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How to Manage Your Team’s Projects and Times with Timing and Zapier
Please note: while you can still use the guide below for managing your team with Zapier, we now offer Timing for Teams, which is much more convenient.
Two weeks ago, we explained how you can use Timing with Zapier to streamline your billing process. Today, we will build on these foundations to help you manage your team’s projects and times through Zapier. If you are unfamiliar with the process of connecting Timing to Zapier, have a look at that article for a detailed example.
In particular, you can have Zapier automatically create projects for each of your team members, then send their tracked time to a shared Google Sheet for reporting. That way, you can quickly consolidate your time tracking and billing in one place.
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How to Streamline Your Billing Process with Zapier and Timing
One of the most common questions we hear at Timing is: How can I bill my clients for the time I track with Timing?
Thanks to the Timing Web App and its Zapier integration, we now have a much better answer to this question. Our Zapier integration lets you send your times to hundreds of other billing and time tracking services, such as FreshBooks, Quickbooks, Toggl, and many more!
Zapier is a web service that lets you connect thousands of apps, sending data from one service to another. For example, you can use the Timing web app together with Zapier to automatically export tasks, create projects, and even post messages to Slack when you start a task. Zapier automatically processes your data in the background, so you can keep focusing on your work at all times. Simply set your “Zap” once and forget about it — no extra work on your end.
Read on for a step-by-step guide on using Zapier to send your Timing tasks to FreshBooks for invoicing. This process works just as well for a whole lot of other invoicing apps, of course! Plus, we’ll inspire you with several more ideas for integrating your Timing data with other apps.
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Timing 2019.1: Undo Support and Usability Improvements
We are happy to announce the release of Timing 2019.1! Read on for the update’s full release notes.
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MacSparky Video Guide for Timing now available!
We have partnered with David Sparks (also known as MacSparky) to create a five-part video guide on Timing! The first few videos offer a great way to get started with Timing, while the later ones dive deep into Timing’s more advanced features such as rules and manual tracking.
In particular, you will learn:
- How Timing can help make your time tracking easier and more accurate.
- How you can categorize your activities in Timing, letting you see exactly what you worked on at any given time.
- How you can manually capture time entries and calendar events or meetings into Timing.
- How you can set up your projects for maximum efficiency.
- What more advanced, “power user” features Timing offers.
Read on to watch all five videos!
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Time Scarcity Can Be Beaten! Here’s How to Break Free
Do you say ‘I don’t have time’ too much? Here’s how to manage your time better with a change in mindset, and Mac productivity apps that will restore the hours in your day.
It’s already July. Where has the year gone? For that matter, do you remember the millenium? Children born in the Millenium will now be graduating from high school and heading off to college. Where has the time gone?
“I don’t have time” is said way. Too. Much. Period. Yet we all have 24 hours in the day, so how do some people seem to have so much more?
Statistics are now showing us how “I don’t have time” is just blatantly wrong. We work less than we used to, and we have more free time. Yet that is far from the experience of most people.
But why? There’s one simple explanation, which is that we’re spending too much time on our screens, even when we’re not working. In a 2017 Ted Talk, psychologist Adam Alter analysed why our screens are stealing our time, and the reasons why this isn’t good for our mental health.
It goes beyond our screens though. Being busy has become fashionable, a badge of success. It used to be that having made it meant that you had leisure time. Now, it seems that the wealthy and successful have more jam-packed schedules than any of us.
So how do you break out of this culture where being busy is a status symbol, and develop a mindset of time abundance, rather than poverty. From work time apps and Mac productivity apps to a change in the words you use in daily life, here are some ways to reclaim the hours in your day.
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9 Entrepreneurs Share Weird Ways They Manage Time Effectively
Tired of the same old tips for how to manage time? We asked productivity experts to weigh in with what they consider their ‘weirdest’ tips.
Want to be more productive? Get up earlier, work in small bursts, exercise, and drink water. If I had a dollar for every article on the internet telling me to do these, I’d be richer than a Kardashian.
What about the things that you don’t hear constantly: the experiments, and the personal discoveries? The Eureka moments when those of us desperate to eke more time out of our day realize if I do this small thing I work so much better!
Employing some lesser-known hacks might be what you need to transition from stress-preneur to entrepreneur. Don’t worry, though, we’re only advocating legal techniques, unlike micro-dosing LSD which is currently the trending productivity hack in Silicon Valley.
To find some brand new productivity hacks, we asked some experts what they do to get the most from their day. Think you know it all already? You’re about to find out.
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Procrastinator? How to Manage Your Time With Micro-Progress
There’s a new craze on the block called micro-progress, to help you just get stuff done and feel happier while you do so.
I’m about to say something you’ll hate.
You are not short of time. You have time. If you really wanted to, you could fit everything into your day. Exercise, work, a social life, healthy eating — all of it.
What was your reaction? Did you make an excuse, or start formulating ‘reasons’, for why you legitimately have no time? If so, then you need to take that excuse out of your vocabulary. Now. It’s as much of a procrastination aid as cat videos … but with more guilt, and less fluff.
If you want to procrastinate less — and do more — then you don’t need a grand master plan of how to manage your time. Actually, you need the opposite. It’s tempting to try and set yourself grand, unachievable goals, and then either never start of give up early on. Because changing enough to fulfil these lofty goals requires too many lifestyle changes.
It’s not that you don’t have time. It’s that it’s not a priority to change your entire schedule and current set of habits to create the time. Or as entrepreneur coach Peter Shankman puts it:
“If you want something to be a priority in your life, you make the time for it at the expense of something you deem not as important. It’s truly that simple.”
Which is great, but again, what if that’s too much friction? What if you still procrastinate and don’t have time? How do you get out of this loop?
If you’re thinking that this is just another article to guilt you into feeling bad about not doing enough with your day, then don’t worry. Micro-progress is a feel good method of becoming more productive, and using your time better. Better still, it’s something you can accomplish easily with a Mac productivity app — so no fancy equipment is required.
Whether you want to develop a new app, launch a new business, get fitter, or just do more with your day, tracking what you’re doing in terms of micro-progress is bound to change how you’re managing your time.
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From Time Tracking Apps to Marketing — Where and Why Freelancers Should Invest
When I used to work as a marketing consultant for a digital marketing company, I would talk to dozens of freelancers and SMEs every week. The main reason I heard constantly for not buying services was: “I just don’t have the money right now, I’m just starting out/short on funds.”
Often, they would promise to ring me back the moment they had a few sales, or had found that investor, or the moment high season began.
You won’t be shocked when I tell you that call rarely came, and I didn’t wait for it.
Does that sound familiar? If you’re just starting out as a freelancer, every cent you make is to put food on your table — so investing it back in yourself and your new business might be the furthest thing from your mind. The key thing is, it’s just that — an investment.
Take timekeeping software for your Mac, for instance. You could just use a clock, but you won’t get the same benefits of knowing where your time has gone. When money is so limited, though, you have to be extremely careful about just how you invest it… and just using a clock seems more appealing, but could cost you money in the long run. Whether it’s thousands of dollars on paid advertising, or fifty dollars on a time tracking app, the decision about where to put your money for the best return on investment is never an easy one.
With years of experience of marketing, tools and apps, we’re here to break down what you should invest in, why, and when’s the right time to do so.
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Mental Health Challenges as a Freelancer — and How to Cope
To celebrate May being mental health awareness month, we’re looking at the challenges faced by freelancers… and how to survive them.
When you’re looking into the life of a freelancer from the outside, it can seem idyllic. No boss breathing down your neck, flexible hours, and the ability to make your own schedule. Who wouldn’t want to do that? So when you quit your job to finally work on the project or career you’ve been planning for years, there normally follows an intense period of euphoria… by the crash. You might put too much pressure on yourself and burn out or feel like you’re being ruled by Murphy’s Law.
Freelancers are predicted to make up to 50% of the workforce by 2020, so it’s vitally important that awareness is raised about the mental health challenges that we face by taking our employment into our own hands. As a 2004 Australian study put it, “overall, self-employment was found to be associated with relatively few mental health benefits,” but why is that? What are the biggest challenges as a freelancer, and how do you make it a success while, most importantly, staying sane?
As someone who’s been through possibly more than my fair share of mental health challenges, here are three of the biggest issues to be aware of when you’re considering going down the freelance route. If you’re already a freelancer, then now’s a good time to check in with yourself. Are your habits healthy, or are you heading towards a breakdown?
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Why Automated Time Tracking Apps Are the Ultimate Time Management Hack
The best argument for why you should be using an automated time tracker: because life’s too short for being unproductive.
If you’re even at all nerdy about how to improve your life skills, you’ve read articles saying that time tracking is how super-busy entrepreneurs stay sane, balanced, and become successful. It’s kind of a chicken-and-egg thing though, isn’t it? Which came first, the personality of that really successful person you’re aspiring to be, or their organizational skills? Have you found yourself reading about one of your business idols, and their morning routines, and thinking you will never have the discipline to be that strict with your time management?
If you’ve been following along with our articles recently, you’ll have noticed a theme of time management skills. We started with goal setting and deciding your motivation behind tracking your time, then structuring your day effectively, and lastly how to turn these new skills into habits. One of the pieces of advice in the last article is that removing friction is one of the best ways to keep your new habits rolling. Time tracking apps are an integral part in effective time management skills, so why are they a source of so much anguish? If you’re not yet automating this part of the process, here’s why you should be.
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