Do you find that Sundays are full of promise? Not Sunday mornings. We’re not talking about a beautiful Sunday sunrise.

We mean Sunday evenings. We mean all those promises and “I will” statements you make to yourself. You know the ones. 

I will wake up early …

I will meditate and exercise …

I will make a list of my tasks and set a time limit …

I will not eat sugar …

I will not check social media …

I will log hours for each project …

I will no longer hit the snooze button …

Then 5:00 a.m. Monday morning smacks you in the face and you smack it right back by hitting your snooze button. And just like that, your Monday looks exactly the same as the one before. 

Your day starts behind your schedule of good intentions. The hour you needed to get ahead of your day seems to have put you behind two hours. It becomes a vicious cycle of playing catch-up, searching for notes written in different places, reminding yourself to focus, and then inevitably forgetting something so you feel that familiar twinge of anxiety in your gut.

And if this doesn’t sound a thing like you (first of all, great job!), someone on your team can probably relate. Keeping up with every detail just isn’t their forte. 

Time Management 101

Good time management skills can make a huge difference in a person's life. Time management isn't easy and it requires dedication, but there are some simple tips that will set you on your path to success.

The first step is to map out how you spend your days and nights. That way you can figure out where most of your time is going unexpectedly and make room for more productive things like studying or exercise. 

Get creative with keeping track of it! Write down what you do every day in a journal, or maybe use an app on your phone dedicated to tracking tasks. (We know a good one. ) 

Set realistic goals based on your mapped activities so that you can achieve something tangible each day and stay motivated. Then, create deadlines not only for goals but also for when certain tasks must be completed, like getting groceries or finishing laundry before Sunday night.

This will help prevent procrastination and build self-discipline. Implementing these tips as part of your routine will bring structure and organization. It'll be easier to manage all the other pressures life has to offer if you’ve got a plan.

You can start with these basics:

  • Plan your day in advance
  • Sleep 6–8 hours per se
  • Wake up early
  • Always complete the most important tasks first
  • Turn tasks into habits
  • Track time spent watching TV
  • Utilize your weekends
  • Limit your wardrobe (fewer choices means less time spent choosing)

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably already a Basecamp user. And if you’re just curious about Basecamp, then we’ll give you a brief overview…

Basecamp overview

Basecamp is built for collaboration. It’s a tool that enables your team to keep in touch with each other while managing projects. It’s a way for businesses to get a complete overview of all the running projects.

Ongoing team chats and/or private chats can be housed and had through Basecamp. It’s a great way to stay in the loop for every step of progress being made or missed on each project. 

That’s Basecamp in a nutshell. It simplifies project management and keeps it all in one, collaborative location. 

Integrating Basecamp with Harvest

When it comes to managing time, you may be considering the integration of Basecamp with the Harvest time tracking app. Integrating Basecamp and Harvest is incredibly helpful because it allows you to see exactly how much time you have spent on particular tasks. It also helps you set realistic deadlines and gives a better overview of your workflow so that you can plan ahead and make sure that everything is done on time.

The beauty of it is that Basecamp can just keep on doing what it’s already doing. Harvest just slides right in beside it and goes to work doing its thing—tracking time like a beast.

If your team members already use Basecamp to organize their projects, the Harvest and Basecamp integration can save them time when it comes to tracking time. Instead of switching apps and interrupting their workflow, they can just click the timer icon next to their Basecamp to-dos to track time directly to Harvest.

Easy peasy. 

It’s just faster time tracking. Harvest basically does the thinking for you. Once you’ve tracked time from one of your to-do’s, Harvest will remember which project and task are associated with it for faster time tracking. 

See? It remembers for you. One less thing taking up space in your brain sounds pretty fantastic.

When Basecamp and Harvest are integrated, that integration shows you how much time has been tracked to each to-do in Basecamp, and a link to that to-do is included in your Harvest timesheets for easy reference. 

It’s literally all right there in front of you. No running different reports. No checking multiple apps. It’s together because they really do work well together.

Let’s get down to brass tacks

Alrighty. Using the Basecamp + Harvest integration, you can track time directly to Harvest from your To-dos in Basecamp 3 and Basecamp 2 by using the Harvest extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

Yep. Harvest has an extension in the most widely used web browsers. And downloading the extension is simple. You’ll just need to follow some basic instructions to get your hands on the Harvest extension.

The steps for downloading the extension can be found in these articles on the Harvest Chrome extension, the Harvest Edge extension, and the Harvest Firefox extension. Make your choice and see how easy it is to do.

You also need to make sure your projects are set up in both Basecamp and Harvest. Once you have your projects set up in Basecamp, you’ll need to take each of them and add them to your Harvest account under Projects. The time this takes will vary based on the number of projects you are tracking.

Once you’ve entered your projects in both apps, then you can begin tracking time to Harvest from within Basecamp. It’s just that simple. Harvest was made to seamlessly integrate with your existing software.

It’s easy.

After you’ve installed the extension and linked it to Harvest, your next steps are super easy. You will be able to track time on any of your Basecamp to-dos by following these steps: 

  • Click a timer icon. A timer window will open up.
  • Choose a project and task.
  • Click Start Timer or add a time duration (or start and end time) and Save. The timer icon will turn blue with a running clock.
  • To stop a timer, click the timer icon again. The timer window will open, and you can click on Stop Timer.

Now, you might have a question or two that has popped into your mind. This next one is common.

Will all of my Harvest projects/tasks & Basecamp projects/to-dos automatically sync?

Nope. You have control over this to be certain you’re tracking exactly what you want to track. This means that you’ll have to manually set up projects and tasks/to-dos in both Harvest and Basecamp. 

No worries. We’ve got a solution to automate that for you, too. You can check out the third-party app Zapier to make it happen.

The good news is that once you track time to a to-do in Basecamp, Harvest will remember the project and task that you tracked time to, and you’ll never have to select them again! (Is that a choir of angels you hear? Maybe. It’s definitely music to your time-struggling ears!)

In Conclusion

If you’re using Basecamp as a project management tool, we’re here for you. Literally, Harvest is here to be used to your fullest advantage and bring your time tracking troubles to a happy ending.

You can stop making empty promises about staying on top of your tasks and schedule. Integrating Harvest with Basecamp will simply and easily bring your business to attention and make your work life much more manageable. 

So, don’t be shy. Contact Harvest right now, and let’s figure out how we can bring some peace to your crazy work days.