With a young family I’ve found myself drawn to calendaring and to using “to do” lists extensively. It has freed my time and energy to instead enjoy it with my wife and son.
I’ve turned my eye to doing some selective time tracking. This class of software is most often integrated into billing applications.
I’m looking at a few Mac apps:
- Marketcircle Billing $50
- On The Job $40
- TimeLog $25 ($75 with billing)
And a couple of web services:
- FreshBooks $360 /yr
- Harvest $144 / yr
- toggl $60 / yr
The spread in pricing of the web services surprised me. How does FreshBooks justify being so much more expensive?
Those prices are a year’s worth at the “solo” levels of these services. Except toggl, these web services are magnitudes more expensive than the Mac applications.
gedit and a file called todo.txt but I’ve also looked at the calendaring extension for Thunderbird.
That sure isn’t shiny Donncha, but it sounds like it works for you and is definitely very low maintenance.
My favorite thing about Cultured Code Things is being able to schedule something for the future and forget about it until then.
You could check out Lumina – http://www.kedisoft.com/iclockr/
It’s a lot easier to use IMO.
Cool. Thanks Mark. Added to my list of free ones to check out.
Lloyd, if all you want is simple time tracking (not invoicing, etc) check out TimeTracker 1.3.6 (http://code.google.com/p/time-tracker-mac/). It’s free, and easy to use. I generally export a CSV at the end of the month and import to a spreadsheet to run numbers and such.
I also use RescueTime (http://www.rescuetime.com) quite a bit to track where I spend time on the computer.
Thanks for the tip Lance on TimeTracker! It’s already in my list of free software to check out.
I’ve tried RescueTime (free/trial account), but didn’t find the data useful.
I switched from On The Job to FreshBooks. FreshBooks has been a huge time saver. The service is well-designed, easy to use. They have a nice iPhone app that lets me easily track time, or mark a bill as received on the go. I often do this at the kitchen table when a check arrives.
I can’t comment on how it compares to Harvest (which does look nice). FreshBooks was highly recommended, and I took to it immediately. I’m trying not to spend too much second-guessing such things unless they’re truly not working for me…. the $96 difference in their prices (for my usage) isn’t worth the time it would take to research, migrate, learn the new system, etc.
Currently my needs are really just the time tracking. Does FreshBooks have real integration with your Mac? When I looked I only found a widget — which AKAIK are simple by nature.
They don’t have their own Mac app. They have an API that some other apps use. I use their web-based time tracker, or just use the iPhone app to do it. If time tracking is your main concern, On The Job will do. I used that for many years. It has a nice feature where if you leave the computer for a certain period of time and then come back, it will offer to subtract the time you were gone. Nice for unexpected doorbell rings while working that remind you that you’re hungry which reminds you that you have to do the dishes which reminds you that — on no… I’m still on the clock!