It’s always interesting to see what you spend time on the most… but tracking it can be hard. There’s various programs available of course, but you never really know how accurate they are. Does it count the idle time you spend reading an email on screen, and how does it tell that you weren’t actually on the phone at said time, etc, etc.
Anyway, regardless of all the inaccuracies that will no doubt abound, it is still fun to check what you’ve been doing…
I installed Wakoopa a few months ago and left it tracking away in the back ground. Here’s the summary of what I’ve been doing lately:
You’ll notice a few things right away:
It says I used Outlook for 4.5 hours last week. I know I’ve had Outlook open pretty much continuously for the last week, so it is reasonable to assume that Wakoopa uses some kind of behavioural algorithm to work out usage. This is likely to be a combination of mouse movement and keyboard usage (the FAQ mentions a 30 second timeout for inactivity). So, this tells us that the actual times it reports are as good as useless… but the relative times are where it gets interesting.
For example, it seems that I spend most if my time in IE, followed by Outlook, then FeedDemon (my blog reader) and SharePoint Designer.
This seems reasonable to me – I spend a lot of time on different web sites, including our own, and especially our intranet. You’ll notice that other browsers (Safari and Firefox) are also in my top 10.
My usage of FeedDemon seems strange – since I use it every morning and afternoon on the train (30 mins each way), as well as during the day. I actively read (ie 30 sec timeouts would be rare) and I’m on it a fair bit at night as well. So, as a guess I reckon I’m reading blogs for 5-6 hours solid each week. But, as I noted earlier, the times Wakoopa records are best understood in relative terms.
Finally, it is interesting to note that Visual FoxPro, Visual Studio and PowerPoint aren’t mentioned in my top 10s, although I tend to use these a fair bit as well. In fact, if the full list is to be believed, I use the Volume Control more than VFP :-)
Summary: Interesting to note, but take it with a grain of salt.
Here’s my full list:
Have you used TimeSnapper.com from Secretgeek ?
Have you used TimeSnapper.com from Secretgeek ?
Thanks Grant – I’ll give it a go.
Thanks Grant – I’ll give it a go.
Craig, I second that for timesnapper.
The important thing about timesnapper is that it tracks usage time so only when the window is in focus so your feed reader running in background doesn’t count until you open and read.
You also get total time spent in front of the computer each day week.
It also gives you a productivity score (you set which apps are distractions by filters etc) I do it by saying any development work I use IE but browsing I use firefox. obviously testing in browsers will throw the stats but at least you can track roughly what you are doing. http://www.timesnapper.com/professional.aspx#qProd
So good I laid my own cold hard cash out for it, plus Leon is a funny bugger :D
Craig, I second that for timesnapper.
The important thing about timesnapper is that it tracks usage time so only when the window is in focus so your feed reader running in background doesn’t count until you open and read.
You also get total time spent in front of the computer each day week.
It also gives you a productivity score (you set which apps are distractions by filters etc) I do it by saying any development work I use IE but browsing I use firefox. obviously testing in browsers will throw the stats but at least you can track roughly what you are doing. http://www.timesnapper.com/professional.aspx#qProd
So good I laid my own cold hard cash out for it, plus Leon is a funny bugger :D
P.S Good to see your weening yourself off FoxPro with only 8 minutes usage, was that just so you could reminisce?
P.S Good to see your weening yourself off FoxPro with only 8 minutes usage, was that just so you could reminisce?