I’m looking for a piece of software that can track the time and frequency I use websites (google etc.) and computer software (iTunes etc.) for macs.
Is anyone using something they can recommend?
Thank you, looks like exactly what I needed.
Yeah, RescueTime is one of the nicest app I’ve tried before.
+1 for the software…
For more alternatives, you can also try TimeDoctor or Replicon.
One of the features that I liked most about TimeDoctor is the ability to know how much of the day a person is focusing on their priorities.
I’ve been using rescuetime for a couple of years actually. But honestly, I’m not sure it’s the right thing for me anymore.
Mainly for three reasons:
a) RescueTime is limited in what it tracks & what you can do with the data
- it does one thing well and that is scoring your activities unobstrusively (they have a relatively good idea of what is productive and what is not), but it doesn’t track everything. I’d like a keylogger for example and the ability to see in the data which computer was used (I installed it on my work-computer as well as my laptop, it tracks both, but mixes the data).
b) While there are extensive graphing abilities, none of the graphics I’ve looked at really helped me to generate a narrative, some insight of of what’s going on. (But maybe I’ve been looking at it the wrong way.) It’s all pretty neat, but they just didn’t get it right (for me).
b) RescueTime is expensive
72USD per year or 9USD per month. Had pro for two years, now didn’t renew it because it didn’t benefit me enough. Paying an extra bill this large is something I definitely feel. There is a free version, but it lacks a couple of features I liked in the pro version.
Has anyone seen any really good examples of RescueTime used in a creative way? Is there a good way of getting logged metrics from RescueTime into Excel?
A quick google search generated a couple of other software packages, like Timesink, Timing, Durations or simply Kidlogger. And there should be many more out there for Windows and Linux… Any suggestions on which alternative to try?
I’m using RescueTime right now also and planning on rolling out my own program eventually to integrate with my site’s api.
The best time tracking software I’ve ever used was Wakoopa, but alas they shut down the free/social aspect of their site a while ago 
RescueTime didn’t work that well for me because I spend a lot of work time in Gmail, and I already know that. Granularity within Gmail is not something RescueTime tracks, or for that matter easy to track at all, especially for folks who forward their work email into their personal account (I don’t).