How to do a time audit in 5 simple steps (plus a free template)

If you’re anything like the small business owners I work with, your days are packed… but it feels like nothing’s really moving forward.

Here's what I've learned over the years: what gets measured gets improved. And one of the key ways to improve your time management is to do regular time audits. 

Because if you’re not tracking where your time’s going, you’re just guessing.

If you don't know how to do a time audit, you won’t be able to clearly see where your time is being spent, what’s worth keeping, and what needs to change. Instead, you’ll keep wondering why you’re always behind, scrambling to keep up with admin, and struggling to find time for the work that actually grows your business.

You’re in the right place! I've got a simple 5 step process to help you get clear on where your time’s really going - based on what I’ve seen work again and again with clients (and myself!) over the past few years. It's one of the first things I do with them, and it always leads to big a-ha moments.

We’ll cover everything from choosing the right week to track to reviewing your tasks and spotting the biggest time leaks. I’ll also walk you through mistakes I made early on (like tracking too vaguely or not reviewing properly) and common traps I still see other small business owners fall into - like underestimating how long admin really takes.

Just follow the steps, and by the time you finish Step 5, you’ll know exactly where your time is going, what’s worth keeping, and what you can stop, systemise, or hand over. You’ll feel more in control, more focused, and finally have a clear plan to make better use of your workday.

If you want to follow along with this process, I’ve made it super easy. Download my free Time Audit Toolkit - it’s got everything you need to track your time properly, start seeing time leaks, and start making changes. [Grab it here.]

Ready? Let’s go!

Why you need to track your time as a small business owner (and why it's crucial for productivity)

Most small business owners are juggling way too much - client work, marketing, admin, team comms, content creation… and somewhere in there, maybe throw some lunch down your throat. But if you want to take control of your time, you need to know what’s actually taking up your day.

We tend to guess where our time’s going. We think we spend most of the day on sales or client work. But the truth is, most people are shocked when they see the real breakdown. What feels like a full day of work often turns out to be a couple of focused hours, with the rest scattered across emails, admin, switching between low-priority stuff, interruptions and urgent-but-not- important tasks.

That’s why you need to run a time audit. It gives you data you can work with - so you're not just reacting to overwhelm, you're understanding what’s causing it and where your time wasters are.

When you know exactly how you spend your time, you can start to:

• Spot tasks that don’t need to be done at all
• Identify areas that could be automated or systemised
• Figure out what needs to be delegated
• Plan your week around your real, available hours (not the fantasy version)

This is the first step to making time - not by doing more, but by doing less of the wrong things.

And if you’re still trying to do it all yourself, it’s also the first step to figuring out what you can hand over to a VA or another team member, so you can get back to the work that actually matters.

What a time audit actually is (and what are the benefits of time tracking)

When you conduct a time audit, you're just recording how you’re spending your time during a typical work week. That’s it. You’re not planning or trying to be productive - you’re just tracking what actually happens.

Think of it like a food diary, but for your time. You’re not judging or editing anything, just noticing. You’re looking for patterns - how much time goes to admin, client work, content, emails, Slack messages, distractions, all of it.

The goal here isn’t to fix anything (yet). It’s to get a clear picture of:

• Where your time is going
• What types of tasks you’re spending the most energy on
• How often you’re switching between things (and how much that’s costing you)
• What’s eating up time without adding real value

Use whatever tool you’ll actually use - pen and paper, a spreadsheet, Notion, or time tracking software like Toggl or Timing. There’s no right way to do this. If scribbling in a notebook works for you, go for it. The best tool is the one that makes it easy to keep going.

Use my free template to perform a time audit:

The tool doesn’t matter as much as being consistent and specific. You want enough detail that you can actually use the info later - not vague notes like “marketing” or “admin.”

This is your baseline. It gives you the data you need to make smart decisions about what to change, automate, or delegate.

Without it, you’re just guessing - and we’re done with that. 

And as a bonus? 

Just like a food diary makes you eat better by making you more aware, when you're in the middle of the time audit process, you'll find that you're automatically managing your time better - simply because you’re paying attention.

But seeing where your time goes is only part of the puzzle. Real change starts to happen when you do something with those insights - when you start handing over the right tasks and building systems that free you up. That’s exactly what this audit sets you up for.

Step 1: Choose a normal week for your time audit exercise

Before you can track your time effectively, you need to pick the right week. This sounds simple, but it’s a step a lot of people overlook - and it makes a huge difference.

So, the first thing you need to do is look ahead and choose a week that reflects your typical workload.

That means:

• No big launches or major events
• No holidays or time off
• No weeks where everything’s on fire (unless that’s your normal!)

You want to be able to track your activities during a week that feels “standard” - where most of your usual tasks and responsibilities are happening. If your calendar’s a bit chaotic, that’s okay. Just pick the next week that feels reasonably typical.

Why this helps:

• It gives you a realistic snapshot of your day to day
• It makes it easier to spot patterns and time sucks
• It sets the foundation for every other step in the process

For example: If you try to track during a launch week or when a team member is away, you’ll see a spike in one area that might not represent your usual workflow. And if you pick a quiet week, you might miss the sneaky admin tasks that usually eat up your time.

What to look out for:

Many people skip this foundational step and then wonder why their audit feels off. Don’t let that be you! Choosing a week that truly represents your normal rhythm is crucial for making sense of the data later on.

Remember - we're not looking for an ideal day here. Recording a typical week's worth of activities will help you identify areas of improvement more easily. But if things go pear shaped half way through, don't worry. Just keep going as best you can. 

Step 2: Start auditing your time by tracking everything you do

At this point, you might be thinking this sounds like a lot of work - or wondering, “Do I really need to write down every little thing?” The short answer: yes, but it’s simpler than you think. You'll start to see patterns sooner than you think. And you'll be able to boost your productivity faster than you'll believe. 

What we’re doing here is creating a clear record of your time - so you can finally stop guessing and start seeing what’s actually happening.

One thing that helps is to make this as easy as possible:

• Choose a method you’ll stick with: spreadsheet, notebook, Notion page, time tracking app - whatever suits your brain
• Track in 15 - 30 minute blocks so you can capture all the little stuff
• Be specific: write “followed up with a X client by email” or “scheduled 3 x Instagram posts for next week,” not just “marketing” or "sales"
• Do it for a full work week to get the clearest picture

If a full week feels like too much right now, start with just 2 or 3 days. You’ll still see patterns, and it’s a solid way to dip your toe in without feeling like it's too much. It’s better to track a couple of days than put it off because you think it has to be perfect.

Here’s what to include:

1. How you start and end your day
2. Time spent on client work, admin, sales, marketing, time in meetings, etc.
3. Time spent checking your team's work
4. Any breaks, interruptions or distractions
5. How often you’re switching between tasks (context switching is a sneaky time thief)

The reason this step is important is because it shows you exactly where your time is going - not where you think it’s going. It’s often eye opening. You might realise you’re only getting 2 - 3 hours of focused time a day, even though you’re “at your desk” for much longer.

And here’s a bonus: as soon as you start tracking your time, you’ll probably find yourself being more focused without even trying. There’s something about knowing you’re tracking that naturally helps you stay on task. It’s the classic “what gets measured gets improved” effect - and it really works.

Here are some tips to make this easier:

• Set a timer to check in and log your time every 30 mins
• Use voice notes or an app if you’re on the go
• Don’t worry about being perfect - just be consistent and honest

What to look out for:

When I first started, I was far too detailed with my time-tracking (ever the perfectionist!) and it took me ages. One of my team members wrote vague things like “work on customer service” which didn't tell us anywhere near enough. Like so many things, it's about finding the balance. Just enough specifics so you can actually use the data. I’ve also seen clients track their time beautifully for one day and then forget the rest of the week - don’t do that either!

Common mistakes:

• Writing vague notes instead of specific tasks
• Forgetting to track the little stuff (like replying to a quick email, and those 5 minute calls and interruptions)
• Only tracking during focused work blocks (your distractions matter too!)

Hint: Don’t just track what you do in your professional life - make sure to log your personal activities too. When you run a business, work often bleeds into your personal time, and if you want any kind of work-life balance, you need to know exactly how much time you actually spend working.

Just keep logging, and you’ll have gold to work with in the next step.

Let’s move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Review and group your tasks

Are you starting to get a clearer picture of how your time’s actually being spent? I hope so. This is where it starts to get really interesting.

You may be feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of little tasks you tracked - and that’s perfectly normal. Any time you look at raw data, it can feel like a lot. But don’t worry, we’re about to bring some order to it all.

Next, you’ll want to go back over what you tracked and start grouping your tasks into categories. This helps you identify trends and figure out what’s actually taking up your time.

Here’s how to do it:

• Review everything you tracked across the full week
• Assign each task to a category that makes sense for your business - like admin, client work, marketing, content creation, sales, strategy, personal, etc.
• Keep it simple. You don’t need 20 categories - 7 to 10 is usually plenty

While you’re doing this, make a note of any tasks that are repetitive, seem to take too long or that really shouldn’t be on your list anymore. These are the first things you'll look at when you start to make changes.

Pay attention to the stuff that saps your energy - the things you put off, that leave you feeling flat, or that just suck the life out of you during your workday. Those are usually the first ones to look at systemising or handing over.

For example: One client realised she was spending almost 7 hours a week responding to client emails - something that could be mostly templated or delegated to her VA with the right SOPs in place. But she never saw it clearly until we grouped her tasks.

So, while reviewing your tasks, ask yourself:

• Can I stop doing this?
• Could I automate this with a tool or system?
• Is this something I could delegate to a VA or team member?
• Does this task actually need to be prioritised because I'm not actually spending enough time on this?

This is also where some of the biggest lightbulb moments happen. Maybe you’re spending way more time on admin than you realised. Or you’re doing the same things over and over with no system in place to hand them over. That’s not a time problem - it’s a systems problem. But it’s a fixable one.

Don’t stop here. If you’re seeing clear candidates for delegation or automation and thinking, “But no one else knows how to do this,” I’ve got you. I’ll show you exactly how to turn those repeatable tasks into SOPs that someone else can follow - without needing to write a single thing from scratch.

You can also use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix to help you prioritize your work - using the four quadrants is a great way to sort out your priority goals. (I’ll go deeper on how to use that in a separate post.)

If you want, you can download my free time audit spreadsheet or Notion tracker - it includes a built in section to categorise your tasks and flag them for automation or delegation. I created it to help you get all of this out of your head and into a system that’s actually useful.

Click here to download the free Time Audit Template

What to look out for:

It might be hard to decide which category a task falls into - and that’s okay. You’re not being graded on this. The point is to start seeing the big picture. If you're on the fence about a task, ask: If I didn’t do this task for a whole month, would anyone notice? That one question alone can be very revealing.

Ready to see how much time you actually have to work with? Let’s move on to Step 4.

Step 4: Work out how much time you really have

We’re just about done. There are just two more steps.

Here’s what to do next: take the task categories you created in Step 3 and add up how many hours went to each one. This is where things usually get… interesting.

• Total up your hours for the full week
• Break that total into your task categories (e.g., admin = 6.5 hours, client work = 10 hours, etc.)
• Look at how many focused hours you actually had - not just desk time, but real, productive time

Most small business owners are shocked at how little time they actually spend doing high value tasks that work towards business goals. We think we’re working 40 hours, but once you take out admin, distractions, and task switching, it’s more like 15 - 20 hours of useful time (on a good week, and if you're working full time - it's even less when you're trying to work around kids).

This step gives you the truth about:

• What your real capacity is
• Where your time is leaking
• Whether you’re spending time on the right things

What to look out for:

No matter what you do, don’t skip this step or rely on gut feel. It’s so easy to underestimate how long things take - especially admin and context switching.

If you do, you’ll keep overcommitting yourself and wondering why you’re always behind. So take the time to get your numbers. As the saying goes, “What gets measured gets managed.”

Keep going! You’re nearly there. Step 5 is where we bring it all together.

Step 5: Make small changes and repeat

One of the benefits of time auditing is that you can find some immediate wins - you’ll always find a few things you can stop doing straight away, take some actionable steps, and free up extra time each week.

This is the last step. Get ready to celebrate!

Now that you’ve tracked, reviewed, and crunched the numbers, it’s time to actually do something with what you’ve learned. But what I will say is: don’t try to fix everything at once.

Here’s what to do:

• Pick one or two small changes to start with – maybe stop doing something that doesn’t need to happen at all, automate a recurring task, or find something you can delegate to your VA. And if delegation is the next step for you, use what you’ve uncovered in your audit to prioritise which SOPs you need to write—so when the time comes to hand it over, it’s clear, repeatable, and off your plate for good. For a step-by-step guide on creating SOPs efficiently, check out my post on How to Easily Create SOPs for Delegation by Using AI.
• Use what you’ve learned to plan your workweeks more realistically, based on the actual time you have
• Book in your next time audit - this isn’t a one and done activity. Do it every quarter, or sooner if you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed again

I recommend doing a full time audit quarterly - or any time you feel like your days are busy but not productive. Personally, I time track every day because I know exactly how valuable it is, but I know that’s not realistic for everyone. If you’re short on time, aim for once a quarter to start.

And while this post is focused on you as the business owner, once you’ve got a team, it’s just as important that they do a time audit too - ideally once a quarter. That way, you’re not just improving how you work, but how the whole team spends their time. (More on this in a future post.)

If you’ve done this time audit and you’re staring at a list of tasks thinking “I know I shouldn’t be doing all this, but I don’t have the systems or support to hand it over” - that’s exactly where I come in.

You don’t need to figure it out alone. My SOPs Made Simple Bot will help you turn those tasks into step-by-step instructions in minutes. And if you’re ready to go deeper, my Simple Business Systems course gives you a repeatable system for creating one fully documented, delegated process - so your team can take over without the constant back-and-forth. 

Knowing what to do is just the first step. Let’s make sure you act on it.

Here’s how to get the best results with this:

• Start small: one change is better than none, and trying to overhaul everything at once will just lead to burnout
• Schedule a follow up audit in 3 months - it keeps you honest and helps you spot new patterns as your business evolves
• Build this into your rhythm: add a quick weekly or monthly review so you’re always conscious of where your time’s going

What to look out for:

The first time I did this, I was horrified at how little uninterrupted focus time I had. Once I saw the numbers, it was obvious why I felt stuck. One of my new goals was to literally close my door for two hours a day to minimize distractions and stay productive. It didn't always work, but it started to train my team into a different way of thinking about the value of my time.   

To this day, I time block and use the pomodoro technique to get my head down and smash out important work tasks.

The best part about tracking the time you spend across all your activities is that you become very aware of how you're allocating your time. 

The biggest lesson? You don’t need more hours. You just need to be clearer on how you’re using the ones you’ve already got.

It just shows there’s more than one way to create more time in your business. So more than anything, focus on what works for you.

Bonus!

Here’s something I started doing after helping dozens of clients with this process - and it really can make a difference: I now ask myself in my weekly review, “What am I doing that someone else could be doing instead?” That one question helps me spot delegation opportunities I used to miss.

Final thoughts (and setting new goals for time management)

You don’t need more hours in the day - you just need to get clearer about what you’re doing with the ones you’ve got.

A time audit is a crucial tool for helping you to improve your time management skills. It helps you step out of reaction mode and into strategy. It gives you the visibility you need to make better decisions, spend less time on low-value work, and to be able to use your time wisely so you're spending the majority of your time on high-priority activities.

Even if you just do it once, you’ll walk away with more clarity, better boundaries, and a renewed sense of what’s worth your time.

But if you build it into your rhythm - quarterly or even monthly - it becomes one of the most powerful tools for staying focused and in control. It's the only way to make sure that your time allocation planning gives you specific time for the things that are important in your daily schedule. 

A time audit gives you the clarity to stop guessing and start leading. It’s not just about tracking hours - it’s about seeing what’s sucking your energy, what needs to go, and what your business actually needs from you. But knowing where your time goes is only the beginning. The real results come when you start handing things over, setting up systems, and making your business less dependent on you. And if that’s what you’re ready for - I can help.

Your time audit template freebie & next steps

Want to get started without staring at a blank page? Download my free time audit template - available in spreadsheet and Notion format - to make this process as simple as possible. Click here to grab the free Time Audit Template

And when you’re ready to take the next step - whether that’s turning your audit into real delegation with clear SOPs, or building a system your team can run without you - check out my SOPs Made Simple Bot to help you write SOPs in seconds and my Simple Business Systems course. They’re designed to help you go from insight to action without the overwhelm.

Because seeing where your time is going is great - but freeing up your time for good? That’s where the transformation really happens.

And if you want help reviewing your time audit, identifying what to automate or delegate, and building systems that actually free up your time? That’s exactly what I do. Let’s talk about how we can turn your audit into action - and help you build a business that runs better, with less of your time.