The modern working day is often full of context switches. They are caused by multiple meetings on different topics, emails, instant messages, and chats with teammates. Studies show that getting sidetracked by other tasks costs an average of 25 minutes before people can fully reorient themselves to the original task. Online meetings often take up all the reserved time — and then some. Isn’t it frustrating to end a meeting 20 minutes late, only to have a 10-minute break before the next one starts?
The problem of context switching raises an important question related to time tracking. This is especially relevant in consulting companies that track time with high precision in order to bill every time slot to the correct customer and project.
Where do you put the time spent on context switching when no direct progress is made for customers or projects?
For junior consultants, thinking about time lost to context switching can be stressful. Do you dare to record it as working time? And if so, which project should you assign it to? What description should you use? “Context switching” certainly doesn’t look good in billing details.
My advice to those who ask has always been straightforward. When a meeting takes one hour and 15 minutes, record one and a half hours for it. If you need a context switch and a short break after a 60-minute meeting, you can record 90 minutes with a clear conscience. It’s fine to allocate the time to the meeting task and use the meeting subject as the description, both before and after the meeting. After all, writing and cleaning up meeting notes counts as participating in the meeting from a time tracking perspective.
The same principle applies to other causes of context switching. Since context switching is usually tied to the tasks that come before and after it, it’s reasonable to record that time against those tasks as well.
Leave a Reply