Special education teachers and related service providers (SLP, OT, PT) are often required to track and report the time spent on tasks for funding purposes or for time studies. Related service providers on our team, track indirect and direct service time for 3rd party billing. As a member of the evaluation team, I track the time I spend on evaluation tasks for each student and report it for funding purposes. As things got busy, I found I was doing a poor job of tracking my time and ended up estimating. I turned to technology to help me with this task and I have tried several different tools. Right now, my “go to” tool is a Chrome app, Task Timer. I create tasks using the initials of my students. When I am working on a task related to that student, I start the timer. The timer runs in the background. The trick is remembering to stop the timer when you switch tasks!
I also use a Chrome extension, Simple Time Track. Your lists of tasks appear when the icon is clicked. When a task is being timed, “RUN” appears under the icon. This is a helpful visual reminder to turn off the timer when done working on the task. I use both tools for different tasks and as a result am doing a much better job of tracking time accurately.
