Filling timesheets is a chore and most IT professionals don’t see any value in that and that’s why in the heat of things often forget to fill it. They are very important to track the work done by the employees on the project, for the client(s), duration spent on tasks, etc. The organization reiterates the importance but there would hardly be an IT professional who has always filled the timesheets on time.
A timely and well-filled timesheet can save you from your Manager’s rebuke and get your salary timely in your account. But that’s not just it, a good timesheet can be your ally in your corporate career. If used right, it can help you improve yourself and also propel your career.
And, here’s how timesheets can help you as an ally:
- Stakeholder Reporting:- In many projects and organizations, daily or weekly reporting to the manager or the client is required. This takes time to think through it and it’s usually repeated information. The same information can be extracted from the timesheet if it is filled in properly and in a detailed manner and can be sent to multiple stakeholders as and when required without the need to waste time to remember your actions.
- Daily Standups:- In today’s world, most of the projects follow the Agile model of delivery, and during the daily standups, a team member is supposed to answer the 3 major questions (what did you do yesterday? what are you planning to do today, and any obstacles?). Even if you haven’t woken up properly during the morning meeting or the last Friday details are sort of hazy during Monday morning standups, you can easily answer the first question by simply relying on your timesheet.
- Use it as a Planner:- At the beginning of the day you can plan out what you want to do and jot the important points down, log any scheduled meetings within the timesheet, so half of the timesheet could be filled at the beginning of the day itself. You only need to elucidate the tasks and add any ad-hoc tasks that you did during the day or any changes in the meeting schedules. This way timesheet can serve as your planner and checklist and during the day you can refer to it to ensure you are on track to complete everything that you planned for in the morning. If you do this before daily standups, you even have the answer to the second question, i.e. what are you planning to do today?
- Performance Reviews:- Timesheets are a snapshot of your achievements in the past. When you are preparing for your quarterly or yearly performance review, you don’t always remember all the things that you accomplished in the past quarter and certainly not for the whole year. Timesheets can be used to get such useful information and you can even cite specific instances where the contribution was significant (on specific dates) or went beyond the call of duty.
- Improvement Plan:- Timesheets are essentially the window to your performance, when you fill it right and in a detailed manner, it can help you improve your performance as well. Every week or two take a look at the previous period’s timesheets and review how much time you took for different tasks? why something that was easy took more time? are there any meetings or activities that you could have avoided? can rearranging the activities or tasks help you perform better? and most importantly are you spending more time than required? This can serve as a self-improvement program if you religiously fill and review your timesheets. Nothing and nobody can provide you this kind of detailed review and insight into your day-to-day work. Once you understand the problem, you can do course corrections and again track it through timesheets.
It can always seem a daunting task if you are trying to fill the timesheet once a week or once a fortnight and it will definitely seem a waste of time as you won’t remember things you achieved clearly. Start with the habit of filling it up multiple times a day for more detailed output and to achieve the gains mentioned above.