App Roundup: Timing is Everything

It is slightly hard to believe that I use so many different apps which relate to timekeeping, and it is curious that managing and controlling time has become such a priority. I suppose that, when one is working, it inevitably becomes important.

I have mentioned the Sleep Cycle timer and the Timer With Sections in the past. Sleep Cycle is an alarm system which wakes you up when you're at the most 'awake' part of your sleep cycle and keeps track of sleep patterns. Timer With Sections allows you to plan out and time a routine; I use it to schedule, and stick to, a morning routine.

I have also tried using apps to keep track of my work hours.

Because I sometimes work from home (or the coffee shop), I need to keep track of the hours I bill so that I can later enter my time into the system at work. For a long time, I would make do by recording the time on scraps of paper, but that system left a lot to be desired. I've tried out a few timekeeper apps, but I have sometimes found their interfaces to be awkward or not well suited to the kind of billing I need to do.

The app that I've found most useful is called On The Clock; I like that it allows me to set interval times (I bill using 6 minute intervals, so that 6 minutes = .1 hours), and I think the interface is more straightforward than the other ones I've seen.

I record time by clicking on the task to get the clock running during periods of time when I am working. If I need to take a break, I can stop the clock, and can start recording again once I am ready.

The app will organize and summarize the accumulated time for various tasks into a daily summary. The summary is easy to read, and can be emailed or reviewed on my phone if I have it handy.

The one critique I have of this app is that the Tasks and Clients sections are too crowded, and the tasks or cases you're not working on cannot be 'hidden' or minimized; I would prefer it if the app allowed you to minimize tasks you were not currently engaged in, but which you might need to work on later (I can, and do, delete task listings, but that also has the effect of deleting records related to that task from the Summary page).

However, despite this minor shortcoming, I have found this app to be very helpful in allowing me to keep track of the work I do outside the office, and makes it that much easier to work from home.