Using tools and client tracking software for project management can help improve your workflow and reporting dramatically.
They often say the secret to success is simply learning how to best manage your time. It’s hard to argue with that — especially when you don’t want to see yourself burning out from working 14 hour days.
Plus, the proof is in the pudding. When we finally built Hassl and moved our business onto it, managing each project became a breeze. We tripled our business in three years, grew our team and continue (as Cardi B often sings about) making ‘money moves’.
But the best part? We do it all without overwhelming the team. We streamlined our workflow with Hassl, plan out projects with estimated hours and ensure no one’s workweek is overloaded. With time tracking and estimated hours on each project, Hassl also provides easy report exports.
Here are some of our tried and tested tips:
- Start time tracking tasks so you can spot ‘time sinks’
- Build accurate invoices with time tracking
- Export slick reports for clients
- Prevent burnout with estimated hours and time tracking
- Don’t waste time micro-managing
Time track tasks to find ‘time sinks’
When you’re not a designer, it can be hard to put an estimate on how long it’ll take to come up with a design framework for a task. Then, you have to consider what your client’s changes are going to be. Clients could want a whole other design direction — in which case your employee is probably going to be spending more time on that task.
Ensuring that your team is time tracking means that you can start understanding what a good estimated time can be, to quote to clients. It also means you can spot a recurring problem, like the one above. If you know a client is going to insist on massive changes each time, you can account for it, in your employee’s week.
Accurate invoicing through time tracking
Time tracking ensures your clients aren’t paying for more (or less!) than what they’re asking for. It helps produce a cohesive report by the end of each project, to show to the client, complete with hours tracked per task, and when.
If you ever have a client that requires a transparent understanding of the work that goes in, Hassl can help with that.
Exporting reports from Hassl
Hassl makes it easy to export reports straight into an Excel file. This can help save massive amounts of time when you’d often have a project manager to manually put in hours or tasks.
Prevent burnout
One of the most important benefits of reporting on Hassl is the increased insight you gain from each project. It helped us truly build out our ‘work different’ philosophy, ensuring no employee was ever burnt out. Time estimates, productivity, areas of improvement — it all adds up to
The benefits of using project reporting are it allows you to gain insight into the projects you are working on, how productive you have been, areas to improve and whether you are staying on time. This is also great to send to clients, managers or team members to outline current progress.
Set tasks, prevent micromanagement
When you set tasks in advance, you make your team’s week that much easier. With deadlines in place and a quick morning meeting — you can rest assured that your team will know what to get done and when, all at their own pace. It helps prevent the induced anxiety of a manager looming over their heads, giving them autonomy.
So there you have it, a little guide on making your work life that much easier…simply by working differently. Emphasise more on Hassl, less on the hustle. 😉