[HN Gopher] Show HN: Timeretain - Track, visualize, and export y...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Timeretain - Track, visualize, and export your hours
Hi HN, I made this because I needed to track how much I work and
on what. Timeretain allows you to track time using a fast, private
feed of time cards. It displays your stats next to it, and you can
filter to zoom in on a description or tag. You can always export
what's in view. It's different from other time trackers because
it's powerful _and_ minimalist. Here 's how I use it. I need to
hold myself accountable. I want to know how much I've worked in a
week, and Timeretain immediately shows that -- no need to create
extensive 'reports'. Next, a log of what I did is useful for
standup. I can get that from my feed, which loads quickly. Finally,
I have to track time for specific topics. With Timeretain, I can
add tags on the fly -- it doesn't require me to create and manage
'projects'. I would love to hear your feedback. There's an instant
demo on the landing page; you don't have to share personal details
to test.
Author : heresjohnny
Score : 45 points
Date : 2023-01-20 18:45 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (timeretain.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (timeretain.com)
| badrequest wrote:
| The instant demo is a nice touch. Personally, what's stopping me
| from using an app like this is that I don't trust myself to not
| absentmindedly shift over to some distraction, or get interrupted
| by my wife and/or kids while I'm tracking some task.
|
| In those cases, to hold myself accountable, I have to go back to
| the app, stop the current task, edit the time it stopped at, add
| a new entry for the distraction, then add yet another new entry
| to get back to work.
| heresjohnny wrote:
| Hey, thanks for checking. I appreciate it! I built a "subtract"
| feature for this use case. Once you've stopped doing a task,
| you can subtract whatever minutes you felt distracted. You can
| enable this in settings, and set a default value. I use it to
| subtract 30 minutes from my day of work for lunch time.
| pitched wrote:
| I use my calendar for this. The event name is my notes for what I
| did. I find I forget to hit start (or stop) at the exact perfect
| time with these tools so they're always only showing a partial
| view. With the calendar, I can go through and add in events for
| what I did in the morning or the day before.
|
| Also, the best tool I've found for accountability is to try and
| predict what you will spend time on before hand. So I have one
| calendar for my plan that I make first thing in the morning and
| another for what actually happened.
| macmac wrote:
| Looks cool. I am an avid org-mode user which I also use for
| coding/writing/email, so probably not the target audience. Why no
| "pause" button?
| heresjohnny wrote:
| Thanks! A pause button is on the list. I am still thinking
| about how to remind people to unpause or stop. I might build
| opt-in notifications for this.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Same here. org-mode is the best todo and time tracker system
| I've personally used. Nothing I've come across has been more
| pleasant and smooth. I always forget to use todos and time
| trackers over time. But not with org-mode.
| reality_inspctr wrote:
| super cool
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| > I needed to track how much I work and on what.
|
| Why?
| heresjohnny wrote:
| My day job is fun. If I don't keep myself accountable, I end up
| working 50-60 hour weeks and burn myself out. I needed
| something that would show me "in bold" that I've already done
| 40 hours on a Wednesday. Initially, this lived in an Excel
| sheet, but that became unmaintainable quickly.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| Maybe I'm groggy (just woke up from a nap) but how is a job
| that's so fun you need help stopping yourself from working
| 50-60 hours going to result in burnout? Wouldn't the burnout
| be a self regulating mechanism?
|
| Maybe burnout is the wrong word?
| heresjohnny wrote:
| That is a fair point, although I've heard many times in my
| circle about people who "were great" and then crashed. In
| general, I needed to force leisure time on myself.
| Timeretain helps me with this.
| pitched wrote:
| > Burnout is: exhaustion, inefficacy and
| depersonalization
|
| This tool is focusing a lot on the first and maybe the
| second but it's that third one that's the hardest to
| catch.
| hobo_mark wrote:
| Ha, I just built something similar for myself over the winter
| holidays. It's just a Google Chat bot duct taped to Google
| Calendar with a bit of Apps Script, but seeing how I spend my
| days visually has been extremely motivating in adjusting my
| routine and habits. Best of luck to you.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| You should implement this as an Obsidian (https://obsidian.md)
| plugin, I think it'd get traction among the TFT crowd there most
| of whom use a daily note.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-20 23:00 UTC)