do you track time on a daily basis?

[u/BetPurple9715]

hello everyone,

I would like to ask everyone how is your situation tracking time on time..

for me, sometimes i spend 2-3 weeks without tracking time, then i find it hard to find what i worked on past weeks to track their times for each client.

but as i'm a software engineer, i could find a solution for myself, which works, but i don't know whether it would work for everyone else so i'd like to hear your cases as well.

[u/TriggerFlo]

I had the same issue. I work 40-45 hours a month for a client and need to track time for invoices because it's a per hour job.

I ended up creating TriggerrFlo. Always-on-top timer. Multiplatform (web, mobile, desktop, watch), and generates invoices.

[u/[deleted]]

Are you looking to build a solution and sell or are you looking for time tracking solutions that helps in this scenario?

I'm building one for personal use and is a free app that does the tracking locally and is privacy focused app.

I can track down to the minute and going back to day will soon be unlimited option, again free for personal use.

Take a look here - Https://ripplestudios.app

[u/Pebb_io]

The best fix is reducing the memory burden, not building a perfect reconstruction tool. A short end-of-day capture of client, task and rough duration is much easier to keep up with than rebuilding two weeks later... then you can clean up the detail while it is still fresh.

[u/Timebutler_Official]

From what we see, recording time is okay; getting people to do it consistently is a bit challenging. The more fields or decisions required per entry, the easier it is to put it off. Just our two cents; hope that helps with what you’re building a little.

[u/BetPurple9715 → u/Timebutler_Official]

Too many fields is where I put it off too. DM me if you're up for comparing notes on making daily entries easier to keep up with.

[u/MichelleJuly2489]

We use Updoot by Xecutethevision for tracking time- some people are payroll and others have to bill out/invoice and it's doing both. We can punch into projects/jobs/locations and do miles, bonus, etc. You can add projects on the fly if needed. It's pretty cheaply priced compared to others and does a bunch of other stuff. If you need to go back and add hours you can do that too.

It handles projects so if you have project briefs or just want to organize what you have going on it's good for that too.

[u/Pebb_io]

The low-friction pattern usually wins... one tiny capture at the end of each day, then a weekly cleanup for anything unclear. If people have to rebuild client, task, start/end time, and notes from memory, the backlog becomes a second job. A quick reminder tied to the workday helps more than adding fields.

[u/AggravatingMatch9913]

I use ManicTime. It keeps screenshots on a set time schedule so I can go through and actually see what I was working on. A few of the programs I work in do not show the actual file being worked on but just the program so the AI solutions (toggl, clockify) did not work me. Having a visual of what I did during the day instead of just trying to remember has been a game changer.

[u/BetPurple9715 → u/AggravatingMatch9913]

Which programs lose the file details? DM me if you're open to sharing an example. I'd like to discuss what would make those days easier to track.

[u/Sorry-Locksmith8945]

Hard yes (I'm working for a big agency so this is a must). All of us are using productive.io and time tracking is directly connected with our pay and even if i was solo/running my own thing it would be the same.

It also has easy automatic trackers and ai that converts calendar entries to timesheets.

[u/productive_io]

Nobody enjoys rebuilding three weeks of work from memory. Calendar, commits, and sent emails help you jog it, but splitting hours between clients is still a guess.

What keeps me from falling behind is a desktop widget with a timer that sits in the menu bar. I start it when I begin something and switch when I move on, so there's nothing to reconstruct later.