and simply left meetings, only to resign the day after.

Others have stayed up late to finish a project, which prompted them to send in their resignations in the dead of the night.

Some have left their work for lunch never to return or call again.

Mental collapses

One man had to have his colleague wrap up his files at work — he was unable to do so himself because he had previously checked-in in a mental hospital.

Another serious case of a mental breakdown caused by burnout was a man who started bedwetting due to stress.

Substance abuse 

A great number of the people from Reddit reported using various substances — from alcohol, pain killers, and cigarettes, to marijuana and psychedelic drugs in the worst-case scenarios. 

One of the main reasons they abused substances was finding solace — since substances gave them false energy to carry on with their jobs and unwind at the end of the day. 

Suicides

The most severe case seems to be connected with suicide — some just seriously considered crashing their cars, and others have jumped off roofs to their deaths.

So, burnout can cause people to do and think about terrible things — but which are the burnout signs that one can recognize to be able to respond promptly?

Career burnout symptoms 

To distinguish burnout from other disorders, take a look at the most common burnout symptoms divided into two groups: 

1. Physical burnout symptoms
2. Psychological burnout symptoms 

1. Physical burnout symptoms

Physical symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, and dizziness are all signs that burnout has progressed. If it comes to them, you need to seek professional medical health.

Burnout will also cause your immune system to weaken, so you may fall prey to various infections, colds, or flues. If you’re an overachiever suffering from a mysterious cold for two long months, chances are burnout is the hidden culprit. 

Apart from having damaging effects on the immune system, burnout is also associated with sleep disturbances, increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and even male infertility — according to Research Companion to Organizational Health Psychology.

2. Psychological burnout symptoms

Your psyche takes a hit as well — at first, you feel tense, irritable, and prone to outbursts of anger.

Then, cynicism and detachment also kick in at some point, so you start to:

• Feel pessimistic about your future.
• Feel detached from others and your environment.
• Physically and emotionally isolate yourself from others.
• Lose enjoyment in everything you might have liked about your job and work-related activities.

As time goes by, you start to feel anxious, lethargic, apathetic, which in the end may lead to depression.

According to the ICD-11 World Health Organization definition, there are three main signs of burnout in the workplace — if you feel all three of these symptoms, you are likely suffering from burnout:

1. Feeling a depletion of energy and exhaustion.
2. An increase in mental distance from the job, as well as feeling negative and cynical about one’s job.
3. Poorer performance at work.

These are just some burnout symptoms — it may manifest differently in different people. So, for more information, check out this scientific overview on burnout, updated with the latest findings every two to three years.

Research and statistics on burnout

In recent years, the interest in burnout has increased — the ever-increasing number of scientific articles, as well as the number of data collected on the subject, prove this.

Here are some of the more crucial statistics on burnout and stress taken from Statista and several other websites.

Are people familiar with burnout?

When you know what burnout is, your chances to prevent and address it increase. But, how many people are aware of this term, and what it actually means?

Let’s take a look at the chart below for more insight.

As evident, the share of adults who have heard of burnout is substantial — 79% are familiar with the term and its definition, which is great news — although an effort should be made to fully educate the remaining 21%.

How many people have had contact with burnout?

Though people know what burnout is, they may not be capable of recognizing it when it happens to others — or themselves.

According to more research from Statista, age has an influence on whether you, or somebody else, has had contact with burnout, or not.

It seems that the older you are, the less you’re aware of burnout — the 60+ group holds the least share of people who have had experience with burnout or know someone who has suffered it.

In total, only about 26% from the 60+ group have experienced burnout, or know someone else who has — which is a stark difference to the 65% share of those aged 18–29 with the same experiences.

The share of people unaware of burnout cases around them is substantial — this may indicate that a lot of people who are experiencing burnout are keeping it a secret. Again, those aged 18–29 are most likely to have come into any contact with burnout, as opposed to the 78% of people older than 60.

Burnout by country

Not all countries have the same number of people who’ve experienced or felt on the verge of burnout. Furthermore, the percentage of the most affected countries keeps rising each year — the pandemic didn’t do any good either.

These are data from the USA and several European countries most affected by burnout, according to the latest research from 2021:

Russia is leading here (66%), while more than half of the people from the US (52%) have experienced burnout, too. However, the people from the Western European countries, with around 45% to 51% share, aren’t doing much better either. 

Interestingly, the UK numbers dropped from 57% in 2019 to 46% in 2021.

Opinions on burnout

People who have knowledge of burnout, or experience with it, have varied opinions about it:

The positive data is that a lot of people (17% females and 18% males) are aware that burnout is widespread, and the majority (37% females and 36% males) believe it’s not a new condition — it’s rather being diagnosed and treated more often.

Only 6% of females and 9% of males believe it to be overdramatized — which means most people take the conditions seriously, as they should.

Reactions on burnout

The environment has varied responses when someone close to them experiences burnout:

As expected, your friends (67%) and family (63%) are the most understanding when you experience burnout.

The reactions in your company aren’t as timely — only 31% of colleagues and 27% of supervisors react to burnout.

How do companies deal with burnout?

Apart from their poor reaction scores, companies don’t seem to be putting enough effort in dealing or preventing burnout among their employees. 

This is what the statistics show:

Prevention programs that include stress management and preventive healthcare are the most common types of programs available — although the share of employees who have such programs available is small, with the highest share being 27% for people who clock in between 41–50 hours.

Reintegration programs that include coaching and other training meant to help people who’ve already experienced burnout are even rarer — the highest share is 14% for people who work less than 30 or more than 50 hours.

It also seems that the bigger the norm for employee hours, the lesser the chance that the company will address burnout — 41% of people who clock in 50+ hours state that their company doesn’t offer a burnout program at all, and 32% are unsure of it.

Stress as the leading cause of career burnout

An increasing number of people today are feeling stressed over work. They perform massive amounts of work on a weekly basis, all in an effort to stay ahead of the competition — and looking up to famous entrepreneurs who claim to successfully clock in 100+ hours every week isn’t helping.

Since stress at work is the leading cause of career burnout, we want to include some statistics regarding stress, its causes, most stressful jobs, and much more in the section below. 

Most stressful jobs of 2021

Since things have changed since 2019, according to U.S. News & World Report, here is a list of top 10 most stressful jobs in 2021 — together with their median salary:

Physicians were on the frontline to fight the deadly virus and, therefore, ended up being the most stressful occupation in 2021. 

IT managers take the unenviable second position. Some may think their job is stress-free, but the truth is far from that. The majority of the IT specialists need to be reachable 24/7 and need to keep up with the ever-evolving technology. 

Together with lawyers, financial managers, and compliance officers — other health workers are predominant on the list with good reason.  

Least stressful jobs of 2021

From the same source, we present you the least stressful jobs of 2021:

If you ever get tired of working in an office and sitting for hours, consider mowing lawns and enjoying outdoor time as a landscaper or groundskeeper. 

If you don’t mind sitting long hours and designing websites, web development might be a good option for you (and the pay is not so bad itself either). 

Other low-stress occupations include therapists, dental hygienists, and cartographers.

Adults affected by stress from 2012 to 2017

The 2012–2017 statistics from Statista show that about half of all American adults have felt stressed during this time period.

Main causes of stress from 2017

According to a survey from 2017, the sources of stress reported by employees in North America vary, ranging from strenuous workload to a lack of job security:

The workload takes the highest share of the blame for stress (39%), although people issues are a close second, with a share of 31%. 

Main causes of stress at work (post COVID-19)

Much has changed during the past couple of years. 

The American Psychological Association (APA) has devastating news — about 8 in 10 adults (78%) reported COVID 19 to be the major stressor in 2020. 

Apart from having adverse effects on personal relationships, mental and physical health, the pandemic contributed to employees’ poor financial situation, cutting employees’ working hours, losing jobs, lowering employees’ productivity, and unhealthy work/life balance.

Most stressful jobs

According to Statista, here are the 10 most stressful jobs in the US of 2019 together with their stress scores (the higher the score the more stressed a person feels while performing their job):

Enlisted military personnel (total stress score 72.58) and firefighters (total stress score 72.38) expectedly take the lead — the list mostly alternates between professionals who risk their lives and those who spend most of their working hours in the public eye.

Considering that they’re under a lot of pressure, these professionals are often in danger of burning out.

Least stressful jobs

However, not all professionals have it that bad — here are the 10 least stressful jobs of 2019 with their corresponding stress scores:

Diagnostic medical sonographers (total stress score 5.07) and compliance officers (total stress score 5.76) seem to have it easiest when it comes to stress — the list also includes hairstylists (total stress score 6.72) and jewelers (total stress score 9), while massage therapists (total stress score 10.39) round up the list.

How do people affected with burnout deal with it?

People’s opinions on how they should address burnout differs, but we’ve prepared a visual representation of the most common strategies that people use to avoid burnout when action is required:

It was found that 63% of US adults believe that less work pressure is the best strategy to help avoid burnout when experiencing symptoms that have already been stated above. Having a hobby is a close second, with a share of 58%.

This is in line with the statistics that 52% of adults in the U.S. would turn to their family and friends in case of burnout:

In total, about 55% would also turn to a professional to treat and advise them, which is the right way to approach the matter.

The alarming statistic, however, is the share of people who’d try to get through their burnout alone (23%), and the share that would immediately turn to medication (10%).

Causes of burnout

Many factors can cause burnout — most reasons stem from some sort of pressure and feeling stressed out at work, usually caused by a practice they consider uncomfortable. 

We’ve rounded up some of the most common causes of burnout:

Lack of control

Feeling powerless about your position at work is one of the biggest factors.

Perhaps you have little control of what you should do — your schedule, assignments, and priorities are determined by someone else in a way that doesn’t really suit you.

Or, perhaps you don’t know what is expected of you — if you don’t know what your supervisors expect, or if you’re unaware of the level of authority you possess, you’re hardly going to feel comfortable at work, which will cause you stress.

Boredom or chaos at work

Another trigger for burnout is the everyday dynamics in the workplace.

Perhaps you’ve taken a job out of necessity, one that doesn’t fit your skills or interests, and now you’re struggling to keep up.

You may feel bored with your everyday work activities, so you’re constantly looking for some way to jazz things up.

Or, perhaps you never really have the chance to be bored, because you’re constantly putting out fires.

Either way, both extremes will quickly exhaust you, and if they’re a regular occurrence, lead to burnout.

Social life problems

The state of your social life at work, but also at home, can greatly influence your chances of burnout.

Maybe you’re working in an office where someone is bullying you, or where micromanagement is a big part of your workday. Or, you don’t share the same set of values as your colleagues and supervisors — you have your own way of dealing with work, but you feel pressed to follow theirs.

Maybe you feel isolated at your workplace, or in an area of your personal life, so you don’t feel up to the challenge of tackling your everyday workload.

The biggest problem may be that you have no work/life balance — you spend too much time at work, so you no longer have time to spend with your loved ones, which is making you apathetic.

Whatever the case may be, you feel burdened by your social problems, so you can’t focus on work with the love of devotion you could otherwise muster. And, considering you’re falling behind with your work, you’re trying to make up for it by working longer, which leads to even less time for quality socialization, and even more problems.

Remote working after 2020

Telecommuting can be a double-edged sword. It’s a dream come true for some while for others — a living hell. Employees who involuntarily shifted to remote working during 2020 experienced additional stress and work-related burnout. 

According to a study on the impact of involuntary remote working during the beginning of 2020, certain groups of participants were more affected than others. Occupational burnout significantly influenced women with full-time jobs and children. The affected women worked additional 20 hours doing house chores and taking care of children — even though everyone was at home. 

In addition, men (aged 35–54) reported high stress scores due to lack of experience in teleworking, lack of technological knowledge, increased family responsibilities, and fear of layoffs.

Effects of career burnout

According to one study, early-career burnout doesn’t leave visible negative consequences — though burnout at a later stage of your career might. However, if left unnoticed and untreated, burnout can result in serious consequences. 

Decrease in productivity 

It’s logical to assume that feeling burned out can’t have a positive impact on one’s productivity. When employees work in toxic environments, experience micromanagement on a daily basis, and lack of support at work — failing to perform well is the inevitable consequence. 

Physical consequences 

It’s not new that stress and mental exhaustion can trigger physical health issues. Professional burnout can be a culprit for a range of physical outcomes such as cardiovascular diseases, obesity (due to compulsive eating), headaches, gastrointestinal problems, and even musculoskeletal disorders. Interestingly, burned-out workers are twice as likely to develop musculoskeletal pain than those without burnout.

Economic impact

One vital long-term effect of burnout is economy-related — Stanford Medicine research has found that burnout, specifically, physician burnout, costs the US economy $7,600 per physician every year, or $5 billion in total. This problem is so prevalent that Stanford Medicine and the Californian Medical Association have launched a multimillion campaign to battle physician burnout and support doctors.

Turnover 

Exhaustion caused by an extensive increase in workload makes employees leave their jobs. Apart from health care workers who constantly feel pressured at work, educators report high daily stress likewise. In fact, due to poor human relations in the workplace, lack of career development and growth, 30% of educators quit their jobs in the first five years (84% of them depart from a job voluntarily).  

Substance abuse

Since health care workers take the leading position as having the most stressful jobs, they often seem to be the victims of alcohol or drug abuse disorders. In a study conducted among burned-out anesthetics and intensive care physicians, out of 220 participants, 42% of them are at risk of professional burnout. As a consequence of being mentally and physically exhausted at work, some may turn to drinking, sedative medications, and extensive nicotine consumption.

Depression 

Another study claims that burnout and depression overlap — but they don’t mean the same thing. Even though some symptoms occur in both depression and burnout, depression is the outcome of prolonged work-related exhaustion, i.e. burnout.  As depression is a serious mental condition that takes a long time to treat, if not treated properly, depression caused by burnout may result in decreased performance, mental fatigue, social isolation, or even suicidal tendencies.

Therefore, untreated burnout can lead to mild consequences such as decrease in productivity to severe outcomes such as financial losses, high turnover rates, mental disorders, substance abuse, and much more.

“Do I suffer from burnout?” self-assessment test

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) is the most commonly used tool to self-assess whether you might be at risk of burnout. It’s a 22-question test, and it’s been used to track the well-being of workers across a vast range of occupations for over four decades. The test measures three things: exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal achievement.

While the test may be useful — it must not be used as a scientific diagnostic technique. The objective is simply to make you aware that anyone may be at risk of burnout.

You can find the self-assessment test here.

How to prevent/stop burnout (treatment)

As Statista research from the aforementioned statistics showed, one of the most widespread myths around (with a share of 53%) is that burnout can be fixed with a vacation or some time off. But as research shows, vacation is not a quick fix for burnout. Taking a vacation does have positive effects on an employee’s well-being, but it’s rather short-lasting. Therefore, taking a Friday off won’t do the trick.

Burnout is a serious condition that needs to be looked into by a professional — but there are ways you can temporarily help yourself and ease your condition before taking more serious steps.

Start saying “No”

Every time you say “Yes” to a project or request, you’re adding a new item to your to-do list — up until the point you double your working hours in an effort to do everything on time.

It’s important that you address your priorities, and limit the number of requests you’ll tackle. It’s better that you tackle one important task a day than to work overnight to finish three unimportant tasks.

If you simply cannot say “No”, consider other options and whether it’s even possible for you to deliver under certain circumstances. In any case, consider your capabilities and make them known to the requester.

A new assignment given in the early morning on Monday, with a deadline due in the afternoon on Tuesday — OK.

Three new assignments given in the late afternoon to be finished by tomorrow morning — negotiate the deadline, or the amount of work.

Also have in mind that, while it’s usually others who overload you with work, you can also do it to yourself.

If you have a number of ideas, don’t tackle them all at once — single out your most profitable ideas, and leave the rest for later.

Don’t push yourself to power through

Staying motivated and positive is welcome, but if you’re exhausted, pushing yourself to power through when you can barely keep yourself from falling asleep, won’t help you.

Instead, give yourself some time off — get a nap, eat nutrient-rich snacks, go for a walk. Also, make sure you schedule in breaks and downtime — unwinding is important if you want to remain productive, but also avoid burnout.

Working non-stop will make you productive and efficient for a short while — but remember that it’s almost guaranteed to make you miserable and burned out in the long run.

Take time to lead a healthy life

Make sure you always leave time for a healthy diet, regular exercising, and enough sleep. Also, make sure you stay hydrated throughout the day.

Although these points may seem less important when you’re pressed with a deadline, you’re not doing your health (or your productivity for that matter) any favor if you’re working hungry, thirsty, and sleep-deprived.

Also, exercising may seem like a redundant and tiring addition to the mix, but there’s scientific proof that regular exercising benefits your mental health — which makes it worth the effort.

Practice positive thinking

Considering burnout causes you to slip into negativity, you should aim to practice positive thinking. Try this by making positive statements about your future — considering it’s difficult to think positively when it seems everything is against you, start small.

First, start by thinking something positive when you go to bed — for example, think of at least one good thing you did that day.

Apart from thinking positively, spreading positivity around you will also bring you benefits and make you feel better — you can do something nice for a coworker at the office or take on volunteering in your spare time.

Reconsider your goals

When the way you address work doesn’t really mirror your work ethics and values, your stress levels take a hit. So, you should reassess your current practices and reconsider your goals.

Think about what your work means to you, and what your role at the office is — once you understand what your values are, you’ll be able to decipher what it is that is missing from your work life.

Do you feel appreciated, respected, included in your company’s culture? If not, try to find a way to incorporate these missing elements into your daily routines.

Consider alternative therapy

Don’t ignore your stress but try to find a way to tackle it, and improve your mood: meditation, yoga, and deep breathing exercises are all viable strategies you can try. Pay close attention to your emotions and thoughts by incorporating mindfulness meditation into your daily routine. It will not empty your mind but help you to let go of your negative thoughts and focus on what matters most.

How to practice mindfulness meditation?

1. Choose a time and find a quiet place.
2. Close your eyes and think about the present moment.
3. Don’t judge your thoughts but let them pass by like clouds in the sky.
4. If your thoughts wander away (and they will), “return” them to the present time.
5. Repeat this practice for about 5 to 10 minutes every day (or when you feel like it, have time, etc.).

Take some “you” time

All work and no play is bound to make you feel stressed, so make sure you reshuffle your impossible schedule to spend some time on your favorite activities.

Leave time for hobbies, re-read your favorite book, or listen to your favorite music. Spend some time with your loved ones — you’re not likely to endure stress and burnout alone.

Develop time awareness  

When you are sloppy with your schedule and miss deadlines every once in a while — burnout is what happens next. To avoid this from happening, consider inducing some changes in your time management. Sometimes, even the smallest changes can make a big difference. 

Therefore, here are some habits you should avoid and activities you should do instead: 

Stop overworking → Learn to prioritize your work accordingly

Don’t spend your precious time on trivial work → Start tracking your time 

Stop working without breaks → Use the Pomodoro technique to work using breaks 

Stop being sloppy with your workload → Declutter your schedule by blocking out your day

Stop pressuring yourself to work → Take deserved time off 

Help from colleagues goes a long way

Considering that a positive environment is best when we want people to address their problems. Thus, if you suspect a colleague is suffering from burnout or is in danger from suffering one, don’t ignore it.

First, ask them how they’re doing — this way you’re letting them know that their work environment is concerned for their well-being.

Mention you’ve noticed they have changed, and ask whether there’s something they’d want to share.

If they want to share with you, listen to them without casting judgment.

Suggest that they also speak with a professional about what’s worrying them, so that they can get the best possible guidance and advice.

Consider alternative work arrangements

If you feel used up or burned out every time you come home from work, it’s time to take action and think about your options.  

You can benefit from a wide range of freelance jobs that are now more accessible than ever — this can be a better alternative than just quitting your job without having any monthly income. Flexible working can give you enough time to think about your future career goals — maybe you change your profession entirely.

What’s more, if your company offers remote or hybrid work setups — make use of it. This allows you to work from the comfort of your home while you can always spend a few days at the office, too. What can help you make a decision is determining your personality type and see which work setup works best for you according to your MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator).

Wrapping up…

Don’t allow a toxic and unfulfilling job to jeopardize your well-being. Bear in mind that mental health awareness can help you identify your symptoms promptly, break the mental health stigma, and most importantly — reach out for help. This circles us back to the most important point — when you suspect you’re in danger of burnout, always consult professional medical help. These tactics can only take you so far, but burnout is a serious condition, and you should take it seriously.

Have you ever experienced career burnout? How did you deal with it? Write to us at blogfeedback@clockify.me for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles.