Time tracking

Time tracking is the practice of recording how time is spent. Frequently it is associated with professionals who bill their time by the hour, but it can also be used to gain a better understanding of how one spends time in general. In this non-work context it is also often done as a form of tracking productivity, by classifying different actions into productive and unproductive time spent.

Tools for time tracking

A number of different tools exist to engage in time tracking. Some of them are limited to either tracking time on computers or on mobile phones, others come with apps that allow for both and combining this data. Examples of time tracking tools include:

• RescueTime, a freemium platform that can track time spent on computers and mobile phones and that does some automated classification of time into productive and unproductive.
• ActivityWatch, an open source tool and platform that is similar to RescueTime and works on most computer operating systems as well as on Android.