HomeIntroducing Time-Tracker: A personal time management solution
Genesis
I had a boss whom, when receiving my time estimate for a particular project, would always multiply my numbers by two. You would think that was his way to include overhead costs and still make profit, but no, he simply knew that despite my most honest and informed analysis, I always underestimated the task at hand.
This multiplication formula still applies today, so I decided to start gathering some reliable data about the time I spend on my freelance and personal projects. And that’s how the Time-Tracker was born.
The Time-Tracker Application
Time-Tracker is a very simple application that helps you keep track of the time you spend on any given task. It’s like having a timer at hand that you can start and stop in a couple of clicks (literally).
This is a beta version. It does the job well when it comes to recording the start & stop events and compounding the total time accumulated on a task. It still needs more advanced reporting statistics, like work distribution over time, average consecutive time spent on one task, etc.. but the first improvement coming will be the ability to adjust the timers (because you will forget to start or stop the timers at some point).
If you think of other stats or features that could be useful to the application, please share them in the comment form below.
Under the hood
On a technical note, Time-Tracker is a single-screen application relying extensively on Ajax technologies (DOM Scripting, XmlHttpRequest and client-side XML/XSLT).
It currently works with Gecko-based browsers (Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape, Camino), Internet Explorer (PC 5.5+) and Opera 8.01. I am still tinkering with the javascript for Safari, but hopefully it will be supported as well soon.
The developpement process was outlined in this series of articles:
- Ajax Makeover : Time Tracking Application (Introduction)
- Ajax Makeover: Adding a Smart Type Ahead
- Ajax Makeover: Type-Ahead Service
- Ajax Makeover : Client-side data management with XML (part 1)
- Ajax Makeover : Client-side data management with XML (part 2)
- Coming Article: Application interface using client-side XSL templates
Low level XML/XSL functions are provided by the Sarissa library.
Opera and Safari lack native support for XSLT, so the processor is emulated using Google’s brand new AjaXSLT open-source library. The downfall being that the application will feel a bit slow compared with Firefox/Internet Explorer.
Alright, you can check it out now: Time-Tracker - A Personal Time Management Solution
Technorati Tags: Productivity, Time Management, Ajax
July 5th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Timetracker does not work. I am getting an error clicking on add task. object does not support this method
July 6th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
If you report a bug, please provide the name & version of the browser and operating system you are using. Thanks.
July 8th, 2005 at 4:55 am
The Add a Task button not working bug mentioned above seems to be an IE (6.0 here) issue, the exact error that IE gives is:
line: 169
Char: 3
Error: Object doesn’t support this property or method
Code: 0
URL: http://www.formassembly.com/time-tracker/
Not sure which object and method it’s referring to though.
July 8th, 2005 at 8:47 am
Weird, I couldn’t reproduce this error on IE6 SP2, and I tried on 2 different machines to be sure. I tweaked the code a bit to provide more feedback. Please let me know if you encounter this problem again.
July 9th, 2005 at 1:42 am
Alright, got it fixed. Thanks for your help Jay.
importNode was not supported prior to MSXML 5.0 (I think), that explains the bug encountered on some older Windows/IE plateform.
(I tested it on my old Win98/IE5.5 laptop to be sure…)
July 9th, 2005 at 9:56 pm
Wow, really fantastic application cedsav. I’ve always wondered how long I spend doing various activities, and this webapp seems to be a great start to what I was looking for.
One feature that immediately comes to mind is a timer that keeps track of how much time has elapsed since the last interaction with the program. A good way to see how long some distractions last.
Also seems like a ‘friends’ feature, to see what your friends/coworkers are doing (if they want you to know) could be useful.
Do you intend on setting up a forum/wiki for discussion of this project? It seems to me that a lot of discussion could arise over something so generally useful.
July 11th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
This is great !
July 12th, 2005 at 9:25 pm
I’m still very impressed with the application, and eager for more. Could you share with us a roadmap/plan/vague idea of what to expect next, and when?
One very simple addition that I would find quite useful is a total for durations of tasks, both completed and uncompleted.
July 12th, 2005 at 9:49 pm
David.. thanks for your comments.
Here’s a very short roadmap
Sometimes near the end of this week (hopefully) :
- support for Safari
- ability to view and adjust the last 3 recorded ‘time-slice’ (useful when you forget to stop/start the timer..)
- user interface improvements
Later this month:
- At least one or two graphs to visualize the statistics collected.
- maybe a web service to display your task list on your own website.
As you suggested, I could add a totals for all tasks, and I could also have different display mode per task (total time, time spent this month, this week..)
July 13th, 2005 at 7:36 pm
What a great and very useful application ! Thanks !
Regarding different display modes, I think it would also be useful to be able to sort the tasks according to category, so that one could see the total time spent on a specific project.
July 14th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
When you type in a time manually, it re-sets to the current time when you hit OK. I came across this /after/ starting something, and figured I’d try it out to keep track of the time, went to go enter the start time of 9:00am, and it kept bouncing back to 10:45am
otherwise - very neat.
July 15th, 2005 at 5:43 am
It would be nice to have a way to reset the duration on a task so I could accumulate time for a week, report the time and then reset the times for the next week. Can the current results be sent to a server or to an email address?
July 15th, 2005 at 8:40 am
Kaniz, yes that’ll be fixed in the coming update.
Tom, I think it’s better not to reset a task, instead mark it as done and create a new one. With the auto-suggest it’s really fast and this way you don’t lose historical data.
As for the email, that’s an excellent suggestion, I’ll work on it.
July 15th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
cedsav,
Thanks for the response. Keeping track of the time you work on projects (i.e. time card reporting) has several requirement that are (but I think could be) address in the current version. One is that only one project is worked on at a time (i.e. radio button style selection). This could be a simple toggle option for the whole interface. Another is the requirement that the weekly total be massaged to meet some criteria (usually 40 hours).
Regards,
Tom K.
July 16th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
This is great. This will be a real help around the office.
Thanks a lot dude.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:44 pm
Howdy! I was wondering if you have any timetable for your timetracker app… I’d love to blog about it, as it seems pretty cool. I’ve only recently been turned on to the whole ajax thing, and found your stuff. Nice work!
Thanks,
victor
August 16th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Personal Time Tracking
I found a very good webbased time tracker, with the latest en-vogue technology (AJAX, type-ahead).
You can test it anonymously or register for free and get to save your timed tasks.
It is free, webbased (=> data is globally available), snappy (due to A…
September 1st, 2005 at 3:37 am
Please follow up here: Time Tracker Update
September 25th, 2005 at 7:56 pm
Excellent app. Simple to use & useful.
As noted before, the clock functionality seems a bit quirky…when using the mouse the hands jump around sporadically. Sometimes I am moving time ahead, other times backwards & I can’t figure out when I am doing which.
A useful function for me would be a method to export the data from the app to my local machine…even a simple csv file would be useful.
Another suggestion that would work well for me is to add a Project level above the Task level. So, the logic being each Catagory could have many projects, while each project can have many tasks. The ability to then aggregate all the task data to see how much time I spend on each project would be very useful.
Congrats on the app. It’s great
January 20th, 2006 at 12:27 am
This is great! I’m already using it for all my time today. When will I be able to export the data!?
;-)
March 15th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
This time tracker is really amazing! Could you possibly add 2 simple buttons for “start” and “stop” a task? It’s easier than having to hold the mouse and select ’start’ or ’stop’ from the drop-down.
March 15th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Never mind…. I see you have those options to “select in the contextual menu” …. great stuff! These kind of tools which perform 1 simple task, but extremely well, are the ones that are worth spending $$$ on!
Thanks!