Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Type A timesheet

We got another winter storm last night into this morning, so I worked from home until noon. I'm usually not very successful working from home because I goof off too much. I really want to be able to work at home sometimes (that's work, not "work"). And I want to be able to plan to do so with the confidence that I will actually get something done. So today I signed up with Slimtimer.com after seeing Dr. Shellie's comment on one of Saxifraga's posts, along with references to similar programs on other blogs. It's a website that lets you track how much time you spend doing particular tasks. You can add tags in order to group tasks by topic. I think it's possible to download daily or weekly logs of your activity. Good for seeing how you really spend your time.

I only used it for a few hours this morning, but seeing the clock ticking away helped keep me on track. I haven't logged enough hours to try out some of the features, but I bet that my totally anal retentive, structure loving personality will thrive on this sort of rigidity. Bring it on!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

oh good, i'm glad it helped! :)

ruchi said...

That sounds really enticing because I am also a type A personality. But I also shudder to think about what I *really* spend time on. I once kept an hour by hour diary of a week to see what I did with my time. It was kind of depressing. At the time I spent far too much time watching "The Practice."

DancingFish said...

One of my friends downloaded a program that blocks certain websites during certain hours during the day. Once you recognize your time-suckers you can block them! I'll have to blog it soon...

EcoGeoFemme said...

Oh please, do tell us about that soon.

Wayfarer Scientista said...

interesting, I too have been listening to dr shellie's comment about it on saxifraga's blog...and think I will eventually go check it out.

Mad Hatter said...

How interesting! I'd definitely be interested in hearing how this works for you. Although I have a feeling I wouldn't be happy to know what it has to say about my work habits....