Like most working adults, I get paid by the hour. Now, at CSR we don’t “clock in/clock out,” so it’s up to me to keep track of my hours. And I am not a fan. For some reason, it’s just extremely annoying to always have to measure my work not by its difficulty or quality but by the
amount of time I spend on it. Plus, I tend to work faster than other people, so there’s a tiny bit of resentment there. Nevertheless, I have gotten pretty good about recording my hours, and it’s mostly due to the tool I use and have grown to love:
Toggl is a basic time-tracking service that is beautiful in its simplicity: click “Start” when you begin work and click “Stop” when you’re done or taking a break. If you forget to start or stop the timer, you can enter time manually. And if you leave the timer running for a long time without noticing, Toggl sends an email reminding you that you need to modify your recorded time. Toggl also keeps all recorded data and provides detailed reports.
Rosi’s Toggl for the week. Time and activities blurred because confidentiality!
Another aspect I like is that Toggl offers more complicated features, such as categorizing time under projects, but that level of organization isn’t essential to using the service. Toggl can “talk” to Freshbooks, Basecamp, Asana, and more. It can also accept .csv imports. Toggl is free, but there’s the option of a $10/month (or $9/month annually) subscription that provides additional features, such as billing, alerts, subprojects, advanced reporting, and team tracking for bigger groups.
I use the website tracker so that I see it while I work, but there’s also a good app available for those who prefer to record their time on their phone.
Have you ever used Toggl? Did you like it? What time tracking tools do you use? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
~Rosi~