Blogging Web 2.0

Time Tracking - Track Your Time

Posted on November 7, 2007
Filed Under Web 2.0, Blogging | 30 Comments

I had a rude wake up call when I read a blog post by another blogger of how we can waste time in general during our working days. For most bloggers this proofs quite a bit of an issue, as many simply don’t have the time to blog a lot anyway. They are restricted by work, family and other tasks they have to do.

But even for a blogger like myself who is lucky enough to stay home most of the time it is a big mistake to waste time. I could do so much more by actually building sites, create products etc. if I only saved a couple of hours a day.

Therefore from this month onwards I am using a time tracking tool that allows me to keep ahead of myself and learn where I need to spend more time and where I can do with less.

Many free tools are available to help us just do this and I have done a bit of research so others can benefit from this and choose which time tracker suits them best. The tools featured below are online based time trackers as it make it easy to see them anywhere in the world by login into our free account.

Naturally there are also many desktop application which are available from shareware websites. Regardless of this, you will need to choose the one that is best suited to your liking and the below options are merely there to help you get started in the right direction.

1. The first one is Toggl.com

It has a nice interface that allows us to create tasks and track several things such as tracking your time, managing a team, reports, export data and it’s free.

2. 1 Time Tracking is another web based application that allows you to join for free. Not only can you track projects with 1 Time, but also expenses. As long as you are using the account for 1 person it remains a free service. The interface is a bit more complicated to get used to in the beginning, but the initial learning curve might pay off, as the tracking is a little more in-dept in the end.

3. SlimTimer is what I’m currently experimenting with myself. What I like about this is that it allows me to track several things at once. I can track research as well as writing client articles and more at the same time. naturally for this to happen one has to be a master at multitasking.

4. My Hours is another web based client that allows you to track time and expenses from any computer in the world. presently their service is free of charge and if they intend to charge for this, they will inform all customers prior to doing so.

These time tracker tools are only a few out of the multi range of available options. I have found that most of these tools are available for free in the first month and then going to variable paid monthly plans. The 4 above are all free to use for as long as you want at present time.

I believe that when we first start off tracking out time, a free software is sufficient enough until we get better at it. If we so desire we can always pay later down the track for a more fancy way of tracking our time.

In the end, you have to make the decision whether time tracking is of importance to you or not. It does take a bit of getting used to initially as I keep forgetting to click that button, but after a few days use of a time tracking tool I find it is already becoming a habit.

Therefore it does get easier to use and remember.

Please let me know, whether you find any other useful tools that help to track our time effectively so we can include them here.

Monika Mundell

Owner and Author of Blogging Web 2.0

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