What Is Task Tracking?

Task tracking is a method used by office teams to monitor and track their tasks in real-time. This method is used to track project tasks through all project stages from beginning to end, and it’s most commonly done using task tracking tools or simply task trackers.

Task trackers are online software tools or standalone smartphone or computer applications designed to map out the work that goes into a project, follow the project progression status, monitor the budget, and distribute and finetune the workflow.

How Are Task Trackers Used?

Managers often have their hands full with multiple projects, pressing deadlines, and different types of workloads. With so much diverse work on their hands, these professionals are aware of the importance of maintaining frequent communication with their employees, clients, stakeholders, and employers for workplace efficiency and project progress. 

Managers often use task trackers to keep everyone on the same page and stay on top of things. This allows them to set smaller milestone tasks for each project and assign them to their employees. The managers add the deliverables for each task, including the budget, ETAs, and other project details.

The trackers monitor how much time employees spend on each task, track bottlenecks in the workload, the progress of each task, etc. The managers can track the progress of each task in real-time and keep their clients or employers updated.

Moreover, employees also use task trackers to gain insight into how they distribute their time between regular work activities and specific tasks, such as writing, coding, etc.

What Are the Benefits of Task Tracking?

Improved Organization and Workflow

The task tracker’s features encourage managers to organize the workload and plan out all of the tasks during a project’s lifecycle before the team begins to tackle their tasks. Task trackers demand that managers systemize their workflow to be operational and, in turn, provide them with a repeatable and consistent work process that can be fine-tuned to achieve a better workflow.

Keep to Budget

When managers know which team members are tackling specific project tasks, they can determine in which course the project budget is going. There could be cases when the employee teams spend more time on non-billable tasks, such as administrative tasks, or when employees with high hourly rates are assigned to low-value tasks.

The task tracker gives the managers a clear view of the entire project operation and allows them to make the necessary changes in the workflow and task schedule to keep the project on track with the budget.

Priorities Focus

The project tracker allows managers to break down every project task and find out if the employee teams are tackling prioritized tasks per schedule. 

The tracker relays information on whether the teams are spending too much time on normal tasks or whether they are over-committed to a single task and ignoring the rest, causing the whole project to fall behind schedule.

Careful Use of Resources

When managers know each individual employee’s effort that goes into completing project tasks, they can create a working schedule that will help team members work more effectively. 

Task tracking software allows managers to see which employees are working on specific projects, who has a lot of work on their plate, who could use some backup with challenging tasks, and who can spare a few hours to help other team members with pressing tasks.

In plain terms, managers use the tracker’s features to smartly reallocate employee resources and get the most out of each team member, boosting productivity and employee morale.

Accurate Billing

Task trackers allow managers to see exactly how many hours the employee teams spend on individual billable tasks and bill clients according to the tracker's data without overlooking any costs.

Future Plans

The task tracker software allows managers to plan future projects and deliverables by using the recorded data from previous projects and learning from them so they are able to make better decisions around efficient time budgeting and distributing employee resources.