How to Set Up Time Tracking Before the Project Kicks Off

Most tracking problems are not tracking problems. They are setup problems. The project starts, you open a blank timer, and you figure out the structure later. Later never comes, or it comes at 11pm when you are trying to build an invoice from a pile of unlabeled entries.

Here is what to do instead.

Name the project before you name the work

Open Time-Trak and create the client folder first. Not the task, not the timer. The folder. Give it the client name, the project name, and the rate you agreed to. Do this before you send the kickoff email, not after.

Why this order matters: once you start working, your brain is on the work. Setup feels like interruption. So you skip it. Then you track time under whatever project you had open last, which is usually the wrong one.

Set the rate before you log a single minute

This is the step people skip most. They track hours, then figure out the rate later. But if you are billing at $120 per hour and you forget to set it, your invoice math is wrong. You either catch it before you send, which is embarrassing, or you don't catch it, which is worse.

In Time-Trak, set the billing rate inside the project at the start. If you have a blended rate because you do both strategy and execution for this client, set up separate task types now. Takes two minutes. Saves a conversation you do not want to have.

Break the project into phases, not just tasks

If the project has distinct phases, like discovery, design, and delivery, create them now. Not because clients always want phase-by-phase reporting. Because you want it.

When you sit down to invoice, you will want to know how long discovery actually took versus how long you quoted for it. You can only know that if you tracked against it separately from the start.

One flat project with forty mixed entries is hard to read. Three phases with clean entries each is something you can actually use next time you price a similar project.

Decide what counts as billable before the confusion starts

Every project has gray area work. Internal review. Research. Email back and forth before anything is approved. Decide now whether those are billable and how you will label them.

Create a non-billable task type if you need one. Use it consistently. The goal is to track your real time even when you are not charging for it, because that data is how you price the next project correctly.

If you only track billable time, you will always underestimate how long things take.

Turn on screenshots if the client expects proof

Some clients want documentation. Some do not. Decide this at setup, not when they ask. Time-Trak's automatic random screenshots run quietly in the background. You do not have to think about them once you enable them.

If the client ever questions your hours, you have timestamped visual records. That is a different conversation than trying to explain what you were doing from memory three weeks later.

Test the timer before you actually need it

Start a test entry. Let it run for thirty seconds. Stop it. Look at where it landed. Make sure it went into the right project and the right task type. If something is misconfigured, you want to find out now.

This sounds obvious. Almost nobody does it. They discover the problem when they have twelve hours logged in the wrong place.

The five-minute rule

Before any new project starts, give yourself five minutes to set it up completely. Client folder. Project name. Rate. Task types. Screenshot settings. One test entry.

That is it. You will spend more than five minutes fixing it later if you skip it. The setup is not overhead. It is the work.

Track your time, bill every minute.

Time-Trak is a native Mac and Windows time tracker with a floating timer, automatic screenshots, and one-click invoicing.

Free during beta.

macOS + Windows · Floating widget · Auto screenshots