Superman has kryptonite, Indiana Jones has snakes, and Consultants have...the dreaded time sheet.
When we left Indiana, he had just jumped into the plane, and Jacques was pulling away from the river's edge. He looks down and sees snakes slithering around the floor of the plane and up his legs. "I HATE SNAKES!" said Indie.
As I said, we consultants have snakes too. As we move through our day and week, we are bombarded with major disruptions from members sales, marketing, product management, other customers, etc. We push "send" on that email with the deliverable that was due today attached. Its 6p, and we are running late for something (dinner, kids soccer game, a flight out), so we hightail it out of the office and to our car, but its not until we are half way home that we remember that time sheets are due and we completely forgot to submit ours. "I HATE TIME SHEETS!" we say to ourselves!
Time sheet data submitted by the consultants is critical to the business owners ability to properly bill customers, evaluate service offerings, and manage resource needs and allocations. Yet, time tracking and submission is often an after thought for most consultants. In the grand scheme of things, tracking time and inputting it into the system is the last thing the consultants want to do.
You commit to getting your time sheet done once you get home, but dinner's ready and the kids need help with their home work. You completely forget. You get to work on Monday morning, and there are a handful of emails in your inbox - some reminding you to get your time sheet in on time; others nagging you because your time sheet is late.
When you open up the time sheet system to complete your time sheet - you are stuck. You don't remember what you did yesterday, let alone last week. You start what I call the archeological dig:
When we left Indiana, he had just jumped into the plane, and Jacques was pulling away from the river's edge. He looks down and sees snakes slithering around the floor of the plane and up his legs. "I HATE SNAKES!" said Indie.
As I said, we consultants have snakes too. As we move through our day and week, we are bombarded with major disruptions from members sales, marketing, product management, other customers, etc. We push "send" on that email with the deliverable that was due today attached. Its 6p, and we are running late for something (dinner, kids soccer game, a flight out), so we hightail it out of the office and to our car, but its not until we are half way home that we remember that time sheets are due and we completely forgot to submit ours. "I HATE TIME SHEETS!" we say to ourselves!
Time sheet data submitted by the consultants is critical to the business owners ability to properly bill customers, evaluate service offerings, and manage resource needs and allocations. Yet, time tracking and submission is often an after thought for most consultants. In the grand scheme of things, tracking time and inputting it into the system is the last thing the consultants want to do.
You commit to getting your time sheet done once you get home, but dinner's ready and the kids need help with their home work. You completely forget. You get to work on Monday morning, and there are a handful of emails in your inbox - some reminding you to get your time sheet in on time; others nagging you because your time sheet is late.
When you open up the time sheet system to complete your time sheet - you are stuck. You don't remember what you did yesterday, let alone last week. You start what I call the archeological dig:
- First you dig through your calendar
- Next, you look at emails and phone records
- Then you search through the various documents on which you worked throughout the week.
You piece together some of the time, but you have to make up the rest. Do you add the missing time to non-billable tasks like "Admin," or do you add time to your billable projects?
We'd love to hear from you? How much time do you spend each week recreating your week for your time sheet? What do you do with all those hours you know you worked but for which you cannot find?
Contact us at amulligan@sophity.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment