When Coffee & Kale’s Nicole Martin asked me the most common mistake I see entrepreneurs make when building their business, I immediately thought about “time.”

“The one thing that I often see is that they don’t classify their time working in the business as an actual cost,” I shared.

I get it. Entrepreneurs are extremely busy, often working at least 25% more hours per week than peers with W-2 jobs. You work early, late, and on weekends because your livelihood depends on the success of your business. You are focused on marketing your brand, acquiring new clients, and delivering the services.

But if your goal is to go from solopreneur to CEO, you need to take a close look at your time, how you record it, and ultimately how you classify it – even on your Profit & Loss statements!

Time tracking provides quantifiable insights into your business operations, allowing for better decision-making and optimization of resources.

Why Should Solopreneurs Track Their Time?

1. Identify Time-Consuming Tasks

Time tracking helps solopreneurs understand how they spend their time, particularly on tasks that could be automated or delegated. Recognizing these time-intensive tasks is the first step toward improving efficiency.

For example, after you track your time for a month you may notice that you spent 10 hours on administrative, scheduling, and billing tasks that could easily be automated. Put those automations in place, and you just gave yourself 10 more hours for more important tasks.

2. Facilitate Effective Delegation

By knowing how much time specific tasks take, solopreneurs can make informed decisions about delegation. For example, if managing social media takes up a significant portion of your week, delegating this task can save you time for other critical business activities. 

Without time tracking, it’s challenging to gauge work efficiency and effectiveness. As you build out your team, examining how your folks spend their time allows you to identify problems in processes, prioritize tasks based on the ROI of the time, and balance workloads.

3. Understand the Cost of Time

Time is your most valuable asset. Time tracking allows you to quantify the cost of your time, helping to determine which tasks are worth your time and which should be outsourced to maximize business growth. In reviewing timesheets vs productivity, I think to myself, “I need this person to focus on this task within their skillset. So, can I outsource some of these other tasks they are doing?” Evaluating these situations keeps you (and your team) from burning out and feeling overwhelmed. 

This is also important for the long-term health of your business. If you are not tracking the time you spent working in the business, doing tasks that your team will eventually carry out, how will you know the cost of that labor? Are you paying yourself now for that work? Here’s a hint: You should be.

Where do I start? 

For solopreneurs, time tracking is not just about logging hours; it's a strategic tool for enhancing business efficiency and scalability. And there are a number of free time tracking tools out there to help you get started (specific recommendations from me later!). Understanding where your time goes allows you to make smarter decisions about delegation, optimize your workflow, and focus on high-value activities. 

Because this is such a common problem (and because solopreneurs are interested in fixing it), I’ll be sharing more time-tracking guides throughout the year. Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when each one is published!

Time tracking is the first step towards a more efficient and profitable business. Start tracking today to unlock the full potential of your solopreneur journey.