How to track your work hours

Keeping an honest record of the hours you work takes a few seconds a day — if you set it up right.

Why track your hours at all?

Even on a fixed salary, a record of your hours earns its keep:

Overtime you can prove. “I’ve been working late a lot” is a feeling; “I’m 23 hours over my contract since March” is a conversation with your manager.
Flexitime and time off in lieu. If extra hours can be taken back as time off, someone has to keep count. It is safer if that someone is you.
Timesheets and invoices. Freelancers and hourly workers need the numbers anyway; tracking as you go beats reconstructing a week from memory on Friday.
Your own wellbeing. Long weeks creep up on you. Seeing four in a row on a chart makes the pattern hard to ignore.

What to record

At minimum, the time you start and the time you stop, for each stretch of work. From those, everything else — daily totals, weekly totals, overtime — can be worked out. If you take a break, record it as two stretches (a check-out and a check-in) rather than subtracting it later; it is far less error-prone.

Also record days you don’t work and why: holiday, sickness, a public holiday, unpaid leave. Each one changes what a “normal” week looks like, and holiday days count against your allowance while the others usually don’t.

Pick a method you will actually keep up

The best method is the one with the least friction, because tracking only works if it happens every day:

Paper or a notebook — no setup, but adding up the totals is manual, and easy to get wrong when minutes are involved (7:45 + 8:20 is 16:05, not 15:65).
A spreadsheet — flexible and free, but you have to remember to open it, and time formulas are fiddly. Converting to decimal hours helps.
A time tracking app — one tap to start and stop, with the arithmetic done for you. The trade-off is choosing one that doesn’t ask for more than you need.

A routine that sticks

Start the clock when you start work, before your first email, not after it.
Stop it for breaks — lunch, school runs, anything that isn’t work.
Stop it when you finish, then glance at the day’s total.
Mark days off as they happen, with the reason.
Review once a week: fix anything you forgot, and compare the week with your target. How to calculate overtime explains how.

How Clockflux does it

Clockflux was built around exactly this routine. A single toggle checks you in and out; breaks are just another check-out and check-in; the calendar holds your days off and their reasons; and the weekly target, overtime balance and holiday allowance are kept for you. It is free, works offline, and needs no account — your hours stay on your device. Start with getting started.