Time management is a very important factor in almost every profession. But in the life of developers, it has always been a controversial subject. Some people think that time tracking helps them to enhance their productivity. Whereas some contend that there is no need for it as programmers are often resistant to the notion of measuring time because it provides an impression of being observed.
But in reality, time tracking can be a very helpful method for developers when used properly. So let’s figure out why it is exactly useful and which is the best time tracking software you can use to help yourself out.
1. Helps to boost productivity
Productivity is often measured by calculating the total number of hours an employee has worked. But this cannot be true in the case of developers. People who work in the office know very well that the amount of time spends at work cannot ideally define how productive a person is.
Different types of coding require different times. Sometimes, code needs to be written from scratch, and sometimes it takes a lot of time for research before actually writing the code. There are a lot of possibilities as software development belongs to the creative industry, and that’s the reason productivity cannot be measured easily.
However, time tracking is different from productivity tracking. It can actually make developers more efficient and productive by making them more conscious about their work, which in turn helps them to avoid distractions and focus more on productive work.
In addition, when you review your daily/weekly report on time tracking software, you may suddenly realize that you have spent a tremendous amount of time on minor tasks that do not add much to your wallet or the progress of the current project. This perspective helps you to reorganize your everyday work schedule and concentrate on more important things.
2. Helps To Increase Accountability
Accountability is characterized as one’s willingness of a person to accept the responsibility of the actions they have done. Generally, if anything goes wrong or become off track, employees point fingers on each other, or try to blame the other team, and so on. But, when you use time tracking software, you can get to know who is the responsible person through screenshots.
And by saying accountable, it doesn’t mean that the employee time tracking tool motivates you to blame whoever is not doing well. Its main aim is to have a dialogue with the client, to figure out what went wrong and why, and to communicate with them in the future, so similar problems do not arise. If the developers do their job correctly, they shouldn’t mind greater responsibility.
3. Improve Relationships
Time monitoring tools for software developers strengthen relationships with workers and managers, as well as with customers. Time logging promotes transparency, improves trustworthiness, and builds an open working environment.
On the other hand, the tool also helps developers to spend less time on administrative activities, including contact with customers. Some time monitoring solutions like EmpMonitor have amazing features through which the managers and even clients can log in to check the time duration the employees are spending on each resource or some other non-work related activities.
It is just perfect because to get progress feedback they won’t have to call or email — they can just log into the dashboard and see all that’s going on.
4. Sets you apart
There is no doubt that nowadays, a lot of people are becoming freelancers. Even companies are becoming global and are hiring freelance developers for their projects. But being self-employed is not easy, and the actual difficulty comes when you try to make clients land at your desk.
The market is flooded with a lot of quality developers, and to stand ahead of others, you need to be different, and time tracking software helps you in doing that. If you show to the clients that you have used quantitative measures to enhance your productivity, then there is a higher chance that companies/clients will select you.
Generally, when people look for content developers, they look for quality work, plus efficiency. The reason behind this is, they try to get the most out of their money. They hesitate to flow out more cash for the developers who are unable to justify their previous work.
So, when they come across a potential developer who has numbers and graphs to back the previous works, then it’s altogether a different story. This is why you should use time tracking software. It’s just not a tool but also a powerful asset to help you gain potential clients.
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5. Lets you divide your work equally
Developers often work on multiple projects at the same time, and if you also fall under this category, then time tracking software will be very beneficial for you.
Let’s say there is a deadline, and a few clients expect you to finish the project on a specific time frame. They really don’t care how much effort you have to put in to make it happen or how much time it will take. The only thing that matters to them is whether their assigned project is finished on time or not.
In such cases, time tracking software can save your life because you can constantly track your time and know exactly where you have spent more time or which project you have overdone or which you have neglected. Accordingly, you can divide your time and give proper attention to every project equally.
How To Track Time With EmpMonitor?
As a software developer, measuring time will help you simplify your job and make all operations seamless. It is not just helpful for yourself but also for your customers so that you can keep them up-to-date with work progress.
To track your time, you need the right tool and what’s better than EmpMonitor to carry out this activity. It will help you to streamline your day-to-day workflow and remain top of your work. Let’s check out how.
Report Generation
Being a software developer, you may work on various tasks like research, debugging, coding, resolving bugs, building or modifying the software, etc. And some tasks take seconds to get completed, whereas others take minutes, hours, or even days depending upon the situation.
So, with the help of EmpMonitor, you can generate reports on a weekly/monthly basis to analyze your work. In this way, you will be aware of the time you are investing in a particular task, and then you can divide your time if you think you have overdone it.
You just need to click on the “Reports” option from the dashboard, and you will be able to fetch the detailed report of the last 30 or 180 days in the form of instinctive charts and graphs.
User Logs
Though business should always be done on the basis of trust. But there are some clients whom you often need to give evidence that you are just not trying to rip their money off. So if you want your client or manager to perceive you as an accountable person, then you need to keep them informed.
With EmpMonitor, you can check all your activities and manage all the information through a single dashboard. You can get insights into your working and non-working hours, plus your login and logout time. Hence, you can export these reports and show them to your clients.
To view your login details, you just need to click on employee details, then employee full details, and then user log details. There you will get the present as well as the logs from the past 7 days.
Apart from time tracking, EmpMonitor can also be used for so many other purposes. It offers amazing features like screenshots, keystrokes, stealth mode, browsing history, and many others, which ultimately helps in boosting productivity. The best part is, it can be used by both individuals for their personal growth, and for companies as well.
Wrap Up
Though developers are not really keen on tracking time while working. But, hopefully after reading this article, their perception on this might change and they start considering time tracking as an important factor for boosting productivity. And no wonder the time tracking tool is the best way to achieve that.