Back in July we reviewed Fruitful Time. They have just released a new product called the Productivity Meter. It lets you track how much time you spend on different (Windows) programs and graphs the results. The personal edition is free. The paid edition will let you do things like create time cards. I have previously used a similar program called Job Capture (OS X/Win) to track time for billing in a graphic arts department I managed. RescueTime is another similar app with free and paid versions. If you haven’t ever used something like this, it is worth trying. It can be pretty scary to see where your time is actually going. :)
Thank you so much! This is what I have been looking for! :D
(Trying to curb my facebook and online shopping time…)
Slife has been very useful to me. It is also free.
http://www.slifelabs.com/
I remember using RescueTime when it first came out and for some reason I ended up uninstalling it. Just decided to download it again and give it another go.
My time tracking tool of choice is Slimtimer (www.slimtimer.com) – very versatile and customizable. got my whole office using it. Makes me very accountable – on many levels.
The problem with RescueTime is that it sends my data to their servers. I am going to try Fruitful Time Productivity Meter…
Thank you very much Mark for pointing this out!
Great list! Another one I found is ManicTime. Works well for me.
I’m with Stephan, thanks for sharing those resources… I appreciate the feedback and tools mentioned by other readers. :)
-Miguel
Great list and lots of good options to choose from in the comments. Another time tracking app to check out is Intervals, especially if you need to track time against tasks and projects.
The above review describes FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter Personal Edition.
FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter Personal Edition allows you to track your own computer activity and later on view productivity reports of how you spent your time. This is an excellent tool for personal use.
On the other hand, FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter Business Edition ( http://www.fruitfultime.com/products/productivitymeter/business/fruitfultime-productivitymeter-business-edition.php ) allows you to track employees. An excellent explanation of employee monitoring, why it is needed and how FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter Business Edition helps you as a manager or an employer can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCWdu-N9InU
We use spector 360 for similar results. While it was 1st bought to curb web abuse we have given each employee a dashboard where they can monitor their own activities. spector increased overall productivty from a monitoring stand but when we gave each employee a dashboard – productivity increased even more. I like how it tracks active vs. focus vs. total time. So if I launch facebook 1st thing in the morning (which I do) but never really use it accept during lunch (which I do) it won’t tell management I was on addicted to it for 9 hours – just the 6 minutes I actually used it during break. While most companies block MyBook and FaceSpace and YouWitter – employees (and management) know exactly how much it is being used and NOT abused. The software isn’t free but you do get unlimited dashboards – so why not. So far so good. Happy employees, happy managers and (knock on wood) NO layoffs.
I strongly recommend you opentempus.org, it’s a very simple time tracking tool without human intervention
Great article. Have you also come across 1DayLater? http://1daylater.com – a useful time, money and mileage tracking tool. Makes invoices at the end of the month super simple and straighforward