Time tracking is a necessary evil. Too little tracking leads to inaccurate invoices and poor project management. Too much tracking costs time and annoys the team. The solution: Automate as much as possible.
Why Time Tracking Fails
The most common problems:
- Retroactive instead of real-time: Friday you estimate what happened Monday through Thursday
- Too granular: 15-minute intervals for every task – unrealistic
- No categories: "Project work" says nothing about the actual activity
- System breaks: Time in tool A, invoice in tool B, reporting in tool C
The result: Unreliable data that's useless for billing or project management.
What Can Be Automated
1. Calendar-Based Tracking
Automatically import meetings and blocked times as time entries. Works well for consulting, workshops, calls.
2. Tool Integration
Import time from project management tools (Asana, Monday, Jira). Task completed = time automatically logged.
3. Activity Tracking
Browser extensions or desktop apps that track active applications. Privacy-sensitive, but practical for individuals.
4. Automatic Categorization
Project tags based on calendar title, email sender, or task assignment.
Practical Setup: n8n + Google Calendar + Harvest
A typical workflow for service providers:
- Trigger: Calendar event ends
- Filter: Only events with project tag (e.g., "[PROJ:Client-A]")
- Harvest API: Create time entry with project, duration, note
- Optional: Slack message for missing assignment
The result: Meetings are automatically tracked, only unblocked time needs to be manually added.
Limits of Automation
Not everything can be automated:
- Deep work without calendar block: Cannot be reliably tracked
- Context switching: When 30 minutes are spread across 3 projects
- Qualitative work: Was the hour productive or not?
The rule: Automation for structured work (meetings, tasks), manual tracking for the rest – but simplified.
Simplifying Time Tracking
When automation isn't enough, simplification helps:
- Day buckets instead of minutes: Morning, noon, afternoon – enough for 80% of cases
- Standard categories: Maximum 5-7 categories, not 50
- Weekly review: 15 minutes per week for corrections instead of daily micro-tracking
Reporting and Billing
Good time data enables:
- Project profitability: Planned vs. actual hours
- Team utilization: Who has capacity, who is overloaded?
- Proposal calculation: Realistic estimates for new projects
But this only works if data quality is right – and that comes from automation plus simple processes.
If you want to automate your time tracking, we're happy to check which integrations make sense for your setup. Schedule appointment