Time tracking is the process of recording how you spend your working hours. For freelancers who bill by the hour, it's the foundation of getting paid accurately. But even for fixed-price projects, time tracking reveals which clients and projects are actually profitable.
Why Time Tracking Matters
Without tracking time, you're guessing. You think a project took four hours, but it took seven. You assume a client is profitable, but the hourly math says otherwise.
Time tracking gives you:
- Accurate billing - Invoice clients for actual time worked
- Profitability insights - See which projects drain time vs make money
- Better estimates - Historical data makes future quotes more accurate
- Accountability - Clients get transparent breakdowns of work done
- Productivity awareness - Understand where your day actually goes
Methods of Time Tracking
Manual entry - Write down what you did and estimate the duration. Simple but unreliable. Memory fails, estimates are wrong.
Timer-based - Start a timer when you begin work, stop it when you finish. Captures exact duration. Most accurate for focused tasks.
Automatic tracking - Software monitors your activity and categorizes time automatically. Hands-off but requires setup and can feel invasive.
Most freelancers use a mix: timers for project work, manual entry for meetings and admin tasks.
Common Challenges
- Forgetting to track - You finish the work but forget to log it
- Context switching - Hard to track when jumping between tasks
- Inconsistent habits - Track some days, skip others
- Admin overhead - Tracking shouldn't take longer than the work itself
The best time tracking system is the one you'll actually use. It needs to be fast, low-friction, and fit your workflow.
Chronobill combines timers and manual entry in one place, syncs with invoicing, and shows you unbilled time at a glance—so tracking becomes part of your workflow, not extra work.