Run a time audit to find what to outsource

Key takeaways

A time audit for small business owners and teams means logging every task for two weeks in 15-minute blocks, then sorting each task into owner-only, someone-trained or unnecessary. The someone-trained pile, grouped by process, is your outsourcing shortlist. Most owners find 10 or more hours a week they could hand off.

• 2 weeks of logging in 15-minute blocks gives a reliable picture.
• Sort every task: only me, someone trained, or nobody needs to.
• Group the someone-trained tasks by process and total the hours.
• A process over 10 hours a week is a strong outsourcing candidate.

What is a time audit?

A time audit is a short, structured record of how people actually spend their working hours, used to find work that could be removed, automated or handed to someone else. For a small business it replaces guesswork with numbers, and it is the first step in deciding whether and what to outsource.

• When should a UK business consider outsourcing?

How do you run a time audit?

Keep it simple enough to finish. Use a spreadsheet or a notes app and record tasks in 15-minute blocks as you go, not at the end of the day. Two weeks captures most weekly patterns; add a month end if invoicing or reporting is monthly.

• Pick two normal weeks, not a holiday or a crisis.
• Record each 15-minute block: task, process, interruption or planned.
• Note tasks that were started, interrupted and restarted.
• Include evenings and weekends.
• Total hours by process at the end.

• Owner working too many hours? When to outsource

How do you sort the results?

Sort every task into three groups. Only me covers work needing your judgement, relationships or authority. Someone trained covers work that follows steps. Nobody covers work that exists out of habit. Then group the someone-trained tasks by process: inbox, calls, booking, invoicing, data entry. The totals show where the hours go.

• Which tasks a small business should outsource

What do most time audits reveal?

Most time audits reveal three things. Admin takes more time than people thought, often by several hours a week. Interruptions break the day into pieces too small for focused work. And a few processes, usually email, phone and invoicing, account for most of the repeatable hours.

The interruptions matter as much as the hours. A task that takes 5 minutes but arrives 20 times a day fragments the whole day, which is why phone and inbox handling are common first outsourcing choices.

How do you turn a time audit into an outsourcing decision?

Score the top processes on the GBL Outsourcing Trigger Scorecard: hours, cover, volume, speed and cost. The time audit gives you the hours directly and usually reveals the cover and speed problems too. A process over 10 hours a week that scores 7 or more is ready to outsource; 4 to 6 is ready for a pilot.

• The outsourcing trigger scorecard
• What should you outsource first?

What are the common time audit mistakes?

The common mistakes are logging from memory at the end of the week, choosing an unusual fortnight, and ignoring evenings. Another is auditing only the owner. The same repeatable work often sits with skilled staff too, where it costs more than you think.

• Skilled staff stuck doing admin? What it costs you

What should a time audit template include?

A useful template captures the task, the process it belongs to, how long it took and whether it was planned or an interruption. Add one column for your sorting decision so the analysis is done as you go. Keep it to a single sheet; a template that takes longer than a minute to fill in will be abandoned by day three.

• Date and 15-minute time block.
• Task description in a few words.
• Process: inbox, calls, booking, invoicing, data entry, delivery, sales.
• Planned or interruption.
• Only me, someone trained, or nobody.

• How to measure team capacity before you outsource

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see in UK clinics and practices: the practice manager believes admin takes about 10 hours a week. The two-week audit shows 22, mostly phone calls, rebooking and reminder messages, scattered across the day. Moving calls and rebooking to a managed team gives the manager back half a working week.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Time audit checklist

Follow these steps for a useful audit.

• Choose two normal weeks, plus a month end if relevant.
• Log in 15-minute blocks as you go.
• Include evenings, weekends and interruptions.
• Sort each task: only me, someone trained, nobody.
• Total the someone-trained hours by process.
• Score the top processes and pick the first to move.

Next step

Ask us for the time audit template, run it for two weeks, and send us the totals. We will tell you which process to hand off first and what it should return.