Recently I began using the most useful web application I’ve found to date.  I have used Basecamp, Campfire, Google Calendar, Gmail, Newsvine, and others.  They all have their purposes, but I could easily find a replacement for any of them.RescueTime is by far the most impressive tool I’ve found in a long time.  You download a small application that runs in the background on your computer and you can then login to the Dashboard at the RescueTime website and see how you actually spend your time.
It’s scary
One of the best parts of the application is that it allows you to tag applications and keep track of your time spent on specific tasks or specific categories of tasks, rather than simply tracking time in applications. Â For example, I tagged Gmail, Adium, iChat, and Campfire as “Communication.” Â It turns out, I spent 11 hours communicating in the last 2.5 weeks. Â That is a lot of time.
Fortunately, I spent almost as much time doing work - but I also spent a significant amount of time reading news and playing on social networking sites (which also accounts for some of my time with work since I was designing a Facebook application).The point of RescueTime isn’t to show you that you’re a slacker. Â It shows you, without remorse, how much time you spend in each application or on each task while you’re at your computer. Â If you take the information and use it to figure out how to save time or maximize time, it will help you in the long run. Â You’ll be able to spend more time focusing on the tasks that make you the most money or earn you the best grades. Â If you set your goals and understand which tasks help achieve them, you’ll know where to spend most of your time and you’ll be able to make sure you follow through.I would suggest downloading it and giving it a try for a few weeks. Â It take no effort to use once you get the application installed - it runs in the background, is very friendly to your system resources, and the information you get in return is amazing. Â Go try it.Â
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
OK, that is hot.
I just downloaded!
No idea how I hadn’t heard of this before. This is perfect! Thanks, Ben.
Wow Ben– thank you kindly– I really love the statement (with emphasis):
“The point of RescueTime isn’t to show you that you’re a slacker. ”
Give us a shout if you have any ideas on how we can make RescueTime even better!
Cheers, Tony (CEO, RescueTime)
Oh, and we’re linking to this post on our home page for our next release. ;-)
Thanks Tony :)
And Devin - I have no idea how you hadn’t heard of it either - normally you’re all about GTD.
Neat application, but it’s a cpu and memory hog:
http://getsatisfaction.com/rescuetime/topics/cpu_usage
http://getsatisfaction.com/rescuetime/topics/high_memory_usage
Thanks for this. Just started using it. I like it’s customizability. Very nice.
Thanks for the great info. I am going to tell everyone in my team about this. I sure can use anything to save time!
Absolute genious - thanks for the tip, Ben. Btw, smokin clean & crisp design @ Problogger :)
Wow that was really a nice app.
Thanks
Great post, might want to look at encycloepdia.com to learn more about this, they have some great articles but overall great post and I look forward to reading more like this.
Claim is too big. This is only the most useful web app ever if you have a need for tracking your every move. I’m not saying it not useful… just not useful for me.
Need it.
One hole for me is that I keep Outlook open all the time, one reason is the Reminders Window. Maybe just to keep accurate numbers I’ll close it and use it only when I need. That will get me off of this email hook.
Thanks Ben…