Review of the Chronos Time Tracking App

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Categories used by the Chronos time tracking app include social, exercise, and workThe big issue with most time tracking software is that you have to remember to click it on and off with each task. Frankly, most people forget to do this consistently. That’s why I love Chronos.

A little background: One of my clients was spending 2 and 1/2 hours a month creating her client invoices. She had a bookkeeper, but could not delegate this task because she (my client) did not have a consistent way of keeping track of time spent on projects for each client. I suggested Chronos to keep track of actual time spent onsite with her clients.

Chronos is an free app (available for iPhone and Android) that runs automatically in the background of your phone to track everywhere you spend more that 15 minutes. It even tracks your ‘in-transit’ time. Just carry your phone with you and Chronos will automatically capture where you are and what you are doing – as long as you are not in airplane mode.

When I turned on airplane mode because I was in a movie, the app showed me ‘in-transit’ for the travel to the theater, in the theater, and from the theater. You can go back into the app on your computer and add the time you were in the theater, but it’s a bit of a pain. Still, as long as you are not in airplane mode, the app is remarkably accurate.

It’s also not a full-featured time tracking app, as it only allows you a limited number of categories, which you cannot edit:

  • Home
  • Work
  • Social
  • Exercise
  • Errand
  • Transit
  • Educational
  • Spiritual
  • Sleep

This would make it troublesome to track time spent on individual clients while you were in your office, but perfect for tracking time spent at a client’s workplace and/or time spent traveling to/from a client.

A benefit I was not expecting was the sleep tracking. Like most people, I should be getting more sleep. The sleep tracking is ingenious; simply flip your phone face down when you go to bed, then turn it over when you wake up. Seeing my actual sleep time in the personal infographic Chronos creates from the data it is capturing from my phone is (excuse the pun) a real eye-opener.

Chronos also allows you to set goals, such as:

  • Go to sleep before midnight
  • Go to gym for 30 minutes
  • Spend time with friends
What I love about the Chronos App:
  • It runs automatically, without me having to remember to turn it on/off.
  • It’s free
  • It tracks my sleep
  • It allows me to set goals, and lets me know how I have done in personal infographic
What would make the Chronos App even better:
  • Allow me to add goals not in the list
  • Allow me to add new categories (such as volunteering)
Best uses for the Chronos App:
  • Keep track/verify time spent with clients
  • Set a sleep goal
  • Keep track of actual travel time

Available for  iPhone and Android. Download from your app store, or go to GetChronos.com on your computer.

Filed Under: Apps to Help Run Your Biz, business management, time management Tagged With: ,

Creating Your Ideal Life

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The poet Robinson Jeffers built Tor House in 1916 on a cliff in Carmel, CA. It absolutely enchanted me when I toured it a decade ago. The guide mentioned that every morning Mrs. Jeffers (Una) would sit at her desk in a corner of the peaceful living room and write letters to friends and family. Something about that connected with me on a visceral level, and it became my ideal to create the same habit.

Tor House on Carmel coast, home of poet Robinson JeffersThat is still my (as yet unmet) ideal – but it occurred to me today that Facebook has become a viable substitute. Yes, it is possible to get distracted by cat video posts, but, at heart, Facebook is a way to stay connected with friends and extended family – and take a lot less time than 4 hours every morning to do so – especially if you ignore the animal videos.

I’ve heard people vilify Facebook as nothing but a time suck, but is it really such a bad compromise to substitute less than an hour on Facebook daily for the 4 hours Una Jeffers would schedule to write letters? I don’t think so, especially since I still need to find time for the work that brings in income.

Creating your ideal life is a balancing act. Facebook is part of that balance for me. So is scheduling regular vacation time and hiking time, and one day a week to spend with my elderly mother. I enjoy my work, and I do it better when I honor, and allow time for, all aspects of my life. You do too.

Your weekend is before you; schedule time in it for one aspect of your life you’ve been neglecting.

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The Email Time Suck – It’s Not What you Think

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The plan was to hike Sunday morning, but instead I waited several hours while my husband tried to compose an email Black hole as metaphor for time spent on emailto his 3 siblings. I heard lots of clicking on the keyboard, many sighs, and even a few oaths before he threw in the towel and declared it an ‘impossible’ task. That’s when I looked him in the eye and said (in my best exasperated wife voice) “Why don’t you just pick up the phone?”.

The reality is that the issue was too complicated for an email – and there were too many people involved. They are selling their father’s house, and they all needed to agree on how to handle the contents of the house, how to best invest the proceeds for their father’s benefit, and who will be responsible for what.

Anything that is going to require a back and forth discussion is NOT an effective use of email. You will spend much more time than you would with a phone (or face-to-face) discussion.

Instead I suggested he set up a conference call, so they could all participate in an open discussion. The four siblings spent one hour on the phone and accomplished more in that one hour than they had in several months of back and forth emailing. If there was a question, it was clarified right away; no waiting for an email response. When the call concluded, my husband came out and thanked me profusely; not only had they agreed on many specifics, but they all felt the discussion had made them feel close again – something that had been lost in all the emailing.

As for me, I was happy we were finally able to leave on our hike. And, as an added benefit, have more time to spend with my husband – the siblings agreed to schedule a monthly conference call to stay current on the house and other filial issues, which should significantly cut down on the emails that were taking up his time on weekends.

If you are unsure how to create a conference call (or are interested in some new options), here are a few resources:

  • iPhone – In the U.S., the iPhone can support up to 5 calls at once on AT&T and up to 2 calls simultaneously on Verizon.
  • Skype – You can share a group call with up to 25 people, anywhere in the world, and if everyone’s on Skype it’s completely free.
  • GUnify – Free unlimited conference calling service for 38 Countries that integrates with Google Apps
  • FreeConferenceCall.com – another popular choice.
  • InstantTeleseminar – is the service we used for the Biz Summit. Lots of unique features & they offer a 21-day, $1 trial.

Your call to action is to remember that is often faster to get up from your desk and walk down the hall for a face-to-face discussion, or pick up the phone, whenever an email is likely to require more than a simple confirmation or response.

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Did You Design Your Business, Or Did You Let It Re-design You?

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Your business plan is the blueprint for your businessWhen I was a teen-ager, I wanted to be an architect. My father, unusual for his generation, assured both his daughters they could have a career in whatever field they desired. Of course, to him – literally a rocket scientist for NASA – that meant a science-based career, and  in high school I was the only female in my architectural drawing class, and one of only three in my physics class. By the time I was applying to colleges, I had decided on pharmacy as my career, but I never lost my love of good design.

Which is why I spent Saturday happily touring 17 demo homes in the Solar Decathlon (there were 19, but my husband started whining after 5, and I could only park him at the food court for so long…). Not familiar with the Solar Decathlon? It is an extraordinary event that occurs every two years, and challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.

One of the fun parts of the Decathlon is the way the teams are judged. Of course they are judged on architecture, market appeal, and energy balance, but they also need to host two dinner parties and one movie night for neighboring teams, who award the host team points based on the quality of the meal, ambiance, and overall experience. The point is that the homes have to be livable, which is one measure of good design.

Which brings us to your business. Does it feel livable to you, or are you working 24/7? Do you flow through your days with ease, or are you constantly encountering obstacles (especially the same obstacles over and over again…)? How often do you mutter “There has got to be a better way”?

Whether or not you have a formal business plan, your business must also be designed to be livable. The good news is that the problems can be fixed — by implementing the principles of good design. In a business, this starts by analyzing where the problems are, why the problems occur, and then designing the solutions. It may not be your area of expertise, but it is mine, and together, we can transform your business. I have several options of how we can work together; call me and we can discuss what would be the best fit for you.

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Creating the High Points In Your Life

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Maura on summit of Mt. Katahdin My husband and I met in a basic mountaineering training course offered by the Sierra Club. He was one of the instructors, I was a student. Many of our dates involved hiking or backpacking, and hiking has remained an important part of our lives. In addition to a shared interest, it provides us time together to talk about our week, and, of course, exercise.

A number of years ago, I heard about the HighPointers Club. The members share a goal of attaining the high point of every state. This sounded great!  We started by trying to fit in hiking a state highpoint whenever we vacationed, and one year decided to attend the annual convention (proving the point that there is an organization for pretty much any interest). We were hooked, and our highpointing efforts stepped up considerably.

Some of the high points are ridiculously easy (Florida is basically a mound in a small roadside park); at the other end of the spectrum is Alaska’s highpoint, Denali. Regardless of the difficulty, one of the beauties of this goal is that you see every state, and some beautiful scenery. But the highpoints are typically not in the most easy to get to locations, and Maine is a good example. It’s a full day drive from anywhere, and closer to Canada than it is to most towns in Maine. Which means that you have to plan your trip carefully to allow sufficient travel time and hiking time, especially if you are traveling from southern California just to hike this peak.

We learned this the hard way eight years ago, when we planned our trip so tightly that we only allowed one day for our hike. That was the day the tail-end of Katrina hit the Northeast, and the park closed all access to the mountain. Four years ago, we tried again. It was raining heavily when we left the trailhead at 6 am, and my husband had had a bad night after eating something that did not agree with him. We turned around after a mile.

So you can imagine I was determined to get this peak on our third attempt. I planned 2 hiking days, so one could be a back-up in case of weather. Fortunately, the weather cooperated, and we attained the summit last Tuesday – state highpoint #42 for me, and #44 for my husband. We’re already planning our next highpoint adventure.

Make sure you create your own highpoints- It’s important to plan time in your week for those activities about which you are passionate. It’s too easy to allow other things to co-opt your time if you don’t. As a start, acknowledge what you love to do but aren’t. Then schedule time this week on that activity. Make it a commitment by commenting what you will do below.

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The Secret Powers of Time

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The Key to Keeping a Life BalanceDid you know that most Americans agree they sacrifice friends, family, and sleep for their success?

In this fascinating video, psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo explains how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. It’s 10 minutes, but worth it for the insights.

Insight #1: Lots of conflicts we have with people are really a conflict of different time perspectives.
-How can you apply this to your interactions with your vendors and/or clients?

Insight #2: If given an extra day, 50% of Americans would not spend it with friends or family.
-Schedule time with friends and family – and treat those appointments with the same respect you do your work appointments.

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Always Agree and Say Yes: Tina Fey’s Rules For Improv

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My mother's music box: The Man in the Moon with cherubs

My mother’s music box: The Man in the Moon with cherubs

I’ve discovered that an improv class was great training for talking with my mother. Who better than Tina Fey to explain why:

The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we’re improvising and I say, “Freeze, I have a gun,” and you say, “That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me,” our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, “Freeze, I have a gun!” and you say, “The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!” then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.

– excerpt from ‘Bossy Pants’

My mother, an intelligent and sophisticated woman, has Lewy Body Disease. Among other things, that means her cognitive abilities fluctuate. Last week she was clear as a bell; Tuesday night, when we had dinner, not so much.

That does not mean a conversation is impossible, just that it helps to stay agile and respond thoughtfully when she asks what Bart will do in the afterlife (her word). Bart is my cat. According to my mother, he often stops by her nursing home for a visit.

Agility is an important skill to practice for other reasons, too. Ever have an unsatisfactory conversation with a customer service rep?  Which company was more likely to keep your business: the one with the customer service rep who has the knee jerk reaction  ‘That’s not a problem” or the one with the rep who says “Yes. That is a problem” and begins to explore alternative ways to handle the situation? Companies create raving fans when they ‘agree and say yes’ when a customer reports a problem. These companies see the complaint as a gift that allows them to create an even better product or service.

And my mother’s gift is that she still is teaching me lessons that help me live my life (and run my company) with more grace.

 

Are you a business owner who finds yourself thinking:

I’m only one person…I can’t do everything!

I want to make more money.

Business is growing, but I can’t afford more staff.

Step One: Download Your FREE Business Systems Assessment:

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