If you have ever got an opportunity to work in a design agency, you know the challenges that they face on day to day basis. Managing dozens of different projects simultaneously, client change requests and hiring and retaining the right talent are some of the challenges they face. Throw in the cut throat competition, web design agencies also have to differentiate themselves from others.
Then there are client demands for quick delivery of project outcome, which keeps the design agency on their toes all the time. With so many things to deal with at once, focusing becomes a challenge. That is why their productivity takes a hit and they end up missing project deadlines. If your design agency is facing similar issues, then you are at the right place.
In this article, you will learn about how time tracking apps can boost productivity of a design agency.
- Stay Focused
With so many design projects running simultaneously, it is hard to maintain your focus. Distractions can easily get the better of you. Thankfully, you can stay focused by using a time tracking software or app. You can easily judge how much time you spend working and how much time you spend in other distractions. This will help you to reduce the time wasted on distractions. As a result, you can focus better on your work as you are not multitasking or switching between work and distractions. This will minimize the risk of errors as you are truly focused on the task you are working on.
2. Measure and Improve Your Efficiency
Efficiency might have different meanings for everyone but from a design agency standpoint, it is about completing design projects before the deadline. The more efficient you are, the more profit you can earn. That is why efficiency is important. Time tracking applications clearly show you how much time you spend on each task. Your goal should be to reduce the time spend on each task without affecting the quality of the output. When you bring down the time you spend on every task and sub task, it will automatically result in project completion before the deadline. The less time you take to complete the design projects, the lower will be the cost and the more profit you will earn. Web design agency London delivers the best results in less time thanks to their efficiency.
3. Identify and Fix Bottlenecks
There are always some employees that tend to work overtime. There could be two main reasons for it. It could be due to excessive workload or employee dedication but it can also be due to wasting lot of time. It is important for managers to draw the line and differentiate employees that waste time. With time tracking software, you can easily do that as it shows you how your design team is spending their time.
You can also dig deeper and find out the root cause behind overtime your design team is putting in. If it is due to excessive workload, you should efficiently distribute the workload and outsource some work. If it is due to wastage of time, minimize the time your team spend on non-value adding activities. The quicker you identify the bottleneck and remove them, the better it will be for your design team efficiency. Data from time tracking software will also help you in improving your design team performance.
4. Motivation
“Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world…If you do so, you are insulting yourself.”—Bill Gates
Instead of comparing your performance with others, you should focus on improving your past performances. When you have data in front of you telling you how much time you have time you have spent on your last design project, it motivates you to complete your next design project faster. You will start thinking about steps you can take to complete the project faster and how you can execute those steps to achieve your desired results. Motivation like this will help you to push harder and complete tasks quicker. With every member of your design team motivated to achieve more in less time, you can see a drastic improvements when comparing with older design projects.
5. Set the Right Deadlines
One of the main reasons why projects fail is unrealistic deadlines. When you set an unrealistic deadline, you tend to put more pressure on your design team, forcing them to work faster thus increasing the chances of errors in the process. Another advantage of using a time tracking tool is that it let you set the right deadline by letting you make accurate time projections. With previous project data in front of you, you can easily tell how much time you might require to complete your next project. Yes, it might be an estimate but in most cases, that would be fairly accurate one. Make sure to set the accurate deadline for your design project and always keep a buffer of few days and weeks to prevent any issues caused due to unforeseen situation.
6. Reach Your Goals
Apart from improving your efficiency, time tracking apps not only help you set your goals but also help you achieve those goals as well. You can set a personal goal by analyzing your time sheet and set your team goals by looking at their time sheet. Additionally, time tracking software also highlights areas for improvements so you can divert all your energies towards those areas and improve them. Moreover, you can prioritize projects based on their importance and value it delivers to your business. This help you focus your attention towards critical design projects and complete them on time and stop worrying about less important design projects. You can also devise a well thought out strategy based on data from your time tracking tool and achieve some great results too.
How do you use time tracking apps to enhance your productivity? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below.
Author Bio:
Zubair Hassan is a Digital Content Producer at Branex and contributing author to TMetric Blog. He is passionate about writing and loves writing blogs and reading magazines.
