The home office is convenient; you always thought before. Now you have the salad because one disadvantage of working at home is that it often takes up more time than working in the office. Working time recording clarifies the actual time required and helps you get off work in good time.
Recording working times is not difficult, and there are plenty of alternatives to the mess of paper. Anyone who works on the computer anyway and wants to do it meticulously may prefer an Excel working time recording system. This works best in Microsoft’s spreadsheet, of course, but also in LibreOffice and OpenOffice, with small drawbacks.
The Excel file, which by the way works without macros, knows the public holidays and offers suitable options for the calculation via the default settings, practically for everyone who does not automatically have holidays off.
In the beginning, users set their target working times using the default settings, adopt plus or minus hours from the previous year, and record vacation days. After that, you can start, you record all the working hours using prefabricated tabs from January to December, and the Excel file does the math for you.
Time and Attendance Under Windows
With working hours, you can also easily record your working hours under Windows. The basic version of the program is available free of charge from the Microsoft Store.
If you are only working on one thing, for example, a master’s thesis, you can start time recording by clicking on “Start work.” But mostly, there are several activities to be processed in parallel; for this, you can save all crucial to-dos under “Tasks
.”
If you then start the time recording, you can assign a task to the stopwatch. The work can be paused and continued during working hours. You can adjust the recorded times afterward, for example, if you finished work too early. There are also apps for Android and iOS.
Alternatively, there is ManicTime, which is also free in the standard version. After the installation, the program starts automatically with Windows and records your working day’s start down to the minute. The freeware registers which program you are using for how long – this is also useful for freelancers who want to submit precise statements to customers.
The software recognizes pauses when the PC has not been used for 10 minutes, or the screen saver starts. This can be easily adjusted in the settings.
iPhone Becomes a Time Clock
Time clock X turns the iPhone into a time clock. This app should also be of particular interest to users who focus on ease of use. Use the plus sign to add a new entry, just like when you punch in with the classic stamp card.
You can always see how long you’ve been working in the app. To clock out, tap the current entry and then the clock icon. You have to record breaks manually; the saved times can be edited afterward. If desired, the app can also export a CSV file with the recorded working times.
Android App with NFC Support
If you have a bit higher requirements for time and attendance, you can look at the time clock II for Android. The first way should lead you to the “Settings” under “Time preselection” because you specify the start of work, the end of work, and break times.
Also, you can enter your vacation days here and adopt the previous year’s hours. Practically, you can also record a part-time job separately, and those who like technology can set up automatic recording via NFC tag with the app. Finally, you export the recorded times and send them as a PDF or Excel file.
