RescueTime is a new start-up funded by YCombinator that tracks how much time you spend using different applications and websites.
I saw they had a Mac version available, so I jumped at the opportunity to sign-up.
RescueTime is smart enough to realize when your idle and only tracks what you’re actively paying attention to (your active window).
You tag different websites and applications and mark how productive they are:
Now the fun part, analyzing how you spend your time. Based on my minimal stats, you can see I spend most of my time blogging and looking at MacTips.
I haven’t been running RescueTime that long, but it looks like it tracks your productivity over different weeks. This could be extremely useful for weeding out time-wasting activities.
The whole process sounds complicated. In reality it’s extremely simple. There’s a small file to download after signing-up, that can run silently in your menubar.
There is also a basic preferences menu, where you setup your account.
RescueTime also has other interesting features such as goals and alerts.
What about privacy?
RescumeTime realizes there are times you don’t want tracked. Like those private moments while Private Browsing. It has a couple different ways of handling this.
- Completely Disable: You can completely disable logging temporarily.
- Whitelisting: You can give RescueTime a list of URLs to track, everything else will show up as “Other”
- Record Partial URLs: You can record only the domain instead of the full URL. This hides the various pages you may be visiting.
- Close: And of course you can always just close the program.
Great For Time Management
RescueTime is one of those applications you set and forget. When you remember you have it running, you’re able to analyze just how much time you wasted watching Rick Roll on YouTube.
Of course, some users may not want to know everything about their computer habits. Ignorance is bliss. For these users, RescueTime isn’t for you.
If you are interested in trends on how you spend your time, however, RescueTime does a great job.
The best part is RescueTime is free for personal user and is currently allowing sign-ups.
Show a new start-up some love and sign-up. Still have questions? View their FAQ or Blog.
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