How To Do a Time Audit (With Actionable Steps)

Do you ever wish you and your team had 30% more time in your workweek? It might sound like magic, but with a time audit, it's much easier than you think.

In a study on time management, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel evaluated the work habits of business owners, key executives, and employees. His research found that "time-wasting, low-value and no-value activities accounted for more than 30% of their workweeks."

Ouch. While we're big fans of giving employees autonomy and frequent breaks to increase their workplace productivity, we also know some traditional "time-sucking" activities like checking social media, watching YouTube videos, and gossiping can seriously reduce efficiency.

Managers (especially remote leaders) are responsible for making sure their teams are set up for success. You can counteract those negative impacts and reclaim up to 30% more productive time each week for your team. The strategy is to perform a simple time audit.

In this guide, you'll learn how to:

• How to do your own time audit step-by-step, whether daily or weekly

• Time audit examples and templates 

• Spot time-wasting habits that drain productivity

• Use your audit insights to optimize schedules and workflows

Start with a smart time audit process and watch your team's time become traction.

A time audit tracks exactly what you spend your time on for a consecutive period. The results can be analyzed to arrange your time more efficiently. This, in turn, gives you more free time to work on what matters to you and your business.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in their day. The reason high-performing businesses and leaders can be extra efficient isn't because they have some secret high-performing time management tools up their sleeve, or maybe they do, it is entirely possible. 

However, the real deal is when they can identify which tasks need priority during their workday and which do not.

After all, if you don't record what you spend time on, you can't know which areas to pay more or less attention to.

Your team might be an ideal time audit candidate if you find that they're struggling to achieve business goals, they're always "busy" but never get anything done, or they always run out of time but can't identify why. 

Additionally, you'll run into human errors and missed time entries if you're trying to keep things in line with manual timesheets. These seemingly minor issues can then lead to operational inefficiencies. An employee time tracking tool can solve this problem by creating an automated timesheet against logged hours. 

If any of these scenarios hit too close to home, then it's high time for you to start auditing your time.

Many of us go about our workday with no particular plan or agenda, unaware of what we spend time on. This also applies to your team. You might set due dates, have regular check-ins, and encourage in-team communication, but employees won't hand in work when it is due.

Then you run into the same old hurdle: "We ran out of time!" But there's a solution to every problem. An in-depth time audit will give you the data you need to implement better time management techniques. 

Time audits can help you understand why productivity is stalled, where your teams' time goes, and how to win back lost time. They can also help you address wasted time and prevent financial loss.  

Whether it’s for yourself or your team, time auditing is a perfect way to:

Reach your company goals and targets

Goals are usually unfulfilled due to poor or unrealistic time allocation. Having an honest outline of what you spend time doing vs. what you think you spend time doing will help you allocate time more effectively to achieve high-priority goals and targets.

Boost your team's productivity

Performing a time audit will identify the biggest "time wasters" in your day. This will allow you to either eradicate that behavior or better allocate time to more productive tasks. You might not realize how much time is spent browsing irrelevant websites or checking social media until you track it.

Redistribute time efficiently across the organization

A major advantage of time auditing is identifying which areas of the day you are more or less productive. Professionals who possess strong time management skills know the importance of redistributing time. You will see the greatest results when you take control of your time rather than letting it control you.

Whether it's aligning your time with business goals, eliminating time-wasting activities, or boosting team productivity, the benefits of a time audit are countless.

The answer to how often you should run a time audit, daily or weekly, is simple. Try both to determine what work moves the needle and what doesn't. 

The idea is to take an audit of each day and combine a week's worth of data at the end of five days. Only then can decisions be made based on consecutive days of accurately reviewing how your time is spent.

If you’re not sure whether a daily or weekly time audit, here are a few ways to get organized:

• Track your time daily (either manually or with a time tracking tool).

• Log each task or activity and note how long it takes in real time.

• Group tasks and categorize them into focused work, meetings, admin, or break time.

• Review each day's log to spot patterns and identify low-value tasks.

• At the end of the week, analyze your full five-day audit to uncover what's moving the needle.

• Use your insights to adjust priorities and reduce time spent on non-essential work.

• Repeat weekly to build momentum and refine how your time is allocated.

To conduct a time audit, first, you need to establish a way to document what you spend time doing. The most effective way is to use a time audit worksheet. 

Before kicking off your time audit, select a "typical" week to track.

Stay clear of auditing a week when:

• You're picking up the slack of an absent co-worker

• It's midway through the holiday season

• You're about to go on vacation

• You're in the middle of negotiations with your biggest client

The purpose of conducting an audit is to identify areas of focus during a standard workday. So, be sure it is a "standard" workday you are tracking. If you've got a ton of unusual meetings or will be out of the office for a while, you'll want to reschedule your first time audit for a better day.

Here's a step-by-step template you can follow on how to easily time audit:

1. Use time tracking software or an alarm

First, you need to decide whether to use a time tracking app or a manual alarm. Time tracking software like Hubstaff offers one of the most efficient and accurate ways to track time. 

It includes a built-in timer that lets you track time by task and automatically generates timesheets based on logged hours, making time management simpler and more streamlined. A time clock app is a good option too for easy time tracking through desktop, web, or mobile. 

If you want to go manual, any device with a recurring alarm, like a smartphone or a simple Chrome extension, will work fine.

2. Plan your categories

Create project categories around the activities that (you think) make up your workday. Some examples could include "Emails," "Meetings," "Client calls," "Lunch," or "Me time." These will probably change after you've completed your audit and see what you really spend time on, but start with the areas where you ideally would have the majority of your time focused.

3. Set your time and track

Set up a stopwatch timer or alarm to ring at 15, 30, or 60-minute intervals, whichever best suits your workday. When the alarm sounds, write what you're working on in your manual log or change between projects in your time tracker. Reset your alarm for the same interval and jump back into work.

4. Take less than 20 seconds

This should be fast and easy; you; you don't want to overthink it. When you're reminded to track, note what you're doing and jump right back into it. Be brutally honest with yourself — the point right now is to gather real insight into where your time is going, no matter the result.

5. Repeat for five days

Things will always come up in a single day that might skew your results. Track for an entire workweek (five business days) to get a decent-sized pool of data that gives you a true, robust audit.

And that's it! You've completed a time audit. Now, how to analyze the results?

Once you have the weekly time audit data, consider categorizing the results into high-priority tasks vs time wasters. This will paint a clear picture for you, and using a time management method like the Eisenhower Matrix can be a good resource. 

Here are the steps to analyze the results of your time audit:

Step 1 - Categorize your time into "time wasters" and "high priority tasks"

Once you have gathered a week’s worth of data, it is time to analyze the results to identify potential areas of improvement.

Sort through your workday and categorize each segment as either:

1. Time wasters: These are unproductive activities (such as browsing the web or checking social media) that can be limited or restricted to certain blocks throughout the day (such as checking email or lengthy unscheduled discussions with coworkers).

2. High priorities: These activities help you achieve your goals and objectives. Some examples of high-priority activities might be completing work-related projects, pre-scheduled meetings, or conducting research.

Step 2 - Increase your productivity

At this stage, you will have a visual representation of how you honestly spend your time.

The next step is to reshuffle your day to increase its efficiency.

A good place to start is by reallocating time blocks or delegating and consolidating activities. Consider also breaking up larger projects into smaller, achievable milestones. 

Learning from the data, prepare your action plan to remove time wasters and optimize daily tasks. 

Here are three ways to do this:

Reallocate and delegate Tasks

Typically, time-wasting activities are done at unplanned, sporadic moments throughout the day.

First, identify if there are activities that can be cut out completely. A great example is checking social media, which wastes time and interferes with your focus levels.

If you absolutely must check Facebook, schedule a small amount of time once a day to indulge. At all other times, commit to keeping the workplace a Facebook-free zone.

Are there tasks you complete personally that could be handled by a secretary or team member? If so, invest some time in training them.

Consolidate tasks

If multiple time blocks per day are spent on the same or similar tasks, consider consolidating them into one scheduled activity you complete once or twice a day.

A perfect example is the time spent checking email. If your time audit reveals that you are a compulsive inbox checker, try allocating two specific times per day when you check your email uninterrupted.

Break large projects up into small milestones

When it comes to high-priority projects, most of us know what we must do, but we have no specific plan for how to do it. This is why it is so important to break these projects up into smaller, manageable goals.

Once you have laid out a Roadmap of the steps required to complete these larger projects, you can assign them to specific time blocks throughout your day.

Rather than approaching these projects without a plan in place, knowing what steps you will complete and at what point will allow you to complete them faster.

Step 3 - Redistribute time to achieve your goals and targets better

Most people underestimate the time it takes to complete a task. Before jumping into your calendar, calculate an appropriate time for each task.

Try this time audit exercise; consider what an ideal vs a realistic workday would look like for you.

To do this, note down your most critical high-priority activities. A list of 3-5 projects or categories is a good place to start. Next, allocate a percentage of time to each.

For example, your time audit might have revealed that you have 25 hours a week to spend on high-priority projects. The "ideal" percentage you allocate to each task will be divided among those hours.

Here is a basic time audit template you can follow to get started:

• Goal 1: Client outreach (Ideally 50% of the time)

• Goal 2: Staff training (Ideally 25% of the time)

• Goal 3: Marketing strategy (Ideally 25% of the time)

Next, look at your time audit and calculate how long you spend on each activity. There may be large discrepancies between your ideal percentage and the current percentage.

For example, suppose one of your primary business goals is to secure new business, but you are only dedicating 10% of your high-priority time to client outreach. In that case, you will likely acquire many new clients.

Once you've identified the gaps between how you want to spend your time and how you actually do, you can make effective changes,  adjust schedules, reassign tasks, or automate low-value work.

Hubstaff Insights add-on makes this job easier with real-time updates on where your time is going. With utilization rates, worktime classifications, and the ability to balance meeting and focus time, you'll see a clear picture of how you and your team spend their time.

Now that you have calculated your ideal agenda, you can begin restructuring your day.

Be sure to set new goals and build out an action plan to achieve them.

Here is an example to follow:

• Goal 1: Client outreach (Ideally 50% of the time, Reasonable allocation 45% of the time)

• Action plan to achieve it: Spend the first 2 hours of the day calling prospective clients before checking email

Once you have completed this process for every major goal, start pencilling in calendar entries to establish a new routine for yourself.

Now that you have a much more efficient workday, you must stick to your changes. It is understandably easier said than done.

Be kind to yourself and remember that the human brain resists change.

Consider setting up a system of accountability to keep you in check and prevent reverting to old habits.

Try creating a monthly or quarterly reminder to encourage you to refresh your time audit. An accountability partner in the office effectively motivates you to stay on track.

Don't forget that the purpose of conducting a time audit is to streamline your day, so staying consistent with the changes you have made is by far the most crucial part.

Auditing your time is one of the most effective ways to uncover hidden inefficiencies. Time audits for employees and managers can help drive focus on high-impact activities and build a more productive, goal-aligned workday. 

A simple weekly time audit can reveal where time is being lost, help prioritize what truly matters, and give you a roadmap to reclaim up to 30% more productive hours. 

Whether you're trying to eliminate time wasters, reduce payroll overhead, or reach ambitious business goals, a routine time audit habit can bring you back on track. 

Time tracking software like Hubstaff makes automating and analyzing your time logs easy, turning insights into action. With time tracking, productivity measurement, and customizable reports at your fingertips, you're saving time, honing your time management skills, and creating a more focused, efficient, and results-driven team.