Improve your bottom line with accurate time/cost reporting

Streamline your team’s productivity with work logs

No matter your position within an organization, time is a precious commodity. On some days, work flows unimpeded, and you head home feeling accomplished. On others, interruptions and unexpected obstacles prevent you from completing the most basic tasks.

It’s frustrating, but there is a way to boost productivity. A work log tracks time spent on daily activities and provides insight into how you spend the day. It helps you visualize the factors contributing to productivity and the roadblocks holding you back.  

If you’re new to time tracking, here’s everything you need to know to establish a daily log-keeping practice for yourself and your coworkers.   

What is a work log template?

A work or activity log helps employees track their daily activities and the time required to complete each task. Daily work is arranged chronologically into time blocks and classified according to task type, due date, priority, or other relevant categories. 

A work log or time report template is a preformatted document tailored to the project team using customized tags or fields. Implementing a work log template for your team facilitates consistent time tracking, ensuring team members’ daily reports use the same metrics as their peers. 

A daily log template is reproducible. Once formatted, leadership can use it repeatedly instead of creating a new one for every project.

Why is keeping work logs important?

Tracking how much time you spend on individual tasks throughout the day helps with the following functions:

1. Evaluating progress: Time tracking helps project managers evaluate work in assess (WIP), ensuring tasks are on track to meet milestones and deadlines. It also acts as a team motivator, encouraging the group to become more productive.

2. Time management: Regular work log monitoring uncovers patterns negatively impacting individual or team productivity. Once identified, it’s easier to establish effective time management solutions. 

3. Increasing visibility: An accurate work log gives leadership an overview of a project’s progress, likelihood of meeting deadlines, and potential bottlenecks. If there’s a risk of delay, the project manager can take proactive measures to get back on track.

4. Prioritization: A work log helps team members organize their day, ensuring they prioritize tasks according to value, strategic alignment, deadlines, or other factors.

5. Decision-making: Using timesheet data to track task duration enhances schedule accuracy and reliability while ensuring the team has adequate capacity to produce deliverables on schedule.

6. Accurate bookkeeping: Factual invoicing requires accurate attribution of billable hours to clients.

7. Accountability: Work logs keep team members honest about their daily activities. If they spend too much time on break or in pointless meetings, a daily record can identify and remedy the issue.

Benefits of a digital work log

There are many ways to create a daily report of your activities, some better than others. You could go old-school with a pen and paper or a printable activity log created as an MS Word doc. Alternatively, you can download a free daily log to Google Sheets or Excel from WPS Templates. 

These traditional methods can be effective but don’t integrate with project management software, making them challenging to analyze and prone to inaccuracies. A digital work log is the best solution for accurately tracking daily activities.

A digital work log solution offers numerous benefits:

1. Convenience: Most work logs are accessible from various platforms, including workstations, tablets, or smartphones, simplifying on-the-go time tracking.

2. Efficiency: A digital activity log offers time-saving features that streamline , such as task categories and search functionality.

3. Insight: Many digital work logs include built-in analytics to evaluate team efficiency and productivity.

4. Visibility: Most time-tracking software , simplifying the logging process and helping you connect time spent on daily work with progress.

5. Customizations: Activity report templates are typically customizable, allowing users to modify categories and menus based on unique workflows and team needs.

6. Transparency: Digital time tracking promotes openness and collaboration through information sharing and communication.

7. Security: Users can ensure data accessibility by storing their daily work logs using the tool’s secure backup feature. 

How to create your digital work log template

The process for creating a work log template is the same whether you use an MS Word doc, an Excel spreadsheet, or a digital activity log.

1. List daily work tasks

Create a task list of everything you plan to accomplish throughout the day. Be sure to include meetings, simple tasks, and significant to-do items. Prioritize your work using tags like 

• Due dates

• Billing types

• Status

• Effort

2. Build a “Completed Tasks” section

Next, format an area of your timesheet into half-hour or one-hour time blocks. You’ll use these slots to track completed tasks. 

Whenever you complete a daily activity, the gratification of logging the task information into the corresponding time slots can motivate you to keep going.    

3. Log completed tasks

As you log completed activities and tasks, include time spent. This data will help plan future project work. The hours don’t have to match the blocks perfectly. Adjust each slot to reflect the actual duration.

4. Track nonwork activities

To keep your logs accurate, include activities outside your daily tasks, such as working lunches, coffee breaks, or personal appointments. Capture everything to gain a clearer view of the distractions affecting productivity. 

5. Review task status

Review your task list at the end of the day to evaluate completed and outstanding work. Record the reasons why a task remains incomplete. Did other work take longer than expected? Was there an emergency meeting? These factors provide insight into your time management practices and possible improvements. 

6. Analyze performance

Organize weekly or monthly work log reviews with management and direct reports to analyze performance. Use the daily report feature to identify patterns of behavior or repeating scenarios that impede progress, then brainstorm potential solutions, such as:

• Delegating routine tasks to subordinates

• Automating repetitive work

• Using time management and prioritization techniques to improve focus and effectiveness

What to include in your digital work log template

Recording your daily activities with a time-tracking work log helps you visualize why you’re losing precious time and find ways to manage your work better. An effective work log template includes these elements:

• A daily task list

• Time blocks

• Billing type per tasks

• Priority

• Task duration

If you’re using a digital work log, it will also offer integrated features to facilitate tracking and analyze time spent, such as:

• Workload: A workload feature visualizes team capacity across multiple projects. It streamlines deployment by identifying capacity risks and conflicts to ensure staff isn’t overworked. 

• Dashboards: Dashboard-level reporting tools (e.g., graphs and visualizations) track project progress. A customized dashboard provides immediate insight into the team’s productivity, helping you prioritize tasks, identify roadblocks, and uncover underutilized resources.      

• Custom fields: Customized fields track relevant data, such as status, assignees, due date, and time. Digital work logs allow you to share custom fields across multiple projects and tasks, ensuring consistent task reporting. 

• List view: Review your task list using a spreadsheet-style format to improve readability.  A list template allows you to review all outstanding tasks, due dates, and other relevant fields in a single glance. 

Work log best practices

Here are a few factors to keep in mind when creating a work log template:

1. Simplicity: Don’t overcomplicate your work log. Keep the format simple to streamline the recording process. 

2. Focus: Prioritize essential task information, such as descriptions, time spent, and challenges. Include details relevant to your goals, productivity, and improvements.

3. Consistency: Incorporate daily work logging into your routine. Making a habit of time tracking ensures accurate and timely records.

4. Flexibility: Adjust your activity log to reflect changes in your work routine, position, and career goals.

5. Reflection: Take time to evaluate your daily reports. Identify what works and what doesn’t so you can adjust your workflows.

Track your teams’ work logs with Timesheets

Tracking daily activities is about more than better time management. When you understand how they spend their working hours, you gain insights that help you prioritize tasks, establish realistic project schedules, and identify when team members need help. Ultimately, a time-tracking system ensures high-quality deliverables while reducing stress and overwork. 

Tempo understands the importance of work logs. Our integrates with Jira to leverage project management data and give you an accurate overview of team progress. With advanced and automation, you can log, collect, and create a daily report in just a few clicks. 

With , enhanced productivity and efficiency are at your fingertips.