Megan Sayers on Toggl

Welcome to empathy deployed the podcast where you can experience an example customer interview every week. You'll discover new perspectives on different software products and improve your customer interview technique. As I attempt to do the same I'm Jonathan Manuel. And this week I'll be interviewing. Megan says, Megan is a customer of toggle toggles, a time-tracking to. How are we trying to understand why Megan purchased, toggle, how she uses it and what alternatives she's considered?

well, actually I've always used one for a really long time now. Um, but I didn't always use toggle. Um, and it used to be. When I was a freelancer or even at the small agency that I used to work at, we needed to sort of keep track of how long we spent on certain projects. Um, in some cases that's just to monitor things and sort of work out how long things take. So we know how much to invoice or charge next time. In other cases, it's because we're charging the client so of per the hour per day.

Yeah. That makes sense. And, um, and so can you walk me through, um, the, the process of, of, of tracking your time and what's, um, output it is that you want out of the end of it? Um, yeah, that, that can be how you're used to do it as well as how you're, you're doing it now. Um, so

there's two ways we do it. One is when I'm working. Um, if I know that that client is one where I need to be literally tracking how much time, because we want to retain it for them. So we need to know when we use that plummet. Um, as soon as I start working on their work, I have the, um, Coco program pinned in my Chrome browser and I open it up and hit record. Um, I know that Becky, my business partner actually does it retrospectively.

that's

one way of doing it the other way. Is also the other way. Yeah. I suppose what Becky does is retrospectively going in sort of pitching in, or sometimes it's just like, we're working for a whole day for that clients. We just go back in and put it in retrospectively.

Yeah. And was that process similar with previous tools? Um, did you, was there ever a time where you didn't have a tool, but you were tracking your, your time? Um,

I've been, I had phases where I happened when I've just been on the road. Straight forward contract. It really doesn't need any time tracking. We've built up that trust with the client and then interested in seeing then you kind of will break down. Um, but I used to have. Uh, the different products it's called office time. And I used that for about probably seven or eight years. And that was, um, it had an app that was set up in my toolbar at the bottom.

yeah, I think so. And, and so do you have like, um, as a habit or a muscle memory of, of going to a tool when you're starting work? Yeah.

There have been times when it's been very muscle memory that a movement. It depends. It depends on how we're working at the moment. It's getting back to muscle memory because I'm juggling a few different projects. I need to keep track, but more. But it there's been times when it's been so muscle memory that it's like a process of put my headphones in, hit play on Spotify and hit play on the, um, local office time product.

All right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, interesting. Uh, and, um, so tell me more about that process. You mentioned it's, Tableau's in a browser tab, you're using it. Um, and so did you say that. It's always open. Um,

and,

um,

and that's just generally how I work now. I sort of have all of my main products that I use that are online and have been pinned, um, across the top. Yup. They got my email

chalet,

Oracle calendar.

Right. So you open the browser and they're all there waiting. And, and when you, um, quick, is it starts in toggle, um, is that, is that the only thing you do or do you enter anything about the work that you're about to do. Yeah, you have

to, um, and I have to snap sometimes if it's something I really want to make sure we like what we were doing, then you could have a little field where you can put in exactly what you're doing. I don't do that very often, but it's just, it's something I'm usual. Um, in case we questioned at some point

or client. So the main thing you're tracking is that you're working for a particular client in that period of time.

Yeah. And so one of our clients that we're working on in particular, one of the projects so that, um, they can see sort of how much time is being spent on each of their projects.

Got it. And. And then there were, see you've hit start. Um, and then you're going on to doing the work that you'll be building for. Um, and just give us a little overview of what the, what sort of work is that or what you're using. It's a laptop based work. I take it. Um,

yes. So then I will drink the crime window and I'll get on with designing in. Um, or whatever reading or something. Um, yeah, and then I'll just leave it running until I stop now. I used to be very good at then remembering to stop it and office time used to actually, I didn't, I used to do some sort of reminder, uh, perhaps if I've stopped in perhaps a stepped away from my computer. I've come back and it would pop up and say, you're still timing. Um, and that would be really handy.

Yeah. And so did he, is it a concern that you're not, um, that, that you might fail to press the stop button when you finish working?

Just, I think sometimes it, you know, to you and says you've been working on this for 18 hours on your account. It doesn't actually say that, but it should. That'd be funny. I'd like that.

But,

you know, you can just see in the timeline that you've gone way off. And usually I can just, you can just send editor. I know we'll probably stopped, but X time we don't have to be really precise with the planning of things. It's just good just to keep track. So it doesn't matter too much.

Yeah. And, uh, and so what typical periods are you. Timing, um, uh, or we're looking at a morning and then an afternoon or smaller chunks or,

yeah. Um, warning sometimes I've just got whole day in. Um, sometimes if I just I'm really jumping around, I might be having a day where I'm jumping around the dots. I mean, that case, I just literally.

Yeah. See that. Um, and is there anything special that you do at the end of the day or the end of a week? Uh,

No, but we use it to report if that's what you're imagining. Um, we, at the end of each month, we will do a report, but that's only for one of our clients. I don't think they even look at it, but it was just, uh, not, uh, what's the word, the nice thing to do for them so they can see, um, the breakdown of. What we've been doing for them and what's costing them lots and that kind of thing. Right.

And that's a client with multiple projects where more than one of you are working on it. Right? Yeah.

I think it's really interesting on that. I really liked looking at the reports as well. It's very interesting. Yeah.

What is it about their quotes that makes the next interesting.

Yeah. On Toko, uh, just officially. Um, displayed. So just a nice play chart. Um, there's different ways you can have it, um, export it, but it breaks it down sort of what I've been working on, what Becky's been working on, how long, different projects Turk, and you can really do not realize how long something's taken. And it's very interesting to see overall

how long it's taken. Yep. And what, what are the steps involved in producing one of those, um, uh, reports.

You want me to look at it? Or should I tell you these steps? Or do you want me to see if I can remember?

Uh, if it's, if it's in front, if it's British VZ crispy, that's my dog barking. Sorry about that. We both got all okay. Both my dogs are going. So you were going to have a look at the reports. Um, And only if it's a, if it's really easy to tell in front of you, but, um,

um, so there's sort of like a panel with reports and I just click it. And, um, then there's some different views that you can choose from sort of like a summary or detailed on Wiki view. And you can sort of, there's lots of filters. You can filter it like project team member, or client, or. What should I use?

Yeah.

Yeah. What do I usually do a summary report? Cause that's the one which is more visual. Um, and then I sort of select the client and then the timeframe, um, it has a really nice way of showing timeframes. It has like a calendar. And so you can do your usual selects two points in a calendar, or it's got some sort of shortcuts. So today, yesterday, this week, last week, this month, and they're really helpful if some of that.

Yeah. And then you see send that PDF to your client. Yeah. And do you store that yourself? Um, well, we use it internally for anything or no.

I mean, you should be in a hurry when I do that bit, I'm just sending the invoice slightly. It will probably be in free agent, somewhat. Well, I've uploaded it, but I don't want to safe in it.

Right. So you send it with, sorry, you send it in the same email.

Yeah. But I send the invoice by attach there.

Yeah. That makes sense. Um, and so, uh, you feel it's doing everything you want to contract.

Yeah, I think so. Um, but it has a whole nother set of features, um, is toggled. Now I've got a few different products and we'll talk all of, so we use toggled track, um, but also use topical plan. Um, do you want me to talk about both.

I'm interested in what, what maybe if we, first of all, back up a little bit. So, um, when did you decide to start using toggle and what, what prompted you to, to do that? Was it maybe for plan or was it for track it at that point in time?

It was for track originally. And it was when we started our business last year.

Do you remember why you chose toggle? Um,

so I was using office time, but Becky, my business partner didn't have that one and I think I'd paid a one-off payment for it years ago. And so I wasn't paying for it. And when we first started our business, we just wanted to keep overheads really, really. Um, so I was really conscious of those different subscriptions to things. Um, I think toggle don't think it was that expensive.

of them.

Oh, sorry. I missed the step. So I had it, but when we, when I said to Becky that she should also get it, it was looking really expensive. So, and we compared it to toggle and actually took all, looked like it was now a much, much better product than this sort of old product I was using before. Um, and it, I have to say. It's very shallow, but the marketing on taco is really lovely. And the platform itself is really, really beautifully designed.

Right. I can definitely see that. Um, and, uh, do you, do you remember how you found out that toggle existed at to even, um, find it?

I need the name and I suspect I knew the name because I had seen some of their design. Like on some of the design platforms, I think maybe they had done some really lovely illustrations and I'm quite up to date like cool 3d rendered illustrations. So it probably pops up a few times when I was doing some research for other stuff, but that I didn't tweak that, that I didn't know what they did from that.

Right. Do you remember where you may have seen those examples of have designed any specific platforms or their forum? I don't know.

I expect it would have been on a website called dribble. Right. Um, which is, I don't know if you know it, but it's a design website. Design is upload their designs to it.

Yeah. Yeah. I've come across it a few, few times. I've certainly seen it over the shoulder of different designers that I've worked with. Um, and, and so, uh, as do you go, do you go to dribble often? Um, yeah, quite,

quite often. Not as much as I used to, but yeah, it's a bit of a staple. Driveline Pinterest design research.

Yeah. Okay. So, so when you're in research or mode or looking for some inspiration, so could that be daily or weekly? Um,

probably weekly.

Yeah. Or maybe is something that prompts you to use. Yeah, it's

usually triple is usually at the start of the project, um, that we would spend quite a lot of time looking. And then maybe a few points during the project I've been driven today, actually, because I was researching, um, some UI patterns and I wanted to see what other people are doing.

Okay. So you mentioned that you think you probably first noticed or saw some of the illustrations from. Um, could there have been anywhere else that you might've seen it? Um, or come across it?

I might've seen it.

I've seen them.

No, I would see, I don't think they would come through on like Facebook or Instagram. Maybe Instagram design, Instagram account.

Got it. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, and so, um, whereabouts talk about, um, uh, to-go plan. See you, um, actually just before we get to that, your. You've learned about a toggle and, um, and you're even reviewing different time tracking tools with Becky. Um, it jumped out at you at the point when you're about you're making the decision together. I seem to whether or not this was going to be the one that you'd buy. Was there anything that you're unsure about or that was unclear?

I was aware that I was very tied to office time, but it was a very sort of, it felt quite antiquated, but it did have beaches that I was really used to using. And I was worried that chocolate wouldn't have these features. Um, like the one I told you about earlier, where if you've been away from your computer for a while, it sort of says to you, um, do you want to keep recording or not?

was

probably not, I don't know. I didn't feel good about doing that. So I wanted to look into the other options, especially because of the price. Um, and then I can assume tremendous, really struggling to find out from the products we were looking. Whether or not, they have the features that we wanted.

Definitely. Yeah. Maybe. And do you remember what those speeches were, but you want to know that

it's probably mostly that sort of use, but ease of use at the timer? But I also just found that some of the other things we looked at were,

um,

sort of probably over-engineered for what we needed.

Um, so

that was more sort of like not too many features. It was probably one of the things rather than. Um, specifically is so it's just the timing and the reporting at that time we wanted to

use.

And I suppose

the,

yeah, actually the, having to two accounts, being able to see two people's timings, everything in one place. Um, what's

really important. Yeah, definitely see how that makes sense. And do you remember any of the other products that you were looking at? Can't remember? No. I think, um,

rescue time is another one which we do actually use, but it's different and you could probably use it in the same way, but.

Do you use that as well? So

we rescue time because we both work, um, quite flexible hours. We wanted to in the first year of working together to figure out how much we're both working, um, and rescue time, basically just monitors, sort of what you're up to when your computer and how productive. But we don't, um, use that in a, in a team way. So we don't make that visible to each other. Cause I don't really agree with that.

Yeah. Yeah, sure. So, uh, so you've rescued time to sort of give you an understanding of the way that you're using the machine and when you're, when you're working, um, which you can choose to share with your business partner or, or not. And just to help understand different working patterns, but toggles the place where. You're sharing deliberately with each other, how much you're working on different, different things. Yeah.

We're not sort of, let's do like chunks of time where we haven't trapped anything and toggle, we don't track everything. We started off tracking everything. Um, but because I can't remember why now we just wanted to see how much we were interested to see how much time we were spending on various things like marketing and this. Um, we stopped in after a while. Cause it's just pretty much,

yeah, I can definitely see how that would be the case. And, um, is there, uh, is there anything you would like you wish toggle might do? Um, uh, that it doesn't do well,

um, Product which they haven't fully integrated it, integrated them. Right. Um, or if they have, I haven't, we'd already got set up using toggle track in a particular way and way toggle plan works. We have to, we changed the way we'd set everything up. Um, so we haven't managed to like seamlessly integrate the two features and it would be just nice if these features were all part of the same. Um, because it's a bit frustrating or not. Um, and the other thing is

the

lack of keep saying, oh, you, what? You've stepped away from your computer. Do you still wants the time, this or not? That's really helpful. Um, and I don't know if it has, um, I don't know what the technical word is for it, but when, you know, when you have. And on your Mac, there's lots of icons at the top, the very top of the screen, um, and some products and it will control up there so you can stop and start things from up there. And it doesn't do that.

that,

um, it's just running in the browser. Uh, but that would be nice if it, yeah. If there was somewhere I could just quickly switch on and off climbing rather than having to go to the tab in my browser.

Yeah.

Epic. You ever heard this really? Like going, oh, we've got that, but you're not using it. Yeah. We're not using it if it does fit.

Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. It happens. And so it's like, can you tell me a bit more about, um, this, uh, frustration, lack of maybe, um, integration between plan and track and what, what, what is it, why do you want them to integrate, what do they, what does plan do for you and on top of,

so you plan, um, we go through phases of using it lots and they're not using it at all. And it just depends on the type of work we're doing. If we've got holidays and complex complicated sort of schedules to try and organize or work, we've got another freelancer working with us, that kind of thing. I'm trying to figure out. If we've actually got time to do everything we've said, we're going to do. Um, it's basically just a calendar and you put blocks in for each project and task.

Um,

and I seem to remember when we set it all up, when we started using plan, I could see that, I don't know. That was a different way of setting your projects up basically. Um,

and

we, I don't know when we're not using it in there. In the way that means that we can do that with you today. And it seems like they obviously just felt like too much work to do or change the way we're working so that it does was

that yeah. I can see how that must feel really disjointed, especially if you want to sometimes work one way and some time. Yeah.

Yeah. I can see it. It's a difficult challenge to solve.

Um,

it feels like, and I think the thing with toggle is that one of those products that in recent years have obviously been doing a lot of. So development, releasing new features and it feels like the products continually and breathing and evolving, which is nice. So there's this kind of sense that there probably is the features that I want if I took the time to dig into it a bit more. And that's only in the last year that we've been using it.

All right. Um, and so a hypothetical question for you, what would you do if you couldn't use toggle anymore? For some reason, why

would I use office time?

Yeah.

When I've just looked off his time's website and I can see that they have now updated, they don't look good. Old fashioned anymore. So maybe that would be an option, but it definitely expensive.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So a final question. Um, is there anything else you feel I should know about Toggl and your experience with it? Um, by the way, your business uses it. I

would just say that of all the products that I thought bought pending my browser, but you should be, it's just really nice and clean and happy colors. It feels really happy. Yeah. That makes a big difference to me. Um, I don't feel like it's a chore. It feels like fun.

Yeah, great. I'm sure the team it's over. We're very, very pleased to hear that. Thank you so much for your time, Megan. Um, it would be great to, uh, hear a little bit more about you and your business and, um, what, what you do, um, which provide a little bit of context for the rest of this conversation as well. Um, so, um, the name of your company,

It's make good. We'll make good design and, um, with a small design partnership and we do, um, design for, we say of any, any business organization that's making good things happen in the world. So, um, we focus sort of on everything from brand, um, brand strategy, three. Um, digital design, so websites and digital products to apps and that kind of thing.

Where can we find out more about you?

Um, it's on our website is make good design.co.uk.

You on Twitter or Instagram and

say, we do have a Twitter account, but we've been too busy to use it. Um, we're on LinkedIn and we're on Instagram as well, but again, too busy to use it. LinkedIn is linked. LinkedIn is a good place to connect, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

Krista definitely check out. Um, so make good design.co.uk. Um, let's see some of the, um, uh, wonderful work that make, um, and Becky, uh, I've been working on over the last year. Um, thank you so much again for your time. Megan has been really good. Um, uh, I've never dug so deeply into the whole process of using, using time tracking tools. So that's been super insightful.

then I use free agent for all of our accounting, um, an invoice sending. And I couldn't really, I feel like I couldn't run a business without that. I know there's other products that do some of the things, but I really like reagents. Um, and I use the Google suite. So Google calendar is really, really useful for me. And then we do all our design work in Sigma or. Um, which is an amazing product it's online.

Alright. Excellent. Thank you so much. I'm also a big free agent fan have been for more of a decade, more than a decade. I very much recommend people check out all of those tools as well. Thank you so much for your time, Megan. This has been really, really insightful. Thank you.

Thanks John. Talk

to you. That was hopefully a useful example of a customer interview. You can find notes from this episode, including links to all the products mentioned at empathy, deployed.com. If you know anyone who might benefit from hearing this perspective, please share the episode. And word of caution. This interview is a snapshot of just one person's perspective in an artificial situation.