Comments on: RescueTime Out Of Private Beta, Tracking How (Un)Productive You Are

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:15:05 +0000

I’ll have to check this out. We’re using http://xpunch.com right now because it’s free. Is RescueTime free?

By: 8aweek To Help You Kick That Internet Time Wasting Addiction

8aweek To Help You Kick That Internet Time Wasting Addiction — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:16:23 +0000

[...] is very similar to RescueTime, another Y Combinator startup that launched last November. RescueTime montiors usage of both websites as well as desktop applications, so the products are [...]

By: Jason James

Jason James — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:29:17 +0000

RescueTime is a great tool and if they continue to develop it, could be a boon to many time-starved people. I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks and it’s been interesting to see where my time goes, and how much time I spend in various apps and websites to get my job done. If you’re interested, I wrote a longer review with a couple of screenshots here:

http://autumn-e...g.blogspot.com/

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 22:29:30 +0000

I’ve been looking for this tool. I currently use Wakoopa, which is a great software tracking tool, but RescueTime sounds like it will be even better with its ability to spend what domain you are spending time on.

By: Ponka

Ponka — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:56:15 +0000

http://www.verticity.com does just that for software project management. The thing to remember is that the software development projects are _not_ managed by snooping on developers. True my computer has been idle for some two hours but may be I have been thinking about the problem – just trying to come up with a better solution to the problem. A program snooping on me, like this RescueTime or verticity.com will only note that I haven’t been using my computer for two hours. Projects are not managed like this – you need a knowledgeable project manager to take care of things and break down your activities to track your work. It CAN be a good tool for yourself however. Give it to a manager and it’ll become counter-productive in most cases.

By: Marcos

Marcos — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:59:38 +0000

Using a more “active” time tracking tool like slimtimer works better for me. I can fine grain both my active and passive times: “surfing the web” won’t be mixed with “studying”, “lunch” won’t be mixed with “resting” and “working on feature x” won’t be mixed with “working on feature y”.

Might be a good way to make the leap forward for people without time tracking habits tho.

By: Joel Marcey

Joel Marcey — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:57:35 +0000

I love competition in the software industry.

In addition to some of the similar products mentioned in these comments, I would like to throw another in the ring.

TimeSnapper (http://www.timesnapper.com) written by a Micro-ISV headed by Leon Bambrick (http://secretgeek.net).

I only mention this because (1) it has been out for at least 2 years (2) I am an aspiring Micro-ISV myself, so I like to tip my hat to the “little” guy

Anyway, good work. Competition breeds more innovation, and that is always good.

By: Elad

Elad — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:09:16 +0000

I’ve been using it for the past week and now I know how much time I spend on facebook, google reader and other distractions. Turns out I spend much less time coding than I thought, which provides a strong incentive to change my ways for the better…
In short, I’m a happy user

By: Mahin

Mahin — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:28:20 +0000

Very interesting idea..

By: Mark Maunder

Mark Maunder — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:09:15 +0000

I’m a huge fan of the product and the team. Good luck guys!!!

By: moot

moot — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:33:52 +0000

No good to Linux users:

http://rescuetime.com/faq/
Will RescueTime be available for the Mac? How about Linux?
The RescueTime data collector will be available for the Mac and PC. We have no plans to release a Linux version. That being said, we do plan to open-source the data collector apps and will publish the specs. If anyone feels inspired to build a Linux data collector, we’ll be delighted to help.

By: Arjun

Arjun — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:44:31 +0000

yeah, i’m also a huge rescuetime fan – been using it in beta for a few months.

the key to improving anything is to measure it first. so, for improving productivity, you need to at least start with something like rescuetime!

By: Nathan Kaiser

Nathan Kaiser — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:49:36 +0000

Congrats Tony! On the great software and the YCombinator connection.

I have been running RescueTime for the last few weeks, and it is mind numbing to actually see how much time I spend using email… Reality sucks.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:45:29 +0000

This one looks very similar to the app I made (Wasteometer).
http://coolsw.i...e=Wasteometer-1

By: Kurt Schlatzer

Kurt Schlatzer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:08:00 +0000

This is fine if you want to look at how much time you waste on Facebook. Whoopee. For real metrics on time use, specifically for software developers, 6th Sense Analytics offers a hosted solution that provides artifact level visibility (”What file chewed up a whole day of dev time?”), integrates with project management tools and processes (”I totally underestimated this project. I need to adjust now!”), and present an accurate view of how individual developers and teams spend their time in the development process (”Wow, my team didn’t do a damn thing on Friday!”).

http://www.6ths...seanalytics.com

By: Edison Thomaz

Edison Thomaz — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:45:54 +0000

Best of luck to the RescueTime guys. There are a few activity tracking tools out there - TaskCapture is one of them. We are working on Slife, which lets you do the tracking without uploading it to a site (although you can share your activities with Slifeshare for lifestreaming purposes). @Shawn: I am pretty sure they use an idle timer. Key components for these apps to be actually useful.

By: Toby

Toby — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 14:35:52 +0000

@Paul: Check out the help files. JetTask tracks your program usage and privides you with two reports. The first shows you what programs you have been using (over a configurable amount of time). The second breaks down the detail (the programs you use less often). You can also see this in the program demos. @Shawn: Your are right. The information by itself is not particularly useful. It is a nifty thing to see every once in awhile, but not something that is going to be a part of your daily routine. The passive tracking is not accurate enough for billing. ...that is why JetTask made the functionality a feature of a larger program.

By: Shawn G

Shawn G — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:20:08 +0000

I think that this would be useful oversight for industries that rely on the billable hour as a measurement. One potential problem however is how it handles passive time. Just because I have my word processor open for four hours, doesn’t mean that I’ve been actually doing work with it that whole time. I’m sure that the program has some way of handling this(probably related to mouse idle time), but I haven’t checked it out yet, since I really don’t have any need for something like this(until it either, a) becomes mandatory, b) I’d like a good way to verify billable hours.)

By: Paul Schoenmakers

Paul Schoenmakers — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:56:40 +0000

@Toby: I don’t see any software usage history in JetTask?

Looks a bit like Wakoopa apart from the reporting functions!

By: Toby

Toby — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:19:02 +0000

The idea is nothing new. JetTask has been doing this for months.

By: Pictures of Elizabeth Hurley

Pictures of Elizabeth Hurley — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:02:22 +0000

we can not predict, who is thinking what, we can only wonder how he think. every one want to reach before time,
“RescueTime Tracks” this sounds good, let see how much this will succeed?

By: Jesus H Christ

Jesus H Christ — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:45:42 +0000

This app is developed by a fellow YCer. Wish him the best of luck.