What is time tracking software?

Time management expert Laura Vanderkam tracks her time manually in 15-30 minute increments using a spreadsheet and her memory (she adds time entries only 2-3 times per day). Cal Newport, a computer science professor and productivity blogger, practices time-blocking, adjusting as needed and documenting those adjustments in a notebook, leaving him a consistently accurate record of how he uses his time. Neither uses time tracking software; both track their time effectively. Couldn’t everyone just use spreadsheets and notebooks to track their time? Consider something else Vanderkam and Newport share: a passion for productivity and fruitful time management practices, as evidenced by the many books they’ve each written on the subject.

Time tracking software exists for the rest of us, for people who want to make good use of their daily allotment of 24 hours but would prefer not to make a career out of the effort.

It also exists for groups—business, nonprofits, etc. Imagine managing payroll using an ad hoc collection of spreadsheets and handwritten notes, according to each individual staff member’s preferences.

In short, time tracking software are computer programs that allow us to record how we spend our time, ideally without having to think about it too hard, as well as standardize and streamline the collection of time data for organizational purposes.

Click on the topics below to learn more about time tracking software and how it might benefit you.

+ Types of time tracking software

Automatic

Once installed, automatic time trackers run in the background on your computer collecting data about the apps you use, websites you visit, and documents you open as well as the time you spend interacting with each.

Pros

• When used as they’re meant to be used, automatic trackers capture everything you do on your machine without any effort on your part.
• With an unvarnished look at how you use screen time, you might spot patterns that help guide your time management decisions. For example, you may notice that on days that you use social media during lunch, your afternoons are consistently less productive than on days when you step away from your computer for lunch.

Cons

• Depending on the software you select and whether you’re using it solo or with a team, privacy may be a concern. Where is the data that’s collected by the time tracker stored? Who has access to it? We recommend that you do your research before installing one of these tools.
• Automatic time tracking software can only tell you about the time spent in various programs; it can’t report on what you accomplished. You may have had Excel open for four hours, but if you spent that time creating pixel art, your time tracker won’t be able to differentiate that activity from crunching numbers.

Examples of automatic time tracking software: RescueTime, Timely’s Memory, and DeskTime

Contemporaneous

Contemporaneous time trackers are manual time tracking software programs that rely on the user to start and stop recording time against specific projects and/or tasks.

Pros

• Accuracy! Neither reconstructive timekeeping (trying to account for your time from memory) or automatic time tracking software can accurately track the time spent on specific tasks and projects. While nothing is perfectly accurate, contemporaneous trackers come the closest.
• Because the user must interact with their time tracker throughout the day, contemporaneous time trackers may help increase awareness of where the time is going.

Cons

• These are not set-it-and-forget-it tools. We call that a good thing (see pros above), but there’s no denying that many people prefer the Big Brother style automatic trackers to the effort of having to operate a time tracking tool.
• Manual time trackers won’t deliver big-picture, ‘oh look, when I spend my lunch break on Pinterest, my afternoons are consistently worthless’ type insights unless the user chooses to track all of their activity.

Examples of contemporaneous time tracking software: Daycast, Toggl, Harvest

Attendance-based

You can still buy manual punch clocks for use with paper time cards, but there are also attendance-based time tracking software programs designed to replace them.

Pros

• Who wants to collect time cards and copy the data, one card at a time, into a payroll system? Attendance-based software allows administrators to import hours with a few clicks—a much more efficient method.

Cons

• This method of time tracking is ideal for retail and service work, but not for knowledge work. Organizations that employ a mix would do well to use contemporaneous time tracking for their designers, developers, engineers and the like.

Examples of attendance-based time tracking software: TSheets, TimeClock Plus, uAttend

+ Uses of time tracking software

Time and resource management

Perhaps particularly when using automatic or contemporaneous time tracking software, users can collect data and gain insights that guide time management improvements and enable more informed resource management. For example:

• Armed with historical data about how long certain tasks tend to take to complete, project managers can budget time and allocate staff to future endeavors more accurately.
• Freelancers and contract workers can make judicious decisions about project terms when they have a more realistic picture of the time involved.
• Individual contributors can set reasonable goals—and meet them—when they have the data necessary to map practical paths to aspirations. (In other words, no more biting off more than you can chew and then giving up when you inevitably fail.)

Client billing

Good time tracking software can both streamline the invoicing process and improve billing accuracy.

• Some time trackers include native support for invoicing (e.g., Harvest and TSheets). Those that don’t generally feature downloadable time reports that you can easily import into your invoicing software (e.g., Daycast and Toggl). Others integrate with invoicing software (e.g., Daycast and Clockify), allowing for quick, one-click exporting of time data.
• Contemporaneous time trackers in particular can improve billing accuracy as they generally support more finely grained tracking than automatic or attendance-based trackers do.

Even those who offer flat-rate, project-based billing would be well served by time tracking software; are your rates too low? By studiously tracking your time, you’ll know.

Payroll

Time tracking software can help simplify payroll by centralizing the data you need, standardizing its collection, and eliminating the inefficiencies of paper and spreadsheet systems. Choose a tool that either integrates with your payroll software or allows for easy data exporting to avoid introducing friction into your workflow.

+ Common features of time tracking software

Employee monitoring

Though we here at Open Door Teams call this a bug, not a feature, many automatic and contemporaneous time tracking software programs include employee monitoring functionality like taking screenshots of employees’ desktops and logging their keystrokes.

Examples of time trackers that include employee monitoring: Hubstaff, Time Doctor, InterGuard

Manual entry/editing

Most time trackers allow users to log or edit time entries manually, though some may limit that functionality to administrators only—a mistake, we think. And depending on the tool you select, manual entry/editing can be a painful process involving many screens and clicks. Our advice? Try before you buy.

Examples of time trackers that allow manual entry and edits: Daycast, Everhour, Clockify

Idle-detection

Typically, time trackers that include idle-detection are a) contemporaneous manual trackers, and b) tying it with stopping your recorded time after a certain period of idleness. This feature is unique in that, depending on how it’s implemented, it can be a blessing or a curse. Consider the following scenarios:

1. You use a contemporaneous time tracker, but you tend to forget that it’s there. It’s not unusual for you to walk away from your desk for lunch without clocking out. Idle-detection features can help by clocking you out or noting the time at which you became idle—you define the amount of inactive time necessary to achieve idleness, whether you’re an admin or not—making it easy for you to adjust your time entries. Time trackers that can be used this way include Daycast and Clockify.
2. Your work involves a good amount of reading. Your time tracker allows you no control over its idle-detection feature. While reading, you are frequently interrupted with popups asking you if you’re still working. Time trackers that can be used this way include Time Doctor and Hubstaff.

Time reports

Though functionality varies, we’ve yet to come across a time tracking software program that doesn’t include some sort of reporting feature.

• Two trackers with notably robust reporting features are Timely and Noko.
• Most time trackers allow users to download their time reports. Still, if you’ll need to export your time data, we advise ensuring the availability and ease of use of a report download feature before purchasing a time tracking solution.

+ Benefits of using time tracking software

For organizations

When every member of an organization uses time tracking software consistently, you end up with a goldmine of data that you can use to improve operations, identify profitable—and not so profitable—clients and projects, make staffing decisions, and more.

For teams

Teams that use time tracking software are equipped with the data they need to collaborate efficiently and, when needed, effectively lobby for deadline extensions or more resources.

For individuals

Particularly for knowledge workers, the right time tracking software can improve focus and help users plan ahead. For example, when you know your automatic time tracker is running in the background or that you’re clocked into ‘software development’ in your contemporaneous tracker, that awareness may motivate you to stay on task. And when setting expectations for colleagues and managers, knowing how long a certain type of task generally takes you to complete can keep you from overpromising and under-delivering.

Photo by Morgan Housel

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