The Question to Ask First

Most people arrive at time tracking through a feeling and leave with an app. The question below puts them back in order. Organisations asking the same question at team level can compare their process with the remote-team guide: define the purpose, make the record visible to the people in it, and interpret time data alongside finished work rather than on its own.

The question

What would you do differently if you knew?

Asked of the specific thing you want to measure, before any method is chosen.

What the answers point to

"I'd stop doing one of these things." You need categories and a fortnight. The alignment question, and it is answerable.

"I'd charge differently." A billing question with its own accuracy standard, and the cheapest methods will not do.

"I'd plan better." An estimation problem: track a few instances of one recurring task rather than everything.

"I'd feel better about my week." Not a tracking question. Data rarely produces that, and sometimes makes it worse.

"I don't know." The most common honest answer, and it means the tracking would be a substitute for a decision you have not made.

Why it works

It forces the decision to exist before the data does.

It sizes the effort: most answers need two weeks, not a permanent system.

And it catches the cases where measuring is avoidance, which are more common than people expect and which no amount of data resolves.

The second question

How accurate does the answer need to be?

Within an hour a week is enough for most personal questions.

Within five minutes is needed for billing and almost nothing else.

Matching the method to the answer is the whole of choosing one, and the methods section is arranged by exactly this.

The third question

When will you stop?

Because the default is never, and open-ended tracking is what degrades into unreliable data and abandoned systems.

Two weeks, then read it, then decide whether to repeat.

Using them on a product

Time tracking products are sold on continuous use, because that is the business model.

Which is a legitimate product and an answer to a question most people do not have.

Ask the three questions first, and for many people the answer is a notebook for a fortnight.

The collection in one line

Know what you would change, measure only as precisely as that needs, and stop when you have the answer.

Everything else here is the detail of doing that without the measuring becoming the activity.

Asking it of a product

Time tracking products are sold on continuous use because that is the business model.

Ask the three questions first; for many people the honest answer is a notebook for a fortnight.

Worth keeping in mind

If the honest answer to what you would do differently is nothing, the tracking is standing in for a decision. That is worth catching before a month of recording rather than after.

The short version

Ten minutes with the three questions produces a better arrangement than any product comparison, and it frequently ends with the conclusion that no product is needed.

In short

Most people arrive at this subject through a feeling and leave with an app.

The three questions put them back in order, and the order is what determines whether anything comes of it.

The point

The default answer, when there is no specific question, is two weeks of sampling rather than a system.

It costs a minute a day and frequently ends the matter. For a complementary perspective on work, measurement or planning, consult GOV.UK.