Thread: Retaining and documenting your work timings

Freelancers, in particular, besides their customers and projects, have a knack of forgetting to document their work timings. That is however very important when it comes to invoicing. But book keeping software is expensive and mostly rather complicated to use.

Outlook often has functions that are overlooked, which can be very well used for this purpose. Open the 'Contacts' folder and right-click on the entry of the relevant customer, for whom you plan to work next. Then select the context command 'New journal entry for contact' or in Outlook 2007 'Create I New journal :entry for 'contact'.

In the following window, describe the planned activities in short under 'Subject'. As the 'Entry Type', select between the specified categories, e.g. 'Telephone call', 'Entertainment' or 'Document', to classify the activity. More detailed information is described below the entry field. Finally, click 'Start Timer'. Outlook counts the working time in minutes. The current status can be seen in the 'Duration' of the journal entry anytime. As soon as your work is over, you can click on 'Stop Timer' and 'Save and close'.

When you later write the invoice for the clients. open the relevant entry in the 'Contacts' view by double clicking it. In Outlook 2007, use the activities button in the multi-function bar in the 'Contacts' tab in the 'View' section. Outlook then lists all documented activities for this contact. Under 'View' select the entry 'Journal', to exclusively show the recorder time.

NOTE: In the standard view, Outlook does not show the total duration, so, you must open each individual journal entry. In order to avoid that, right-click. on the titles of the list and open 'Field selection'. Then, in the combination box, select 'All journal fields' and drag the 'Duration' via Drag & Drop in the title line of the displayed activities. Then close the 'Field selection' using the system button.