Web Worker Daily

Jeromy says: October 3rd, 2006 9:39am

Here’s a number of great, free resources:

FREE:
http://www.myhours.com (this is the one I use currently)
http://www.1time.ie/
http://www.sidejobtrack.com/

LOW MONTHLY:
http://www.formassembly.com/time-tracker/
http://www.slimtimer.com/
http://www.freshbooks.com/
http://www.14dayz.com/site/
http://www.getharvest.com/

-gary says: October 3rd, 2006 9:47am

http://freshbooks.com

Judi Sohn says: October 3rd, 2006 9:51am

Timeless Time & Expense (for Windows)

Sean Winstead says: October 3rd, 2006 10:00am

For many, many years, I have used Timeless Time and Expense personal edition. It runs while I work and shows up as a tray icon. It’s quick and easy to use. Just right click on it to switch to a different task or to pause/resume.

Kevin Finn says: October 3rd, 2006 10:01am

There are a lot of great solutions out there.

Tick (www.tickspot.com)
SlimTimer (www.slimtimer.com)
Harvest (www.getharvest.com)
88 Miles (www.88miles.net)

Of course there are many others as well… I personally prefer Tick - but I’m completely biased ;-)

Best advice I can give you is to take a few minutes and try them all out. I’m sure there is one that will fit your needs.

David Merwin says: October 3rd, 2006 10:04am

I use Basecamp to manage all my projects. It rocks. The time tracking tool is pretty sweet. You can track by person and by project.

Check it out. And use the link below, I get a referal credit.

Sign Up For Basecamp

Kevin Finn says: October 3rd, 2006 10:10am

For those who prefer to simply click…

Tick ()
SlimTimer ()
Harvest ()
88 Miles ()

MikeInAZ says: October 3rd, 2006 10:20am

If you’re using a mac, check out:
http://www.stuntsoftware.com/OnTheJob/

Mixxer, Time Tracking, Myspace & Broadband TV « Technically Speaking says: October 3rd, 2006 10:22am

[...] Web Worker Daily has a nice post that will interest allot of people working that self employed job style. It’s a question posed about “How Do You Time Track?”. That is a very good question, and Technically Speaking I hope to be reading allot of comments and ideas from others later on this afternoon. [...]

Parag Shah says: October 3rd, 2006 10:24am

Check out http://davidseah.com/archives/2005/09/23/the-printable-ceo/
He also has a Flash based program that will hep you track time in 15 minute chunks.
HTH

–
Parag

Mike McDerment says: October 3rd, 2006 11:17am

Thanks for recommending FreshBooks Gary :)

Just figured I’d point out that we are mid way through a redesign of FreshBooks’ time tracking service and have some pretty interesting things in store…especially for all you freelancers out there. It’s going to allow you to collaborate on work in a federated way…so you don’t have to worry about constantly logging into other people’s account to track time and progress on the projects you work on. Giddy-up.

Árni Gunnar says: October 3rd, 2006 11:45am

FreshBooks rocks !

Krish says: October 3rd, 2006 12:17pm

If you want to host a basecamp like web service on your server, check out ActiveCollab. It is an open source “clone” of Basecamp. We are using it in our company and it is pretty good for a pre 1.0 version.

Mike Higginbottom says: October 3rd, 2006 12:25pm

Brandon,

If you’re looking for something quick and simple that actually lives on your desktop, doesn’t use Ajax or require a browser and lets you just get on with working then try out Corda from my web site. No sign up required. Totally free. Unless you happen to be feeling generous and all loved up, in which case there’s a PayPal donate button.

Cheers,

Mike

Brandon Checketts says: October 3rd, 2006 12:32pm

Thanks of all of the quick comments. I’m signing up for a few of those trials now and am hoping to find one that suits my needs. I hop back and forth between projects a lot, so I’m hoping to find one that effectively allows me to have several “projects” open at once and divy up each hour into several projects.

Paula Gregorowicz says: October 3rd, 2006 1:00pm

Here’s one I have seen recommended by people I trust.

Timetrax.

Read about it here: http://www.msoci.com/andrea/archives/2006/09/more_time_pleas.php

Hope that helps.

Peter says: October 3rd, 2006 2:32pm

actually don’t use time tracking. I tend to work for a few weeks on a project, and I don’t bill my clients by the hour usually, so I don’t track my time either. I know how much I work (2 days, 4 days, ..), and I agree a fee per project before it starts. I might be unusual in that, it probably depends on how you work.

Jason says: October 3rd, 2006 2:50pm

I wrote a simple script that pops up every hour during 9am - 6pm and just has a simple dialog box. I enter the Activity, Client, Hours, and Tags, all comma seperated. It then appends that entry to a .csv file I have with a date stamp.

Then, I don’t have to remember to turn on or off some tracking software. It just pops up and asks me what I did for the past hour. I enter it and move on. Then at the end of the month, I can just open the file in Excel or whatever and get my billable hours for the month. Works great for me because I need to be reminded.

I was inspired by this post so I uploaded the script to my site, where you can download it if you want (mac only)

http://www.jasonglaspey.com/2006/10/03/keep-yourself-from-forgetting-to-charge-clients/

Cheers,

Jason

Evan says: October 3rd, 2006 4:05pm

I’ve used TraxTime for ages and find its simplicity perfect for my time tracking needs.

http://www.spudcity.com/traxtime/traxtime.htm

Just punch in and out on the different projects and it handles time tracking for you. Also easy to adjust if you forget to punch in/out.

Then run a report to summarise the totals on different projects, and plug that into whatever billing system you use.

rulepark says: October 3rd, 2006 8:43pm

Base camp.

Or

Active Collab.

Use those to keep track.

Drew Loika says: October 3rd, 2006 9:21pm

I’ve been using 14dayz.com for freelance for the last 4 months quite successfully. The reports leave a bit to be desired (definitely good enough to add to invoices though) and the time tracking interface is beautiful in its simplicity and functionality.

engtech says: October 3rd, 2006 9:40pm

I’ve done two posts on this. One focused on using Windows-based time trackers and a system recommended by Joel Spolsky. The other one discussed web-based time trackers.

Jake says: October 3rd, 2006 10:07pm

I use a combination of basecamp and SlimTimer.

For each project in basecamp create a task in SlimTimer. When you switch projects hit start in SlimTimer.

Dale Cruse says: October 4th, 2006 5:36am

iBiz for me.

Panayotis Vryonis says: October 4th, 2006 7:18am

SlimTimer.com is great.

Bill Day says: October 4th, 2006 8:37am

Lifehacker had some interesting suggestions in July on logging your time:
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/capture-tools/geek-to-live–quicklog-your-work-day-189772.php

Be sure you read through the comments to find the updates to the original
“Quick Log” script discussed in Gina’s piece.

Keeping track of time - A Frog in the Valley - Technology Intelligence says: October 4th, 2006 9:42am

[...] This is a must-do task for any consultant… good suggestions in the comments of the webworker daily article : how do you time track?. This is one of the hardest thing to do, it requires a good balance of discipline and methodology, adapted to your own style. [...]

Derek Organ says: October 4th, 2006 9:45am

Time tracking can be a very broad term. If your a single entity, e.g. a freelancer then slimtimer looks and works great but if your a small company I think 1time is much more suitable. The automatic reminders makes it really easy to track employee and project time. Just my 2 cents.

Tom says: October 4th, 2006 11:45am

SlimTimer.com is really great… FREE, opens up in Sidebar on FF and IE (by far the best feature), lots of customization, but does not break down anything into Client/Case/Matter like some do. And the developer is really engaged with the community, so he responds to emails and bug requests within HOURS. Really great product, hopefully they wont be charging anytime soon (or will keep the price reasonable)

Rob says: October 4th, 2006 11:59am

I use Linux, so I found a great open source app called Gnotime. I’ve also tried the open source project management tool that comes with Fedora Planner. If you’re like me and concerned with Windows issues, you may find these helpful.

Tom Markiewicz » Project Time Tracking Tools says: October 4th, 2006 1:01pm

[...] Om Malik has a post on project time tracking over at the Web Worker Daily blog. His post is only a question to the readers regarding what they use for time tracking their various projects, but the comments are filled with great suggestions including: [...]

Richard White says: October 4th, 2006 1:38pm

Well Tom saved me from having to do my elevator pitch for SlimTimer, thank you very much. Also, thanks for the compliment, I do try to stay on in close touch with the user community. And no I don’t plan to charge for the existing feature set.

Rich

rexdixon says: October 4th, 2006 9:13pm

Slimtimer.. I just did a short spot on my podcast about it - 7 Minutes with Rex Dixon - permalink is here - http://clickcaster.com/item/view/7-minutes-with-rex-dixon-1042006 - it’s currently tracking my time as I type this.

Full day use of it tomorrow. Great program so far.

Rex

Chris says: October 5th, 2006 3:41am

I find it far easier to spend some inital weeks working out how long it takes to do a particular task and then devise a set of standard times, then when you do a task you can decide it’s “task A” and put it down as X hours. Several advantages to doing this,

1. no complex software to fill in
2. no software to remember to fill in
3. as you get better (and therefore faster) at doing a task you don’t penalize yourself on billings due to doing it faster, as you’re billing based on it being a task, not hours spent

Cheers

Chris

Motherduce: The Blog » Blog Archive » WWD on Time Tracking says: October 5th, 2006 9:36am

[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive How do you time track? « [...]

doug says: October 5th, 2006 9:49am

anyone tried studiometry?

Geoff B says: October 6th, 2006 10:00pm

I’m really enjoying Basecamp, but someone showed me unfuddle.com the the other day, which strikes me as basecamp with CVS support. Might be worth a look…

BillDay.com » Quick and easy work logging tools says: October 9th, 2006 1:47pm

[...] A contract I’ve been working on the last few months requires careful time keeping and reporting. I’ve tried several tools, including both Web-based and local apps, and read through various suggestions from Om’s Web Worker Daily and elsewhere. [...]

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive How to boost productivity on your Mac « says: October 10th, 2006 12:56am

[...] We had an open thread a few days back about time management, and the list recommends, On The Job, which seems rather simple app for time management and invoicing customers. (Of course there are others who swear by Freshbooks (disclosure: WWD sponsor) and other online programs. [...]

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Time Tracking Solutions … A Roundup « says: October 19th, 2006 2:27pm

[...] Thanks to our ever-insightful readers, we received a number of great answers and tips to our post asking, How Do You Time Track? A couple of readers offered links to other sites where solutions were discussed in detail, including LifeHacker’s post and comment thread on logging your workday, and engtech’s discussion of time planning for projects and web-based solutions for keeping track of hours. [...]

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Time Tracking Solutions … A Roundup « says: October 19th, 2006 3:05pm

[...] One popular solution was the popular project tool Basecamp and its open-source clone activeCollab. Stunt Software’s On The Job was recommended for Mac users, and made our recent list of great Mac productivity apps. Another Mac user even offered his own custom time tracking script after reading the post and getting inspired! [...]

A Fool’s Wisdom » Still gno time says: October 20th, 2006 1:16pm

[...] The general (think web, Windows, Mac) topic is regularly on the minds of lifehackers. Now, Web Worker Daily asked the question and provided a round up, but has done nothing interesting with the information. On Linux it is not GnoTime. [...]

Tom says: October 23rd, 2006 5:57am

It ain’t web-based, but it’s free: TimeSheets Lite

Nice Excel export feature on this package. An fee-based upgrade allows a networked timesheet recording option.

Alf (Not the Alien) says: October 26th, 2006 4:37pm

I recently tried a couple of time trackers and bought Complete Time Tracking after I found a recommendation on another blog. It is decent and easy to use.

Joaquin says: November 13th, 2006 1:25pm

There’s another one to add to the list. It’s an online time tracking application called ToadTime. It let’s you generate invoices automatically from your time entries and it’s got a place to track tasks as well. It’s also nicely integrated with QuickBooks for anybody who needs real accounting software.

Le blog » Archive du blog » links for 2006-11-30 says: November 29th, 2006 5:28pm

[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive How do you time track? « Une revue d’autres outils de timetracking, avec des liens partout. (tags: management software tools) [...]

Nicu says: December 8th, 2006 4:02pm

You may also want to take a look at: http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com/.

Chris M says: December 12th, 2006 8:30am

Time59 (http://www.time59.com) is a web-based timekeeping and invoicing application. Easy to use. There is a free 30 day trial, after that it is only $19.95 per year for unlimited use.

Mark Griebling says: January 4th, 2007 4:05pm

There is now a web version of Timeless Time & Expense Enterprise.  It works alone or with the desktop version and uses ajax to provide a user experience very similar to the desktop version.

Leo says: January 6th, 2007 11:38am

Don’t forget wikipeida:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_time_tracking_software

There is already a list. You can add your recommendations there!

Alana Posts » Blog Archive » links for 2007-01-09 says: January 9th, 2007 5:12pm

[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive How do you time track? « (tags: collaboration freelancing tools tracking software project_management organization) [...]

Fabio Cevasco says: November 16th, 2007 1:35pm

I developed a small, free, open-source interactive Ruby script able to easily log and track my daily activities:

http://redbook.h3rald.com/

Volodymyr Sergeyev says: November 20th, 2007 2:32am

One of my projects was to develop time tracking service with Django/Python.
Here is it:
http://gettingtasksdone.com/

2Fabio Cevasco: thanks for link, it’s looks very interesting for me!

Greenworld says: December 3rd, 2007 2:39pm

This is a complete and great tool for time tracking made easy and accurate. It also works for project management.
http://www.myintervals.com

Productively Tracking Time for Web Workers and Consultants « Compassion in Politics says: January 14th, 2008 10:27am

[...] if they had any suggestions for an effective way to keep track of time and they suggested these applications as options.Thanks to the folks at Web Worker Daily!Do you have a suggestion?  What works for [...]

Jan says: January 30th, 2008 5:30am

We just launched a new service called Paymo. It’s free for small biz&freelancers, and best of all it has a desktop component (pc & mac)
If you wana check it out, go to
http://www.paymo.biz

Berill says: February 5th, 2008 7:34am

Since Brandon is (was?..)in the middle of 3 or 4 projects, he most likely, needs a task/project management with the time-tracking feature to make his life easier. Wrike is a great solution at this point. It allows us to manage several projects, collaborate on tasks and track time (http://www.wrike.com/blog/02/03/2008/Track_time_spent_on_your_tasks_in_Wrike) and much more. They offer reasonable for all Wrike’s features.

Reets says: February 14th, 2008 9:17am

I found this post when I was browsing around for a good time tracker software. I found this Activity Tracker http://screeperzone.com/2007/08/09/activity-tracker-version-01-released and it does a very good job.. its also very easy for me to get reminders. Hope it helps.

Scott says: March 27th, 2008 2:34pm

Jan i tried Paymo yesterday. I tested a lot of web based services, but i love the windows widget in this one. Reports look great too. Thanks for the tip, cheers m8

tom says: April 8th, 2008 3:41pm

We are looking for a open source web based time tracker that we can integrate with our backend. Can anyone recommend a system that is easy to modify?

Thanks,

Dan Gebhardt says: April 23rd, 2008 12:41pm

We developed LiveTimer.com to be a very flexible yet easy to use online time tracking service. LiveTimer allows you to customize the classifications used for tracking your time. For instance, you could track your time against clients, projects and tasks, or opt to just use projects (these classifications can be renamed, too). There are multiple ways to track your time as well: use a timer to track time as you work, or enter your hours after the fact by the day or week. LiveTimer also includes advanced reports, user permissions, account backups and restores, and SSL security for all accounts.

Please take a look at LiveTimer.com. There’s a free 30 day trial, after which it’s just $5 a month per user.

tom says: May 6th, 2008 5:38am

First of all I hate owners of website advertising their own product in a way that they pretend to be users and all those of give the affiliate links to make extra money. I have been going through one link after another for the last 2 hours and let me tell you some thing. none of them is good, the best one is myhours.com , it is free right now I hope it will be free , use the free one what ever you like and wait for microsoft they come up with some thing in near future.

TimeTracker says: June 26th, 2008 5:08am

Wow…this is in itself an amazing list of Time tracking tools and methods!

I just thought I’d drop my $.02 in here and give a mention of TSheets.com

They’ve also recently had a webworkerdaily writeup at:

http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/06/13/new-ways-to-track-time/