How to Track Your Work Hours (2026)

To track your work hours, write down the start time, end time and unpaid break for every shift, on the day you work it, in a place you will still have in a year. That is the whole method. The rest of this guide is about picking the tool that makes you actually do it, what to record so the numbers hold up, and a short routine for checking the record against your pay stub. Your employer keeps the official time records under federal rules, but those records get rounded, edited and lost, and the only person who checks your paycheck is you.

Why your own record matters

Federal law requires employers to keep time and pay records for every non-exempt worker, including the hours worked each day and each workweek. It does not require them to show you, and it does not stop a manager from editing a punch, a system from deducting a lunch you worked through, or a rounding rule from trimming minutes. When a paycheck is short, the question is whose record is more credible. A dated log kept as you go, outside the employer's system, is the answer. The Department of Labor says as much and publishes a work hours calendar for exactly this purpose.

Four ways to track, simplest to best

1. Paper or the Notes app

A pocket notebook or a single note on your phone. One line per shift: date, in, out, break. It costs nothing and it works if you do it every day. The weaknesses are arithmetic, which you have to do by hand at the end of the week, and permanence, since a lost phone or notebook takes the record with it. If you use Notes, turn on iCloud so it syncs.

2. A spreadsheet

Numbers, Google Sheets or Excel, one row per shift. Set it up once with this column layout and it will total your hours and estimate your pay:

Add a weekly total row and a cell for your hourly rate. Keep each workweek together, using your employer's workweek start, because overtime is counted per workweek, never per pay period. The spreadsheet's weakness is the same as paper: you fill it in afterwards, from memory or from the employer's clock.

3. A free in-browser calculator that saves your week

The calculators on this site are a middle step. The time card calculator takes your in and out times and breaks for each day, applies your state's overtime rule and your rate, and shows hours, overtime and gross pay as you type. It keeps the current and past periods on your device, with no account, and exports a CSV for a spreadsheet or a printable time card. It is a spreadsheet that already knows the overtime rules. It still depends on you entering the times.

4. A time clock app

A punch clock on your phone records the time when you tap it, which fixes the memory problem. The things that separate a good one from a bad one: breaks marked paid or unpaid, overnight shifts as a single entry, overtime rules per job, export with totals and no watermark, backup that survives a new phone without an account, and no weekly billing. Edits should keep the original time, so the log stays credible. Our roundup of apps that do not require a subscription covers the current choices as of October 2026, including PunchStamp, the one-tap iPhone time clock behind this site, which is coming to the App Store.

What to record for every shift

Whatever tool you use, capture these:

• Date and job.
• Real start and real end, from your own clock, not the rounded figure on the time system. Under federal rules, hours worked include any time your employer requires or allows you to work, including setup before a shift and closing after it.
• Unpaid break minutes, and whether you actually took the break. Short rest breaks of roughly 5 to 20 minutes are paid work time; a meal period of 30 minutes or more can be unpaid only if you are fully relieved of duty. If you worked through a deducted lunch, write it down that day.
• Anything unusual: sent home early, called in, stayed late, a manager changed your punch, a missed punch you fixed later.
• Tips, if you are tipped, so you can check that cash wage plus tips clears minimum wage.

A routine that takes five minutes

Every shift: record in, out and break before you leave the parking lot. Thirty seconds.

Every week: total the hours for the workweek, using the employer's workweek start. Note hours over 40, or over the daily threshold if your state has one. Two minutes.

Every payday: compare the stub with your record. Hours per week, overtime hours, rate, gross. Note any difference and ask payroll the same day. Small, consistent differences in the same direction are the ones to chase: an auto-deducted lunch, rounding that only goes one way, overtime paid on the base rate instead of the regular rate.

Every pay period: export or copy the period somewhere that survives a new phone. A CSV in iCloud Drive or an email to yourself is enough.

Converting hours and minutes

Pay stubs show decimal hours. To convert, divide the minutes by 60: 15 minutes is 0.25, 30 is 0.5, 45 is 0.75, and 20 minutes is 0.33. A shift from 7:58 to 4:32 with a 30-minute unpaid lunch is 8 hours 34 minutes on the clock, 8 hours 4 minutes paid, which is 8.07 hours. The hours worked calculator below does this for a week at a time.