Reviewing and adjusting your workflow is good practice as a freelancer if you want to minimise the time you spend on admin duties. Even the smallest changes can make a big difference.

Take my time sheet for example. The actual inputting of entries into my time sheet can take me a few minutes to do at a time. Doing this multiple times a day can lead to lost time. Sometimes I even just take a notes of what I have worked on through the day and then take 10 minutes at the end of the day to fill in my time sheet.

I started looking for an alternative method of inputting into my time sheet last week. I needed a timer that I could start and stop and record the entry in my time sheet quickly. I tried a number of apps, but I eventually found a suitable app that sits in the background and works with FreeAgent.

Slips is a menu bar app that allows you to quickly record entries for your time sheet in FreeAgent (my preferred invoicing tool). Now when I say quickly I do mean quickly. I find it much easier and quicker now to update my time sheet from this app than finding my way through my browser and it's many open tabs. Of course there's the added benefit of me not getting sidetracked by something open in my browser.

Micro changes such as this might only get me back a few minutes a day but adding those minutes up over the year and could be a significant amount of time that I am getting back.