“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing”
Miles Davis
Transcript (Click to expand)
“Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing”
Miles Davis
Time management has been around long before the digital age. Schedules, to-do lists, and calendars were used by many students, teachers, and any savvy-minded planners. Now, with our work becoming increasingly digitized, our time management tools have evolved. There are literally hundreds of project/time management online tools. For the sake of this project, I have selected to analyze three of these tools and give an overview of each.
Asana, although primarily a project management tool, uses its integration with “Harvest” to track time throughout your experience. Here is an excellent tutorial on how this is accomplished. Harvest has start and stop-timers that you use as you work. It can be integrated with both mobile and desktop browser apps.
Asana has many collaboration tools, including messaging, team and project conversations, and comments on tasks. To elaborate, this includes tools like timesheet reviews and approvals. Asana also offers team transparency, so that your manager and team can see which projects are taking the most of your time. You can integrate many of your tools together creating tasks using emails, and building complex reports using api. Asana is used best by teams, who need both a project management tool, in addition to time management.
“The global workplace is changing rapidly. Increasing numbers of employees are gaining more autonomy over how they manage their work time, caused by more flexible work schedules and the establishment of remote work. With boundaries between private and work life blurring, and little knowledge and support for this ‘new normal’, cases of burn-out and employee disengagement are on the rise.”
Timeular
Timeular defines the need for digitized time management perfectly. The popularity and availability of working remotely is ever-increasing. The Timeular product includes a physical tracker and an accompanying application. Using the tracker, you can assign the different sides with specific activities, track/time your tasks, and get insights and reports. The amazing part of the digitization of time tracking is the ability to manage time in new ways. To automate the schedules and to-do lists, saving time as you plan your time better.
RescueTime is a downloadable tool that “automatically tracks the time you spend on apps, websites, and even specific documents without timers or any manual entry” (RescueTime). Like timeular, it provides the user with detailed reports.
In addition, it also has additional features like website blockers, so users can block any distracting websites. This is incredibly helpful for students and remote employees or instructors. In addition, it can set productivity goals for yourself. Focusing on how much time you need to be productive versus distracted. You can integrate RescueTime with many of your favourite applications so you can update your status on different community tools, automatically.
Transcript (Click to expand)
“We all know our money isn’t infinite, yet we end up treating our time and energy and attention as if they are.”
Shane Parrish
These three mobile time-tracking tools and many more are available. Some even focus on transparency within teams and project management. These tools take an administrative task and automates it. This allows users to have more time in the day where they may have normally spent time tracking. Furthermore, for those new to time-tracking or those who may not track their time, the tools have templates and reports to help start your journey. When you begin seeing how you spend your time, you can see the areas where you can limit your distractions and prioritize your time. As Michael Altshuler once said, “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
Hi Emma,
This is a very timely post! There are so many ways to be productive and your three subjects show the spectrum of food available for mobile.
I have adopted a similar Asana app for work timelines and I like it very much. Your two other subjects, as well as the Harvest add in for Asana, are less appealing for me as I am honestly not willing to see where I spend my time!
This has me wondering if there exists a workshop that could provide mindfulness techniques to keep focused on projects. I would be more willing to try directly changing my habits than tracking or limiting my daily activities. I had tried an app called Calm for mindfulness on stress, and would be more amenable to one for focussing on time.
Have you (or anyone) come across such an app?
It is interesting to see these products now that many mobile devices now support tracking and reporting your device usage times.
I would be interested to see data on these products to compare how many users become more productive and organized or do not commit to using them on an everyday basis. I did some research and have found that there are quite a few time management apps out there: Rescue Time, Focus Keeper, Toggl…etc!
This topic actually reminds me of a Netflix show called “Omniscient” that is about a possible future where everyone is followed around by their own personal drone that tracks a person’s every movement and activity.
I was surprised to find what stood out most for me was the Timeular physical tracker. As someone who struggles with “out of sight, out of mind,” I often find time tracking tools frustrating because I forget to log in or fish it out from behind the open windows on my screen. Having a physical dice-like object front and centre on my desk would help me remember and likely make my reporting more accurate.
Interesting how improved efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean “more digital!”
Very similar to my own experience! I would say that is the one I am most interested in as well. If it was a one-time cost versus a subscription, it would already be sitting on my desk.
Hi Emma:
These are some really unique apps to use for time management. I do see that you have the 3 tabs and like how you separated the three apps. I am just wondering if I missed something in your A1. Perhaps a link or other content is not showing. Did you find any other neat information about these apps? Has any research been conducted on the effectiveness of apps for time management? Your A1 has gotten my attention and I am very curious to hear what you have to say.
Hi Brittany, great question, the audio and transcripts include a intro and summary of my findings. I hope this helps.
As for efficiency, all I could find was reviews from customers (which I excluded as I believed them to be a biased source):
For example, https://timeular.com/reviews/