Calculate Weekly Working Hours From Daily Shifts

Quick answer: Weekly working time is the sum of daily worked durations. Calculate each shift—including its unpaid break—before adding the results together.

Try it: Open the free BuzBolt Time Calculator. No signup is required.

Understand the method

Use one row per day, with start time, end time, unpaid break and resulting minutes. Adding whole minutes is safer than adding formatted clock strings. Convert the weekly total back to hours and minutes only at the end.

A clock-time calculator works well for individual shifts. A separate timesheet is helpful for weekly aggregation because it keeps the original records available for checking.

Worked example

Suppose four days each total 7 hours 30 minutes and Friday totals 6 hours. Weekly time is 4 × 450 + 360 = 2,160 minutes = 36 hours.

What people often get wrong

Do not add 7.30 + 7.30 and assume decimal arithmetic represents hours and minutes. Convert to minutes or proper decimal hours first.

A practical way to use this

When building a spreadsheet, store times as actual time values. If a total can exceed 24 hours, use an elapsed-duration number format such as [h]:mm in Excel.

Frequently asked question

Should overtime be calculated automatically? Overtime depends on contracts and local rules, not merely on the arithmetic total.

Build the weekly total from daily minutes

Suppose net daily durations are 7h 45m, 8h 10m, 6h 30m, 8h 00m and 7h 35m. Convert these to 465, 490, 390, 480 and 455 minutes. Their sum is 2,280 minutes, or 38 hours. This gives a reliable cross-check for any spreadsheet or timesheet.

Apply it to your own task

Do not round every daily duration to one decimal place before totaling. For example, rounding a 7h 35m day to 7.6 hours and then summing many rows can create small discrepancies. Add exact minutes first; round only the final display if needed.