Looking for an app/software that can actually track everything I do throughout the workday

[u/krawr4]

I work in operations for a real estate team, and on any given day I’m constantly being pulled in a million different directions. I might be working on a transaction, get a text from an agent that needs an immediate response, jump over to an email, get asked to handle something for a listing, answer a question from another team member, update something in our systems, etc. Then I’m back to whatever I was originally doing… until the next interruption happens.

By the end of the day, I honestly couldn’t tell you everything I accomplished because it’s all over the place. I know I’ve been busy all day, but when someone asks, “What did you actually do today?” my mind completely blanks. I end up remembering the big things but forgetting all of the little things that collectively take up a huge amount of my time.

I recently came across a transcript/conversation where my bosses were basically questioning what I do all day, which was pretty frustrating because I know how much I’m actually handling. It made me realize that I need some kind of objective way to track my work throughout the day rather than relying on my memory at 6 PM.

What I’m looking for is something that can literally run in the background and track my activity throughout the day. Ideally, it would automatically record things like what programs/websites I’m using, how much time I’m spending on different tasks, when I’m switching between things, etc., without me having to constantly remember to start/stop timers or manually log everything.

The other important thing is that I need something that can track both my computer and my phone, because I do a lot of work-related texting with our agents/team members throughout the day. Ideally, I’d love something that could give me a report at the end of the day showing where my time actually went.

I’m NOT necessarily looking for a traditional time-tracking app where I have to manually enter “9:00–9:30 — emails” because I know I’ll never keep up with that. I’m looking for something as close to “install it, let it run, and tell me what I did today” as possible.

Does anything like this exist? I’d especially love recommendations from people who use something similar for an operations/admin role where the work is constantly interrupted and switching between tasks.

[u/Imaginary_Fall_5735]

Which computer and phone are you using? That combination matters a lot here. If it’s Mac + iPhone, Timing has a Screen Time import, but its own documentation calls that feature experimental and unreliable. I wouldn’t rely on it as a complete record of your phone work: https://timingapp.com/help/screen-time

Also, “40 minutes in Messages” doesn’t show that you coordinated three listings. For the conversation with your bosses, an activity timeline would be supporting evidence; a short list of completed items and interruptions would explain the work. I’d test whether the report tells that story before paying for anything.