5 Time Tracking Methods To Help You Achieve Work Life Balance

Scholars define work life balance as 'satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home, with a minimum of role conflict'.

Though work life balance can mean different things for different generations nobody doubts its importance. But how can you achieve it? It's not always easy to know where your time goes, and if you're not tracking it, striking a balance between busy days and life can be even harder.

To figure out how much time you're spending on work and what you can do to maintain work life balance, time trackers serve best.

Time Tracking and Work Life Balance

It is crucial we remember that time tracking isn't just about getting more accurate calculations on your work hours; it also helps you:

• set clear boundaries at work
• improve your well-being
• enable you to manage stress
• prevent burnout.

Now, company culture is impossible to imagine without well-established work-life balance policies. Why are these policies important in business? For one thing, they link to positive work-related and stress-related outcomes.  

Furthermore, time tracking directly contributes to creating a transparent system of accounting and prompt payrolling, which helps organizations build their reputation as reliable employers.

Balance is not better time management, but better boundary management. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices. –  Betsy Jacobson

The following time tracking methods are designed to help you achieve work life balance, so let's get started!

Best Time Tracking Methods for Work Life Balance

Among time tracking methods that assist in maintaining work life balance, there are the top five techniques we discuss below.  

Automation of Time Calculations

Controlling work time can become a challenge, especially as non-linear working days become a new reality.

In any case, the evidence is clear that long hours are harmful to both employers and employees.

Still, many professionals continue to struggle to overcome their deep-seated assumptions that are giving rise to a high probability of burnout.

It is particularly true in the remote work environment where workers report being 67 more minutes online daily.

How can you achieve a more sustainable, rewarding work-life balance and break free of detrimental beliefs about time tracking?

Evidently, automating calculations of work time can be a solution you were missing:

• Advanced time tracking systems allow computing work time not only when you are online but in offline mode as well.
• Adding break time can be performed either manually or automatically (a timer stops recording after a certain interval of zero activity).  

Why is the automation of calculations important for work life balance?

• It optimizes the work process
• It prevents overwork
• It keeps records of work time in one place.  

Analysis with Data Reports

Based on the analysis of time tracking data, it will be easier to see what tasks consume the most time and study why it is happening. It will also encourage you to reorient your work day by shifting your priorities from low-value tasks to more impactful ones.

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. – Stephen Covey

Pro tip: The famous Eisenhower Matrix Method of setting priorities helps order tasks based on urgency level so that nothing gets left behind in the long run.

This great method can be used to manage tasks efficiently by separating them into 4 categories:

• Urgent/Important
• Not Urgent/Important
• Urgent/Not Important
• Not Urgent/Not Important

Try to prioritize as top tasks those that fall into not urgent but important (on a daily basis, it can be eating healthy, exercising, breaking down big projects into smaller tasks to prevent deadline failure, etc.).

Practice shows that they help build healthy habits and work best for achieving long-term goals stress-free.  

Why is the analysis of time tracking data important for work life balance?

• It gives insight into a detailed view of workload distribution  
• It shows possible faults in how you prioritize
• It suggests ways of addressing the priority issues (you can see what tasks take unrealistic time to perform)
• It empowers you with data for continuous reassessment and improvement
• Also, it will help you see areas in your life that don't require as much attention and that can be more free-flowing.

Peak Performance Discovery

Peak performance hours are about getting things done in an easy way. Time trackers with a timeline like TMetric visualize users' activity and give a comprehensive view of a workday in terms of performance peaks.

Knowing your productivity peaks can deepen your engagement and enable you to meet deadlines hassle-free. It also guarantees that rather than asking where you can slot all those tasks you will be able to structure time more intentionally.  

When you have balance in your life, work becomes an entirely different experience. There is a passion that moves you to a whole new level of fulfillment and gratitude, and that’s when you can do your best, for yourself and for others. – Cara Delevingne

To enhance your experience, use the Pomodoro technique.  It is an effective way to increase productivity by breaking down tasks into smaller chunks and focusing on one task at a time. This method involves working for 25 minutes without distraction, then taking a 5-minute break before starting again.

Doing this regularly will help you gain control over your work schedule and increase productivity levels.

Why is identifying peak performance time important for work life balance?

• It brings productivity-wide change
• It impacts your work life balance positively by easing your workload and creating a more structured approach to the work calendar.

Using Integrations

Anxiety arises when we have to keep an eye on too many things at once.

Time tracking is a game-changer for those who need to take control of multiple projects and use lots of assisting tools. Time tracking integrated into users' toolkits can make the process seamless and smooth.

We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own to do list. – Michelle Obama

With time tracking integrations, you ease burdens and reduce challenges in:

• project management
• sales and finance teams operations
• marketing campaigns
• meeting management
• scheduling.

Overall, time tracking integration with a variety of tools helps put a name on the agile approach to project management across any industry.

Why are integrations important for work life balance?

• You can manage tasks within a wider range of regulations.
• You can skip double-checking
• You can prevent energy draining caused by overplanning.

Time Off Management

An intention to squeeze maximum efficiency out of everything we do can result in the opposite effect and lead to burnout. Instead, it is essential we get means of planning time off.

In order to foster employee morale, companies need approaches that deliver flexibility. Bringing automation to time off management can be a solution in realizing the much-needed method to achieve easier adaptability under the conditions:

• of onsite work
• of remote work
• of hybrid work.  

Time off will let you pause, take a step back and recharge: to get the best results, find means of efficient time off management that is likely to bring lasting change.

Time tracking systems with time off modules like TMetric can help with such aspects of your well-being as setting boundaries on work and improving your overall health.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony. – Thomas Merton

A tracker with a time off module lets users craft a schedule that caters to their needs and family obligations. It can calculate your paid time off, show your time off balance and send time off requests for the manager's approval directly from ztime tracker.

Why is time off management important for work life balance?

• The technological clock is accelerating and it makes an impact on how we allocate not only work time but time off as well.
• Using options offered by time off module means that the work obligations stop expanding while the time off routine stays optimized.
• Both in our personal and professional lives, time off management can help us take pause, connect with our emotions, review our priorities, allocate alternatives, and achieve our work life balance targets.

Conclusion

With the increasing complexity of work, it is becoming more and more difficult to achieve work life balance.

Achieving work life balance is not only important for your physical and mental health but also beneficial for your productivity and overall wellbeing.

Whether you only started to work or are a seasoned professional, we hope this piece offers you novel ideas about how to incorporate simple time tracking practices in day-to-day life to maintain work life balance at best.