I struggle to stay as productive as I should, as someone who works from home with pretty severe ADHD--I pay my bills, but that's about it. I'd like to start working on improving the amount of time I work each day, but first I need a pain-free way to keep track of how much time I actually spend working.
Since I'm a freelance writer, time spent with Word as the focused window seems like the easiest way to track this. Does anyone know any programs I can use that will give me a daily timer on what windows had focus for how long total? A bit of Googling didn't help much, but admittedly I didn't search long before I decided to post here to ask.
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
I have haven't used it myself, but crazy man CGP Grey of 'Hello Internet' and 'Cortex' fame seems to like Toggl, https://toggl.com
I've struggled with similar things lately, as an artist. I've used a combination of two things to help keep me on-task and I've found them super, super useful.
Time-tracking (free! Pretty robust...even if you close the browser window, it will continue to keep the timer going. You can create different tasks, set them to different projects, and see an hourly breakdown of your week and % of time spent on different tasks/projects, and other fun things): https://myhours.com/
Application and website-blocking app (there is a free version, but I bought the $20 version so I could schedule my blocks. I have a certain block that I use the most, which prevents me from opening Steam, and prevents me from visiting social sites, including this one, since those tend to be my biggest internet time sinks :P...you can also set it to block the entire internet if you want, you can set up multiple break timers, and even "lock" your schedules and blocking so you are unable to change ("reverse") any of the blocking, if you're afraid you might just try to circumvent the program. This one has been really great to help me stay on-task.) https://getcoldturkey.com/
I like RescueTime, which tracks windows/tabs for both applications and browsers. It has an activity timeout (so if you leave a window open and wander away, it won't track that time - but mouse or keyboard activity keep it alive), which makes it pretty accurate. It's also free, and pretty customizable.
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Time-tracking (free! Pretty robust...even if you close the browser window, it will continue to keep the timer going. You can create different tasks, set them to different projects, and see an hourly breakdown of your week and % of time spent on different tasks/projects, and other fun things):
https://myhours.com/
Application and website-blocking app (there is a free version, but I bought the $20 version so I could schedule my blocks. I have a certain block that I use the most, which prevents me from opening Steam, and prevents me from visiting social sites, including this one, since those tend to be my biggest internet time sinks :P...you can also set it to block the entire internet if you want, you can set up multiple break timers, and even "lock" your schedules and blocking so you are unable to change ("reverse") any of the blocking, if you're afraid you might just try to circumvent the program. This one has been really great to help me stay on-task.)
https://getcoldturkey.com/
I've used this in the past