Best Tool For the Job

I’ve looked at several options for making sure I “use my time wisely” while I’m on the computer including:

• Onlife (Mac only)
• The Printable CEO
• Timers that capture screenshots such as TimeSnapper or block programs such as Temptation Blocker (Windows only)
• Project timers such as On The Job and Billings2 and Billable (all Mac Only)
• Various non-free online timers… maybe I’m cheap but 5 to 9 dollars a month is 60 to 108 dollars a year and that’s a lot of cash to fork out for a timer (at least for personal use). These include Harvest, 14dayz, Time59 and Tick.
• Firefox Extensions that track time such as TimeTracker.

None of them fit my criteria of being easy to use, easy to see where my time went (some type of reporting) and inexpensive. Then I went back to SlimTimer. The concept is simple. You open up a little window that sits on your desk all day (I open mine in Safari so tabs don’t accidentally pop up there from my default browser, Firefox) and click the name of the activity you’re doing at the time. That’s it. Here’s my window right now.

When you’re done you close the window, click another task or toggle the task you’re on. Then the cool part is the reports that are available on the main SlimTimer website. You can see where your time went specifically for the day, week month, per task, tag etc. Here’s a screen capture of a report:

SlimTimer is simple, powerful, quick and free. Can’t beat that.

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