Harvest Your Time!

After just a year in business, I almost have my available hours fully booked.

It’s a great problem to have, believe me.

I’ve tried a few different ways of recording my hours, with varying levels of frustration. Since I now have a client who pays me by the hour, not on a monthly retainer, I needed a simple yet effective way of tracking my time.

A few weeks ago, I revisited a tool that I had tried before, and I think I’ve finally found a way to use it that works for me.

Here’s the blurbage from their website:

Harvest was founded by Danny Wen and Shawn Liu in 2006, at a small office in downtown New York City. During the years leading up to launching Harvest, we ran a web design studio called Iridesco. As our business grew, we looked for tools to help us scale. We searched for a way to easily track time and invoice for our services. We wanted a well-designed application that took user experience seriously. We wanted a service that innovated with technology. We couldn’t find one…
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I have Harvest set up with my business, CMR Communications, as the Client. I have each of *my* clients set up as Projects. Under those projects are Tasks (Conference Call, Event Planning, Research/Writing, Meeting.)

I can set a budget for hours for each month, and my rate per hour (for the hourly client.) I can even set the date when the budget renews (as I have one client whose agreement started on the 15th of the month.) And when it comes time to invoice the hourly client, I can quickly generate a monthly time and billing report.

My Harvest timer is always close at hand. There’s a Chrome extension that I can click to start and stop the clock from my desktop. There’s also an iPhone app. I will admit that I made a little sign from an index card that says “Timer On / Timer Off” to help me remember that the meter’s running! It’s off in the photo above because I’m working on this blog post!

All those bells and whistles for just $12 a month! But they offer a 10% discount if you pay for a year in advance. I’m halfway through my free, one-month trial and I’m a believer. If you give it a try – and if you sign up – use this code and I’ll get at $10 rebate! http://try.hrv.st/3-104603

What tools have you found to help you spend more time doing what you do best and less time on paperwork? Drop me a line and I’ll carve out some time to make #SmallTalk!