A timesheet is a record of the hours you've worked, usually broken down by day and by task or project. That's it — everything else is formatting.
Employers use timesheets to run payroll and confirm hours, especially for hourly, shift, or contract staff. Freelancers and contractors use them as the evidence behind an invoice — a client paying for 12 hours wants to see where those 12 hours went. And increasingly, people keep a personal timesheet for no one but themselves, because a week of honest time data reveals more about your habits than any productivity book.
At minimum, four things: the date, the task or project name, the start and end time (or just the duration), and a total. Freelancer timesheets often add two more columns — hourly rate and billable amount. Here's a simple example:
| Date | Task | Start | End | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 13 Jul | Client website – homepage build | 09:00 | 11:30 | 2h 30m |
| Mon 13 Jul | Emails & admin | 11:30 | 12:00 | 0h 30m |
| Mon 13 Jul | Client call | 14:00 | 14:45 | 0h 45m |
| Total | 3h 45m |
Spreadsheet: the classic route. Free and flexible, but you're building the columns, the formulas and the habit yourself — and reconstructing Monday's hours on Friday afternoon is where most spreadsheet timesheets fall apart.
Paid time-tracking software: tools like Toggl, Clockify and Harvest generate timesheets automatically from tracked hours. Excellent for teams and client billing, but they require accounts and put their better reporting behind paid tiers. See our comparison of free time trackers.
Free tracker with CSV export: the middle path. Track tasks as you go in One Day Tracker — no account, no setup — and export the log as a CSV whenever a timesheet is needed. The export contains dates, task names and durations: a ready-made timesheet you can send as-is or paste into any template your employer or client uses.
Related but different: a time tracker is the tool that records hours as they happen; a timesheet is the document those hours end up in. A good tracker generates your timesheet automatically.
Often not for payroll — but many keep one anyway for workload evidence, flexible-working requests, or their own planning. Check your employer's policy for anything official.
Track your tasks in a free tool like One Day Tracker and export the CSV — it produces a timesheet with dates, tasks and durations, no spreadsheet setup required.
Track free with no account — export a CSV whenever you need it.
Start tracking — it's free