TimeTracker for Windows

User Reviews

• Simple and effective

  dvnityckerJune 30, 2010

  Pros

  Tracks either your manually defined tasks or windows activity. Invisible, unobtrusive, effective

  Cons

  Window should start as opaque, no reason for transparency

  Summary

  If you want to track the time you spend on individual tasks, using start and pause, it does exactly that. Just don't forget to turn off the timer when you're done. There's an idea for developer - create a small popup reminder that shows active timers, and set it to appear once every hour. With an option to disable, of course.

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• Small, easy to use, efficient

  jmckielMay 30, 2008

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

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• Wonderful! Well-designed. Smooth operation.

  alexanderquinnDecember 9, 2007

  Pros

  I'm giddy! I've been looking for something like this for a long time. I'm very obsessive about how I use my time. I like to collect a bunch of data and then pull it into Excel and do all kinds of analysis to figure out who/what is leeching all of my time and/or why I am (or am not) getting my work done. This program sits in my system tray (lower right corner of the screen) and notes whatever I'm doing at the moment. <p> <p>A word about privacy. Some may find it unsettling to be monitored. However, it does NOT monitor keystrokes or mouse clicks and it does NOT send your time data anywhere. I verified this with WireShark. Also, since it is open source, anybody can look at the source code and verify that it is trustworthy. But if you are into tracking your time, then this probably isn't a big deal, anyway. <p> <p>A few of my favorite points: <p> <p> - It will save the data as a CSV file. Excel can open this easily. <p> - It stops counting after 60 seconds of inactivity. This is customizable. <p> - It tracks 4 data items: Window title (e.g. title of page I'm currently browsing or document I'm currently working on), time spent on that (e.g. 3 minutes 45 seconds), percent of total (e.g. 1%), and the application (e.g. Opera.exe, Excel.exe, Firefox.exe, etc.). <p> - It leaves the rest of the analysis to me, so I can do what I want with the data. <p> - It's FREE! <p> - It's open source (GPL). If I want a new feature in the future, I can build it in. If the author goes away, somebody else can pick it up. <p> - Perfect amount of functionality. Just enough features, without being bloated. <p> - It can run on a USB drive. I can carry it around and track what I do whereever I go, with the data staying right on the USB drive. <p> - It's easy on my CPU. Despite having to keep track of what I'm doing all the time, it uses between 0% and 1% at any given time. <p> - You can leave it in the task bar or set it to "Always On Top" and watch it.

  Cons

  Probably, everybody who tries this will say, "If only it had ....." Everybody's going to have some piece of analysis or something they'd like to see. However, if they added everything that was ever requested by somebody, it would quicly become bloated. For the time being, TimeTracker has just the right amount of functionality. <p> <p>Okay. A few real weakpoints: <p> <p> - No real installer. You just unzip it to a directory and run it. This might confuse some people, I guess. <p> - Some of the settings have to be done in a text file. You have to open TIMETRACKER.INI and enter the settings you want. This is fine for me, but it might confuse some people. <p> - The setup of rules took a few minutes to understand. First, you define a task (e.g. "create web site for kids"). Then, you create rules by entering fragments of file names or window titles (e.g. "lizards.html", "KidWeb", etc.). Once you do that, it will classify your windows by that task. It's very useful, once you learn how it works. However, if you find it confusing, then don't use it. It doesn't get in the way. <p> - When it first starts, the window is slightly transparent. Some might like that. I turned it off. No biggie. <p> - Some of the options about filtering also take a few minutes to grasp. However, this is a great tool! It should be worth spending a few minutes to figure out how it works. <p> - I will surely waste time playing with it. This is too fun! <p> - Right click menus do the same thing, no matter where you click.

  Summary

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