Why does nobody use Time Tracking?
Updated on 17 Nov 2024
This article is written for software developers, however it applies equally well to all knowledge workers.
Time tracking is often met with mixed emotions. On one hand, it promises better project forecasts, personal insights, and accountability. On the other, it can be irritating, intrusive, and sometimes counterproductive. In this article, I'll give my theory on the true value of time tracking, examine its downsides, explore what an ideal solution might look like, and share how I'm working to make time tracking better.
The value of time tracking
Time tracking provides value by enabling realistic forecasting. Without accurate data on how long similar tasks took in the past, reliable predictions are impossible. Project timelines are often wrong for two reasons: poor data and poor forecasting techniques. Setting aside the techniques for another time, project timelines rarely use concrete data; instead, they are typically built on recollections and assumptions. This leaves planning vulnerable to optimism bias and all the foibles of human memory.
Engineers with access to historical data will be able to provide better, more accurate forecasts on future projects. [1]
My research has found that time tracking also has a less pragmatic, but no less real, appeal; it is simply intriguing. Many enjoy seeing a tangible record of how they’ve spent their time, and not necessarily because it’s actionable information. One person I spoke with compared tracking work time to taking an online personality test. Both give people a sense of satisfaction and empowerment, simply by offering a clear reflection of their habits and routines. While this feeling might be more about personal affirmation than practical insight, it’s still meaningful; many find value in seeing a record of their efforts, even if it’s primarily for self-reflection.
Accurate time tracking reduces losses from overly conservative billing. From my own experience as a freelancer, I know the apprehension of billing a client when I feel I delivered less than what I promised - often for reasons outside of my control. Sometimes things take longer than expected. It wasn’t uncommon for me to feel guilty and decide to invoice fewer hours than I actually worked. Having a clear, objective record of my time made it easier to justify billing for every hour worked, easing that guilt.
Likewise, it’s useful even if you’re traditionally employed. Tracking your own time provides an objective record that can serve as a good defense against a hostile performance review or evaluation, or when needing to create a healthy distance with micromanagers. An accurate representation of your time, selectively available to superiors, can help with reinforcing your sense of professional independence.
Those upsides seem good, so then why does nobody do it? [2]
The Downsides
My theory is because time tracking is unpleasant, often inaccurate, and sometimes actively harmful.
Time tracking introduces a small cognitive load - the mental effort required to remember and record time throughout the day. This load grows with the granularity of the records, such that at the extreme you could imagine tracking every instance of your day would require 100% of the day. For example, junior law associates often complain that, aside from the long hours, one of the most taxing requirements is billing clients in 15-minute increments. Tracking in such fine detail means stopping as often as four times an hour. Each interruption brings hidden costs: the time to update the ticket, switch tasks, and refocus. These constant shifts can fragment focus and make it difficult to work efficiently, and can easily become as large a time sink as the task itself.
Most methods of time tracking are flawed in the method by which they observe your behavior. Fundamentally, unless the method is omniscient, it will undercount the amount of mental effort you spend on your work. Even if it could read your mind, aka manually recording your time with a pen and paper, it will still undercount - presumably nobody is counting the eureka they had while in the shower. For software solutions it’s even more limited, as at best they can only capture your activity on the computer. As a result, most time-tracking systems fail to account for the full cognitive load of work, especially the off-desk thinking that’s often critical to problem-solving.
Even if you could perfectly track your time, would you want to? The lack of plausible deniability for use against overzealous managers is a serious drawback. Time tracking removes the protective ambiguity that lets employees work with some autonomy. Anecdotally, the biggest red flags for a bad employer is the insistence on spyware-like tracking software, which undermines trust and shifts the focus from productivity to surveillance. In such environments, time tracking becomes a tool for micromanagement rather than a resource for workers.
It’s also worth noting that in high-trust environments, high-granularity time tracking is rarely seen as a necessity to the organization, though it may still be valuable for individuals. Less precision doesn’t necessarily reduce the benefits of time tracking for management or forecasting. Instead, the added time and energy required for meticulous tracking can outweigh any marginal gains in accuracy. In such settings, a general record is often enough to support productive work and realistic forecasting without compromising efficiency or eroding trust.
Ideal Solutions
So, that’s the problem space. Let’s talk about what an ideal solution would look like; something which captures the benefits while minimizing the downsides. A system which provides us with accurate data and valuable insights into our work habits without imposing additional cognitive load or disrupting our focus.
The system should operate reliably in the background, automatically capturing and categorizing our actions by project without any manual input. Perhaps, it should integrate into every app we use so it can capture the full extent of our work. Ideally, it would work even if we’re not at our device.
It should give us as much granularity as we could possibly want. This would allow a user to dive into, for example, exactly why they got so little done three months ago on a tuesday. Importantly, to prevent the potential for micromanagement and preserve professional autonomy, the system must empower users with control over their data. It should enable us to share general records with managers for forecasting purposes while keeping detailed personal insights private.
Our Aspirations
Having explored both the benefits and drawbacks of time tracking, and envisioned what an ideal solution might look like, I'd like to share how we're bringing this vision to life with Chronoly.
We want Chronoly to become an indispensable tool for every developer. While we're still in the early stages, we think time tracking is worth doing, and it’s worth doing well. We think it’s worth it for better forecasting, for better self-reflection, and for better accountability. We think time tracking is something you shouldn’t have to sacrifice your time or autonomy to do.
That's why we've created a plugin for VSCode that operates entirely in the background. Chronoly automatically records your coding activity, providing accurate and granular insights without adding any cognitive load or interrupting your workflow. Your data is kept private and is solely for your personal insight, eliminating concerns about micromanagement or surveillance.
We believe that time tracking, when done right, can be a powerful asset rather than a burden. Through automation and thoughtful design, we're striving to make Chronoly a tool that developers love to use.
If you found this post compelling, please join us.
1: Bent Flyvbjerg's awesome book How Big Things Get Done argues the best predictor of a project’s timeline is through reference class forecasting - comparing one project to the duration of similar completed projects. As obvious as this sounds, most people do not create project timelines in this way. The intuitive, and wrong, way is to solve for the timeline in the same way you would complete the project, by breaking it down into tasks and predicting how long each task will take, before adding all these predictions together. The problem with this technique is that it compounds the margin of error resulting in a forecast far too uncertain to be meaningful. ↩
2: Almost nobody. Data from the quiz "How Do Your Time Management Skills Stack Up?" Leadership IQ
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