Everyone worked hard today. Almost nobody could tell you, accurately, where every hour of it went.

Most tradespeople work hard, consistently, and would struggle to give an accurate breakdown of exactly where a given day's hours went across different jobs. That's not a discipline problem - it's just genuinely hard to track manually without it becoming its own tedious job.

Why this matters beyond curiosity

Without decent time data, it's very hard to know which jobs are actually profitable once labour is properly accounted for, and equally hard to bill accurately for time-and-materials work, or to spot a job that's quietly running over before it's too late to do anything about it.

Making tracking part of the job, not a separate chore

Clocking in and out directly against a job, with GPS location recorded and time flagged as billable or not, turns time tracking into a byproduct of doing the work rather than an extra admin task at the end of the day. It's what powers accurate job profitability reporting further down the line. Working time records also matter for basic employment compliance - see GOV.UK's guidance on working hours for the wider legal context.

The verdict

"Where did the day go" shouldn't be a rhetorical question at 6pm. With decent time tracking, it's one with an actual answer.