This free Android app helps me optimize my workflow — here’s how

My life as a freelancer involves writing different articles for various clients daily. I also spend a significant amount of time caring for my daughter and attending to household chores. Balancing my workload and home life would be challenging without a time-tracking tool to log each task and monitor my progress. I use Clockify because I can accurately track the time spent on each project and analyze my performance with in-depth reports.

Clockify is available for free on Android phones and Windows devices, so I can use it from anywhere. It has made a massive difference to the way I approach my work and manage my time, thanks to accurate data tracking and visual representations of my progress. The app is also user-friendly, and anyone can get the hang of it without prior training.

My main reason for using Clockify is to identify how much time I spend on each project per day. I sometimes start a project at a certain time, then take a break before continuing. At other times, I need to stop a project halfway and switch to editing another article to meet a deadline. Sometimes I don’t have enough hours in the day. I start a project in the evening and continue the next day. None of these are issues because Clockify tracks each job down to the second, and lets me divide them between billable and non-billable hours.

Before using Clockify, I logged each job into an Excel spreadsheet and had to manually add the client names, rates, and other details daily. At the end of the week, I’d need to add up the hours worked and then try to divide them by each client. Now I create a new project, assign it to a client, and Clockify takes care of the rest. It saves me from hours of admin per month and is more accurate than a manual system.

Clockify’s Timesheet is one of my favorite features because it breaks down my work for the week to see how much time I spent on each project. It creates a table with all the jobs I’ve done and displays the time spent on each per day. If I work on the same project for multiple days, it shows the days and time spent on it and calculates a total hourly figure. It does this every week to create a record of my work, which I can revisit at any time.

Being able to see all the projects I worked on during the week and the time spent on each helps me to plan better and strategise for the future. I usually asses why specific projects took longer than usual to complete, or why others were faster than normal. I can also identify which days I’m more productive than others, so I can organize my schedule more effectively. If I didn’t work solo, I’d probably use the Teammates option to add my colleagues to the system and monitor our combined output.

The Reports feature in Clockify helps me optimize my work by viewing various metrics and analyzing my performance. The main screen displays the total number of hours I’ve worked per day, and I can break them down by project, billable, or non-billable hours. I can also see how much time I’ve spent on each client. Clockify displays the percentage allocated to each, enabling me to plan my workload more effectively.

I often use the filter function further to break down the reports into easily digestible information. For example, I assign a tag to every project, such as “list,” “feature,” or “review,” based on the type of article I’m writing. At the end of the week, I can see how much time I spent on each kind of article and which clients they were for. This helps me to improve my time management because I can allocate shorter jobs to specific days and longer jobs to others when I’m not as busy.

I spend most of my days on the go and appreciate that Clockify syncs between my phone and laptop so I can access my information from anywhere. I often use the desktop app when working from home so that I can view all the charts and graphics on a large display. Running the desktop app while I’m working at my desk also serves as a timer, pushing me to focus on my work without getting sidetracked by social media and other distractions.

I use the mobile version when I have free time and want to view or analyze my progress while I’m relaxing on my couch. I also use it if I’m typing an article in Google Docs while waiting to pick up my daughter from school and want to log the time I’m spending on it. Both versions of the app run equally well and mostly display the same information.

The free version of Clockify works well for me, possibly because I’m a single-person organization and do all the work for myself. Having a timer running in the background motivates me to work without unnecessary breaks and has helped me increase my overall productivity. The TimeSheet and Reports provide detailed charts and graphs of my daily and weekly performance, which I use to improve my time management to fit my schedule.

My only complaint about Clockify is that the mobile version doesn’t display the dashboard as it does in the desktop app. The dashboard is helpful because it combines all the data onto a single page for easy viewing, and I wish I could view it from my phone.

I’m fine with the free version, but Clockify offers various subscription-based alternatives, ranging from $4 to $11 per month. These are better suited for larger organizations and include features such as attendance reports, labor cost tracking, and an audit log to monitor employee performance.