Track work on projects with ManicTime

Do you have to keep track of your work hours? Or even your project hours? At my old job I had to keep track of time I spent working for different projects. And I hated it. At the end of the day I couldn't remember when I came to work, when I went to lunch, how much time I spent for lunch... So I would pretty much guess the amount of time I spent working on different projects. I must admit though, my time management skills are awful.
Then I started thinking, if I spend most of my work hours behind a computer, why not let the computer track what I do. And then I could just use that to see what I was doing at the certain time. So for example if an application could just track when I was using a computer I would know when I came to work, how much time I spent for lunch, when I left, how long a meeting took...

And this is the idea behind ManicTime. ManicTime is an application tracking software which helps you to accurately and efficiently log work hours.

ManicTime automatically collects data on your computer usage. It records active and away(idle) time, as well as which applications you used and for how long you used them. So for example you are currently using your browser to read this page. ManicTime would show you for this particular moment, that you are active (behind a computer) and that you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox or some other browser. It would also show you how long you spent reading this page.

Collected data is presented using timelines. There are three predefined timelines:

* Activity: Shows your active time and away(idle) time
* Applications: Shows which application you used, when and for how long
* Tags: Shows tags you created. This timeline is not automatically generated it is filled with time tags you entered.

When you move your mouse over a timeline, each timeline shows you a hint about an underlying activity. Hint displays detailed information about an activity such as title, application name, start and end times and duration.

So what do you do once ManicTime has collected all this data about your computer usage? Well, we designed the application so it is easy for you to use this data to track how you spent your time.

You position your mouse over the activity with which you started a job. So for example if I am designing a web site, I usually start with opening Photoshop. So I just hover over the application timeline to see when I first started using Photoshop. Then I click the left mouse button and I just drag to when I finished it. Lets say I finished it just in time for lunch. So I would drag until I was idle. Once the time is selected I can tag it.

It is this simple to accurately keep track of how you spent your time. You can even tag time for days in the past. Once you start hovering over Activities you will quickly remember what you were working on. And the best part about it, you don't need to do anything while you are working.

Once you start time tagging you will quickly see how efficient you really are. You can tag time with tags like:
* Personal
* Work
* Projects
* Lunch
* Meeting
* ...

Once you start doing this you will be able to see exactly how much time you spend for personal stuff, how much time you spend on different projects or even meetings.