One of the hurdles most web workers – and certainly all freelancers – need to conquer is how to accurately and quickly keep track on the time spent on tasks.

Try as you might to plan out your day with the work you know about, inevitably things come up and interruptions occurr. For myself and thousands of other people, the solution to that dilemma is the Emergent Time Tracker (ETT) created by David Seah.

I found David’s web site a while back through StumbleUpon and I immediately knew it belonged in my Google Reader. David’s work clearly embodies his goal:

In practical terms, my work revolves around making sense of the world, using my writing and graphic design abilities to clarify the ambiguous. The model I follow is pretty simple: I write about that which catches my eye, relate it to what I know, and then express the resulting insight in words, images, or tangible products.

The ETT is available in two formats: Printable PDF and a very beta online version.

I printed out a some of these and for a long time was using them on a daily basis. Based on 15-minute increments, it helped my bosses keep tabs on what I spent my day on, it helped me keep track of all the interruptions that took place and, at the end of the day, make it simple to calculate and log my daily billable hours.

Have you used the Emergent Time Tracker before? Which format do you prefer? What other time-tracking solutions do you rely on?

Another inevitability is that the second I open my mouth to try and explain it I turn into a combination of Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” and Timmy from South Park.

This is where David Seah came to the rescue. In his recent blog post, he explained why he likes Twitter which, oddly enough, explains why many people like Twitter:

…it offers a good balance of chatter and informal connection during the day. Unlike email, chat, instant messaging or Facebook, Twitter allows me to just skim the surface of what’s going on in the world, and I can participate back without having to invest a lot of time writing. The 140-character limit to each “tweet” is also good for me, as I tend to run really long in the prose department.

So there you have it. If you’re down with the Tweets, follow me @deguia