Dax Murray

I have difficulty with focus, concentration, staying on task, and both long- and short-term memory. I have no idea, honestly, how I get anything done. But the last few days, I have been using “WorkingHours” time tracking app to give me some sort of insight into what I get done and how long I spend on it.

The free version allows you to have five Tasks, so I have “uncategorized,” “editing,” “writing,” “coding,” and “chores and routines.”

I can use tags to further specify what I am working on. The Custom Value tags excessively. I have one that's “Manuscript:” so I can track which manuscript I am working on, and have recently created “Chapter:” and “Scene:” tags because why not?

It's made for freelancers, and the tagging feature allows you to easily calculate work at time-and-a-half, factor in lunch breaks, or charge only half the set price. Incredibly flexible features that I have no use for right now, but can appreciate, nonetheless.

I think what I like most about it, though, is that it does not require that I create an account or provide any of my personal information. I can sync it if I want to Android (or macOS or iOS but I'm not an Apple user, sorry), but I would set it up with my own cloud storage solution like OneDrive or Dropbox, etc, it wouldn't be hosted on servers owned or operated by the developer. I keep my personal cloud storage encrypted and my MFA for it is a physical security key; I know it's secure. I don't have to worry about the security protocols of the developer, and I don't have to worry about my data being sold!

Another great thing is that if you purchase the premium version, it is only a one-time payment per platform. The purchase is tied to the app store you purchased from, so you would have to purchase an Android and Windows version separately (and macOS/iOS separately); the Windows version is $9.99 and the Android is $8.49. But the Windows version is on sale for $6.99 until Sept 5, 2023, so get on it if you want it. But again, NO recurring subscription!

No subscription and your data is yours. No data collection, not even your email address!

Because of my memory issues, I sometimes have days where I DO get stuff done... but, by the time I am crawling into bed, I have completely forgotten what I did, often leaving me feeling like I did absolutely nothing. Tracking my time like this has allowed me to recognize patterns in days that I can do stuff, times I most often am productive, and how long I spend on various activities.

I've been struggling to finish editing “Stars and Soil” for... A long time. I finished writing it and my head kind of tanked, and it threw off my publishing timeline by a lot. And my health hasn't really improved much, so my editing is still going at a snail's pace. But time tracking like this has really helped me find ways to work around my illness. I'd been doing time tracking kind of ad-hoc with just my own stopwatch and pen and paper, but that doesn't give me the sort of visuals that have allowed me to recognize patterns. I can see how long I spent on it, along with the word count. I've managed to figure out that I edit most efficiently after the sun goes down. Wompwomp.

I've only been using WorkingHours for a few days, but already it's provided a ton of benefits to my extremely disabled butt. It's maintained by a single developer, and he is incredibly responsive in the community forum he maintains and cares about data ownership and privacy issues. If you're looking for a time-tracking app, I can't recommend WorkingHours highly enough. And as another bonus, the same dev has an Invoice making app called SubTotal, so if you're a freelancer, get on that.

As a bonus, it syncs with Diarium, which makes sense as it's by the same dev! I use Diarium as my daily journaling app, and it imports how long I worked on each task automatically and puts it as a tag in the day's journal entries (which I got also because it doesn't collect info, my data is mine, and there's no subscription!)

#TimeTracking #WorkingHours #Apps

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