Six years of data helped us sharpen our systems, spot overservicing and celebrate what we do best
Time is our most valuable resource, and for purpose-led teams, time is even more precious at work. With fast-moving projects and the need to be flexible about timelines and scope, it can be easy to lose track of where all those hours go.
Enter: data! We have logged more than 40,000 hours over the past six years, and today we exported a lot. (We have moved to a new time tracking provider, which is a big moment in itself. The tracker is the first tab I open in the morning and the last thing I close down before I shut my laptop.)
The data’s not perfect. Up until 2025 we didn’t ask all our consultants to use the same system, so there are many hours missing. I was on maternity leave in 2024 so there’s a dip in my hours logged. But still, 40,000 hours is a treasure trove when you start interrogating what’s working, what needs adjusting, and what good communication work really costs.
Here’s what we found.
What we spent the most time on
Strategy workshops and planning: designing agendas, leading group sessions, and turning ideas into clear actions. This work is time-intensive but deeply valuable. My rule of thumb is to allocate at least 2x the duration of the workshop as prep time: I often exceed this if we are designing the session from scratch. There’s no such thing as overprepared!
Comms outputs: social media, annual reports, advocacy messaging, and digital content. Most of this was content we developed for our partners: we have fallen into the classic trap of fixing other organisations’ comms before our own! Now we spend a growing portion of our time on AMS itself. In 2025, around 9 in 10 hours (about 90%) were logged against client work, and about 1 in 10 (about 10%) went to AMS’s own communications and business building.
Business development and proposals: This is a tricky one because writing proposals (as many nonprofits feel deeply) is not directly billable work. One of the biggest surprises was the hundreds of hours we’ve spent each year on scoping, pitching, and quoting work. I find this a really fun part of running AMS, but it is very time consuming. At the moment I’m working towards spending at least one day a week, or 20% of my work time, on this effort. Most of AMS’ business development falls to me as the founder: for the stage we’re at, that works OK for now, but for sustainable growth soon I will need more help.
Internal systems and setup: in 2025 we saw a jump in time spent on templates, onboarding, and internal tools. It wasn’t glamorous, but this reflects the growing need for consistency across our teams and the upfront effort this takes – especially when we work remotely with colleagues in 30+ countries.
The surprising takeaway: we did manage to prioritise investment in how to work better, alongside our commitment to delivering fantastic work for the organisations we work with.
Time tracking: a treasure-trove for comms and marketing leaders
Communication work is often underestimated. We all know the feeling: a coworker comes over and asks “could you just…” – requesting a “small” thing that is actually a half-day’s work needed in an hour. The deck looks great, the video is just what they needed… but they may not have seen the research, care and iterations it takes to get the work right.
Time tracking showed us where the real labour sits. Strategy work takes time, sometimes more than we expect. Short-form content also takes time: an important social post can still take an hour or more. The fastest logged “single social post” tasks came in at around 15 minutes, but most sit closer to 45–90 minutes once you include drafting, design, edits, approvals, and so on. (We also tend to batch social media content creation, working on multiple posts at once, so some of those longer sessions delivered more than one post.) Feedback and iteration are part of delivery, and should be scoped that way. And internal comms work needs the same time discipline as external-facing outputs and needs to be properly factored into time planning.
This data helps us scope more realistically. And if anyone ever asks us to shave off a day here or there on a proposal, we can explain exactly why our outputs take the time they do.
How do you log time effectively for maximum data insight?
Looking through six years of logs, we saw a wide range in how people described their tasks.
Some entries were too vague:
“Emails”
“Admin”
“Meeting”
Others were much clearer:
“Drafted three captions for [organisation’s] back-to-school campaign”
“Facilitated strategy session with [organisation]: session one of three”
“Built [client] pitch deck and wrote meeting notes for follow-up”
These clear entries play through perfectly into timesheets (efficient!) and at a management level, give the information needed to understand where time was going and use it for the future.
The ideal format looks like:
[Action] + [Client or Project] + [Output or Reason]
Examples:
“Proofed and submitted final draft of Thaki report”
“Wrote five content ideas for IDPEA campaign”
“Onboarded new associate: Trello walkthrough and docs setup”
If a task takes multiple sessions, use the same format for all the sessions so you can add them up later for the full time allocated. And within the software we’re adopting now, we can allocate time tracking to tasks and clients, which will make the reporting more precise. Like with any system, it’s as good as the inputs, so we have also developed guidance for the team and will check everyone is fluent with the process as we roll it out.
Why it’s worth the effort
Good time tracking is part of good practice. It helps us quote ethically, avoid overservicing, and give credit where it’s due. It also helps us work in a way that reflects our values: transparent, collaborative, and intentional. For me, the best benefit is being able to estimate time needed for a given task, so I don’t overload myself or commit to unrealistic timelines. The stress saved is well worth building the small habit of tracking time as you go.
So – we tip our hats to time tracking. Thanks for showing us a new angle on what purposeful, creative work really looks like behind the scenes, and reminding us to value our most precious resource.
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If this approach to scoping, budgeting and communications resonates, you can explore our services on our website or get in touch. We would be glad to start a conversation.
