How Timeular helps a technology and strategy consulting company spot wasted time

Richard Taylor founded and runs Graphic Strategy, a technology and strategy consulting company.

Challenge: finding out where time goes

Like many small businesses owners, Richard Taylor always found more things to do in any given time than he could necessarily manage. He realised that it was critical for him to be able to see how much time went on which task and where he had wasted any time so that he could increase efficiency.

Solution: effectively prioritising tasks

Richard started using Timeular to help him identify where all of his time was going. He found Timeular easy to use: “I wish I’d started earlier. It’s so easy and quick to set up that I didn’t really need much in the way of guidance.”

It was the Covid-19 outbreak that led him to take a closer look at his working patterns when he was forced to work from home. Facing the challenge of staying productive in a home environment made him understand the importance of time management.

Richard is using the Outlook function to build automatic buffers into meetings and conference calls, helping him declutter and ensuring he doesn’t stay in front of the hardware for extended periods of time.

Richard tries to plan his day in detail at “close of business” the previous day. He assigns Outlook slots to all the things he needs to get done and then works out his priorities (Richard is a fan of time blocking). His clients are in many different time zones, and he knows that when he shuts down in the evening, there will be a surge of late-night needs coming in from the US and also an early morning surge from Asia. This means that from about 5:30am when he starts work, he needs to reschedule a couple of tasks to fit his clients’ needs.

In client discussions he found it helpful to have a documented timeline of “what happened with whom and when”, allowing him to offer maximum transparency to customers.

Outcome: more accountability and transparency

With the time he is saving each day thanks to Timeular’s insights, Richard is able to assign time to practice mindfulness in the form of a forest trail run or a dog walk.

“Timeular is a superb extension to this and also a reality check. I’ve subscribed to my Timeular feed in Outlook on all devices, so I have now my plan but also my reality, which not only helps me make sure I’m spending appropriate amounts of time on individual projects but also gives me a correlation of what needs to be done and what took up how much time.”

Since using Timeular, Richard has noticed a massive boost in terms of time accountability and effective transparency. It helps him optimise his invoicing cycle and gives him more confidence in the way he structures projects. His billing process now takes 30 minutes less per client: “a huge productivity bonus that gives me time for more effective administration work.” This also provides his clients a better sense of deliverable timing.

For Richard, finding the right tool has been something that he has put time into choosing: “I’d often researched systems – I think I get on better with Timeular not only because of what it offers but also because it’s fun to work with. I had looked at alternatives and I’m very happy to have chosen this system.”