FeewrightHow to track billable hours on your iPhone (without a timer you forget to stop)
Timers fail because you forget to start them and forget to stop them. A faster habit is to log each piece of work right after it ends — in a few seconds, from your phone.
Why timers don’t work for consultants
Timers suit long, planned blocks of work. Consulting days are interruptions: a call that runs over, a message that needs a real answer, a quick fix between meetings. You either forget to start the timer or leave it running through lunch, then spend Friday reconstructing the week from your calendar.
The ten-minute rule
Instead of timing, log each piece of client work within ten minutes of finishing it: client, duration, one line on what you did. It takes a few seconds while the details are fresh, and nothing depends on remembering to press start.
Pick a billing increment
| Increment | Common with | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 6 minutes (0.1 h) | Legal, accounting | Captures short calls and emails precisely. |
| 15 minutes | IT, technical consulting | A good default for most independents. |
| 30 minutes | Advisory, strategy | Simple, but rounds small tasks up noticeably. |
Write the increment into your agreement so rounding is never a surprise.
Make logging two taps
- Put your time-tracking app on the first home screen, not in a folder.
- Use big client buttons and preset durations (15m, 30m, 1h, 2h) so most entries need no typing.
- Dictate the description with the keyboard microphone instead of typing it.
Log by voice with an iOS Shortcut
With the Shortcuts app you can log time without opening anything: say “Log time”, then “Two hours on Northwind dashboard fixes”. A basic shortcut has three actions:
- Dictate Text — captures what you say.
- Get Contents of URL — sends the text to your time-tracking app’s capture address.
- Show Notification — confirms what was logged.
Add it to your Home Screen, the Action Button, or trigger it with Siri as you walk out of a meeting.
Review once a week
On Friday, spend five minutes scanning the week: any client with no entries on a day you know you worked for them? Any meeting in your calendar with no matching entry? Fix the gaps while you still remember.