RescueTime

Avantages

The most powerful feature of RescueTime is tracking on what activities you spend your time and when you do this. The power comes especially from being on every device you use.

Inconvénients

I would like to see more features inside the mobile app. Especially regarding easily logging offline time.

Avantages

The detailed analysis of how I use apps and websites made it possible to become more efficient when working with a computer. You can also block distractions if needed.

Inconvénients

Personally I don’t have any complaints but if you don’t want to have all your app and website usage logged online then this might be a downside.

Avantages

RescueTime can help you find and get rid of distractions to increase productivity by giving you insightful information about how you spend your time. The program automatically keeps tabs on your usage across numerous websites and applications and generates thorough time usage reports. You can establish objectives and track development using RescueTime's productivity scores and goal-setting options. RescueTime enables you to retain focus on key tasks with its customized warnings and concentrate time settings. Users are empowered to make knowledgeable decisions about their time management by the software's user-friendly interface and clear reports, which increase productivity and work-life balance.

Inconvénients

One drawback of RescueTime is that its automatic time tracking might not fully record all offline activities, which could result in inaccurate results. RescueTime's free edition has a limited feature set, and upgrading is necessary to access more sophisticated functions. Some users could find the comprehensive reports to be too much to handle or think that the productivity ratings are arbitrary. RescueTime offers information, but it doesn't actively push users to modify their behavior; instead, it relies on users' willpower to do so.

Avantages

This tool for our team has been an eye-opening tool for tracking and improving productivity. Its automatic time tracking feature helps users understand how they spend their time on the computer and mobile devices. We particularly like The detailed reports and activity breakdowns provide valuable data to identify time-wasting habits and increase focus. Goal-setting and notification features encourage users to stay on track towards their productivity goals.

Inconvénients

It may take time to fully utilise the insights gained from the tool

Avantages

Provides a great little nudge to remind you that when you're on your computer working, you should, be, like, working... the free offering is excellent, allowing you do a semi-deep dive into your data, seeing what you're doing most and helping you improve

Inconvénients

The software is great, and the portal too, but the thing I worry about most is this sort of thing getting in the hands of (bad) developer managers, who might use it to spy on their employees, firing the least "productive" ones. Truly, everyone needs a break now and then, so it worries me a bit that this powerful program could fall into the wrong hands. "With great power comes great responsibility", that sort of thing.. The other thing is the feature set has not changed much in recent years. Subtle improvements could go along way... for instance, I wish it could help me with is filling in my timesheet each week. Imagine if it could tell me which solutions i have open most often in VS Code, for example, and I could charge my time to each project.

Avantages

The ease of use is the best of that tool. Without having to remember to start a task or something, it silently records what you are doing in the background.

Inconvénients

Sometimes (but rarely...) it can be difficult to assign a recorded activity to a certain project. That happens at times with many simultaneous projects of a similar kind for which I have to use the same tools.

Avantages

Rescuetime automatically tracks and categorizes the activities of you and your team. It makes it easy to see what areas and applications you might be spending more time in than expected. The weekly report emails are great and the productivity score is a nice way to get a glance at productivity vs previous months.

Inconvénients

I would like if there was a different way to categorize specific files from different projects into projects within rescuetime. There may be a way to make a solution like this happen with the current features, but if I could tag certain portions of time towards specific projects it would give me further insight not only on the type of work I am doing (development, communication), but into the specific project that time was spent on. This is a small niche need though and it hasn't stopped me from using Rescuetime.

Avantages

It's easy to set up and use and pretty much works on its own. Using RescueTime, you can see how much time is spent on your computer and what types of things you are doing. It also comes in handy to be able to back-track and see what you were working on when you've been lax on your time-tracking duties. It helps to retro-actively fill in timesheets.

Inconvénients

Some of the categorization out of the box doesn't always match up to your reality; for example, it may track a task as being unproductive when, in fact, it was a productive task for you. So things that it reports need to be either reviewed or taken with a grain of salt.

Avantages

The amount of information that this gathers is just mindblowing, being available on everything is just awesome. The automatic categorization for apps works most of the time. Then there are the vast amount of integrations it offers. This is the best time tracking software I have used, which just gets better with time.

Inconvénients

Re-categorizing activities is somewhat convoluted, I've had to bookmark the page honestly so I can get to it quickly. The focus sessions are a neat feature but it needs to be more robust as it is quite easy to circumvent.

Avantages

This software helped me to objectively and quantitatively identify which distractions were doing most damage to my daily income.
By seeing it in front of me and putting against it, I was able to instantly cut those activities out completely or minimise them.

Inconvénients

No cons, really. The software is unobtrusive, not pushy, it just does its thing well.

Avantages

The time tracking is easy. It has a good UI and categorize automatically the tools used in the PC

Inconvénients

More reports in free plan. Better app from mobile devices

Avantages

It's so helpful when recreating your day. We have to log every hour we spend, so we know what's billable and what's not, and some days I'm so all over the place I forget what I've done all day, so this helps me figure it out.

It's also really nice that you can set your own designations for what's "productive" and what's "distracting." For most companies, Facebook would be "very distracting," but we actually do a lot of social media work for our clients, so it can be "productive" time for us. Just nice to have that flexibility.

And the weekly emails are a nice reminder about how time adds up.

Inconvénients

For a short period of time, I was able to use the "FocusTime" feature, which was awesome. I essentially turned off your access to programs or websites that were listed as "distracting." It pretty much stopped you from being your own enemy. I wish that was still part of the free version, b/c it was very helpful.

Also, it's pretty clunky getting through the report of how you spent your time. You either have to look at it by category (Very Productive, Productive, Neutral, Distracting, Very Distracting) individually, or by task (Communication, Business, etc.), there's not just a way to see a full list of everything. And navigating between the different views isn't easy, but you get the hang of it.

Avantages

Rescuetime has mostly helped me whittle down little time sinks that I was unaware of. For example, it turned out I spent 30 minutes a day selecting songs on iTunes; now I have a playlist on shuffle and do not actively use iTunes anymore to select my music during the work day.

Rescuetime has often surprised me by showing stats being very different from how I perceived them. It can also be motivated to see a highly productive day unfolding and feeling competitive with yourself.

Inconvénients

Currently Rescuetime cannot distinguish browser tabs in Firefox. Other apps like Timedoctor can, so I'm sure Rescuetime could fix this if they'd commit to it.

Avantages

The ability to sync across multiple devices - I use it on my work laptop, my personal laptop, and my mobile phone. This gives me a much clearer idea of how I'm spending my online life. I also like the weekly email that sums up my time logged, as well as the ability to recategorize certain apps. For example, I use Twitter for work, so I don't want it to count as "very distracting."

Inconvénients

I wish there was an easier way to note when I'm being productive vs. when I'm wasting time on the same app. Sometimes I use Instagram for work and sometimes I use it for pleasure, and there's no way I've found to differentiate the uses.

Avantages

Tracks what you work one completely automatically,
reliably records all applications used,
gives automatic ratings how “productive” certain applications are

Inconvénients

Updating the Linux client could be smoother / better automated.

Avantages

Oh RescueTime how I love and hate you. You make me focus when I don't want to, so I actually get stuff done. When you set up RescueTime you have to know you'll be incredibly frustrated when you're locked out of certain websites, but that's the point. It's great at helping you focus your attention where you need it to be.

Inconvénients

It didn't work great on my phone. Usually I was able to work around it and make it to websites I had locked out during focused time. That's my own fault really though, because I should have stopped myself instead of proceeding to find a way around it.

Avantages

I was first introduced at rescue time by a work colleague, he was claiming that he could do pomodoro time, and in the end of the day he knew how much focused and productive he had been. I was curious out by this tool, so I start using it and became impressed in how simple and silent it was, it was just a icon occult in my taskbar.

It demands only 3mb of pc memory and maps everything that I do. He is aware of the types of websites I'm accessing because he already has a database. However I had to edit some sites as research/work/etc. (like my company website).

Inconvénients

The interface is ugly and outdated, but the use is so simple that maybe not the focus of development team. The information architecture and content at the dashboard page is the biggest problem, a simple redesign could do miracles.

Avantages

RescueTime is a great tool when it comes to keeping track of your precious time online. It monitors each and every website you visit and the apps you use. And most importantly it tracks how much time you spend on each of them. It automatically categorizes most of the apps and sites you use on a productive or destructive level. You can always map various sites according to your requirements. It gives very detailed stats weekly and shows exactly how you spend your time online. It also helps you to set weekly productivity goals and reduce unproductive time spend. It seamlessly works in the background and tracks time on your PC and Mobile. RescueTime free version is enough for most of the user.

Inconvénients

A real-time notification would be helpful. RescueTime pro version is a little costly.

Avantages

Rescue TIme is a great tool for those concerned on how are they spending their time online. Rescue Time lets you record precisely how much time you spent and where, giving you a real (often shocking) insight on what you were doing. This not only concerns people that wants to be more productive but also people that want to stay away from using too much their phones.

In general RescueTime is simple and their free version does well for my needs. Rescue Time is simple to use, you don't have to do anything, just pretend nobody is watching and check your reports to see what's going on.

Inconvénients

Their GUI could use some improving, the overall design of the websites are apps is a bit outdated and for such a popular service I would expect a better design. Maybe it's on the way.

Generally speaking I am happy with Rescue Time and I don't see major issues using it.

Avantages

It's usage tracking abilities across multiple devices is definitely its killer feature

Inconvénients

Its API capabilities are very limited and new features seem to make the product worse rather than better

Avantages

I love that I can set it and forget it. It will record my interactions with my computer in the background and keep a detailed log of what I'm doing. It lets me see trending on how I spend my work and leisure time, giving me a lot of insights into how I work. I also like that I can have it setup to run on multiple computers and it'll aggregate all of the data so if I move from one computer to another, it combines the data into one dashboard.

Inconvénients

Not really a con, I just sometimes forget about it and don't check my reports. It would be nice maybe if it had some notificatons to let me know that I should check in to see how I'm doing.

Avantages

RescueTime runs in the background of my computer, tracking every single minute that I spend on the computer. Because it has a huge and comprehensive database of apps and websites that it categorizes as productive or unproductive, it can automatically break down for me how much time I've spend in the day/week as productive (or not), and whether I've reached the goals that I've set up myself on the website. I love the email reports that they send to me, letting me know how much time I've actually spent on my work.

Inconvénients

The included software on the Mac looks rudimentary, but it's not even something I have to deal with because it just runs in the background in the menu bar. It doesn't offer an option to hide the menu bar icon, so if that bothers you you'll need something like Bartender to hide it.

Avantages

Easy to use: RescueTime is very intuitive and easy to use. Once it is downloaded and installed, it starts automatically.
Easy to customize: It just takes a few clicks to tell RescueTime which activities are productive for your business.
Weekly summary report: RescueTime doesn't blow up your inbox, but rather sends a weekly summary to help you keep your time spent on business on track.
Tracks the user on multiple workstations: If you use more than one workstation, RescueTime will aggregate your time.
Regular, easy updates: RescueTime updates come out regularly, and take a single click. Yay!
Great value for the money: I use the FREE version, and it does what I need.

Inconvénients

I can't think of any cons. However, I have not use the paid version of RescueTime, so I don't know what features or benefits I am missing out on.

Avantages

Automatic tracking of how you use your time
Easy to use dashboard
Great way to stay accountable with your Goals

Inconvénients

Lack of detail in reporting (RescueTime is not a replacement for time tracking for contractors)
Always on nature of recording can pose a privacy risk

Avantages

Detailed stats
Focus mode
API integrations
Support for all relevant platforms

Inconvénients

Can be a bit slow when trying to view monthly or yearly stats
Lacks a single-page view for all the activities on a given day - only by category

Avantages

The software is just perfect for me. I aim to manage my time and Rescuetime makes that seamless.The daily and weekly reports help me to evaluate how I use my time. The software also has an affiliate program and thats beneficial to me as well.

Inconvénients

I have installed it on my iPhone but I can seem to be able to track my time use on the phone. I am also not sure if the software tracks time when the screen is off.

Avantages

Each week I take the report and show it to my accountability group, with the goal of decreasing my computer time week by week. Rescuetime makes it very easy to track and spot trends.

Inconvénients

No cons that I can think of. Once I had categorized all of my different applications and activities it works well.

Avantages

RescueTime is an absolutely brilliant time tracking tool. It has given me a very simple but accurate tool for tracking exactly how much time I spend on projects. It's brilliant because it tracks time by app but also by websites visited. So I can include research time and reading time into the time I spend on projects. It tracks multiple devices which is great because I tend to switch between devices when working on projects. It's non intrusive and runs completely silently in the background with a simple weekly email and all data available via the mobile app.

Inconvénients

It would be great to set up project and task tracking within the app so we can group our activities.

Avantages

It works in the background, I don't need to remember to turn it on or off. No need to disposition time regularly so it doesn't interfere with organic or non-linear workflows. I can go back and disposition all at once at the end of the day or very few days.

Inconvénients

Update frequency seems high and sometimes the update pop-up is intrusive.

Avantages

RescueTime requires little to no configuration or attention. You simply install it on your computer and/or install the various browser plugins and let it do its thing - tracking your activities and time.

Inconvénients

As an analytics nerd, I would like to see RescueTime have even more tracking features and abilities. The one con that I will mention is having to specifically allow RescueTime to specifically track what is being done in certain websites/applications.

Avantages

Effortless time tracking with a 'set and forget' kind of approach. RescueTime works in the background to identify the tasks you're working on and provides insightful reports on productivity.

Inconvénients

Integration with other systems would be invaluable as we've recently moved to a different solution that integrates with some of the other products we use internally.

Avantages

After evaluating all possible time trackers for Ubuntu, RescueTime was the only product I found which would give me a simple metric which is part of my KPIs — how much time am I spending at my workstation every day during weekdays?
The tool does a lot more than that, but I capture this metric and email it to myself daily thanks to a Zapier hook.

Inconvénients

The Ubuntu GUI doesn't really exist if I remember correctly. Would be nice to have the option, although even if I did, I probably wouldn't use it.

Avantages

* Great easy to setup tool to track all activities done in system.
* Extremely accurate regarding the activities and time usage.
* Excellent reporting to generate and analyze the pattern.
* Can be used to track Employee productivity.
* Not a privacy nightmare as many sensitive data is not captured.
* Can be used to track our computer usage and help us to be more productive.
* Supports mobile devices and linux,Mac as well.

Inconvénients

*Bit expensive for premium version/organization plans.

Avantages

Useful resource for seeing what online tasks consume our days. Nonintrusive, but monitors what windows and sites are open and consuming our time throughout the day. Very customizable --even on the free plans.

Inconvénients

Initially, putting your tasks into categories (productive, not productive, etc) as well as attaching meaning to your tasks (communication, news, work-related, personal, etc) can take a while, but it pays off in the end with more relevant reports at week's end.

Avantages

It was easy to get set up and customize what behavior is considered valuable or not to my work day. It gave me a good personal metric to keep myself on track throughout my work week.

Inconvénients

Nothing really, it delivers what it promises and even works on your desktop! I did not trying using this with a team and only used it personally, i imagine that with a team there are ways to beat the machine

Avantages

Iam using a free version of the RescueTime installed on my Laptop. The product is easy to use, easy to implement and good user interface. The aspect of a overview of total weekly performance monitored by time that offers me a knowledge of time spent including productivity concerns is what I enjoy the best. As an affiliate, I am promoting this product through my Blog and social network.

Inconvénients

I couldn't find the least part as I am comfortable with it. Will be updated in future.

Avantages

I love the dashboard and how I can categorize each application to accurately track my time. I get an IFTTT e-mail every night telling me how long I worked.

Inconvénients

There’s nothing I don’t like the least about the software.

Avantages

1. Easy to use.
2. Easy to customize/configure to track the things I do.
3. I use the free version, which has great features for free.
4. Being competitive, I like to try and beat my previous week's score and be more productive.

Inconvénients

There are few things I don't like about RescueTime. They have new versions out frequently, but the install is completely painless (does not require a computer restart), so it is a very minor inconvenience.

Avantages

Like any productivity tool, I subscribed because I wanted to hold myself more accountable and analyze the applications and the websites that I visit from day to day. It's been amazing to see how much time I'm going through my emails and adjust based on how I want to make my workflow more productive. I love that the product is simple enough to set up and monitor my computer usage without any manual processes.

Inconvénients

The availability of the tool without many videos or sources on how to get the most out of RescueTime. I'm still finding new ways to incorporate this in my workflow though.

Avantages

Easy to set up and works in the background so you don't have to worry about it. It also adds data from your cell phone, which is critical to see how your time gets spent each day.

Inconvénients

Really, none that I can think of. I have been using it for many years, it's a keeper.

Avantages

I like how RescueTime tracks all the apps the user has opened and use as well as the browsers links.
I like it's idle time feature. And their reports and graphics.

Inconvénients

You can't track by project and make estimations about each time-consuming project in the company.
The promp ask you about some time idle is so useful but is not active by default.

Avantages

- very automated, install and forget about it
- easy to see how productive you are and set goals

Inconvénients

- sometimes doesn't detect activity when it's happening, skewing results
- sometimes not very good at identifying the nature of programs
- privacy concerns

Avantages

Its a simple software to use, that keeps track of how and where you use your time on the computer, it´s really helpful to see at the end of the day how much time you spent doing what and to complete the goals you set for your self and it helps a lot knowing really how much "working" time you spend not being productive

Inconvénients

Since i work on different projects but on the same software or webpage it became hard to track how much of thet time was actually spent on the different programs, so it didnt really work for me

Avantages

It's really easy to use and once you go through setting things up it takes no thought or effort. It just runs in the background and reports weekly. Knowing that it's running helps me stay on task.

Inconvénients

The auto-categorization works okay, but I needed to spend a good chunk of time custom categorizing various apps and websites because it was throwing off my reporting. (But I AM glad that they at least allow you that option)

Avantages

Rescuetime tracks the time you spend in all your applications. It’s a good tool to track your habits, as you see which applications you have used the most. After using this, you will have a report on where your attention went during the day. If you have never done the exercise of auditing yourself, give rescuetime a chance.

Inconvénients

I don’t agree to the concept of ‘tracking productivity’. The fact that you use an application will not tell you if you are or not more productive, as this tool (or any other) cannot measure the value that you produce. It goes worse with the “organizations” version available, where managers can see the aggregate time of its employees. But it’s still useful if you are struggling with your attention and you think that it’s going to somewhere it shouldn’t.

Avantages

- an instant setup that's also highly customizable
- gives you a full overview of where your time is being spent on the computer
- you can categorize and filter out data if you like

Inconvénients

Not that I would expect it to do any better, but sometimes it can take some time to make sure all your activity is properly categorized

Avantages

RescueTime is one of a kind app that - once installed - keeps track of all activities you do on your machine.
Later it sends you a beautiful summary of where you spent time, where you wasted time and more.

Inconvénients

Frankly none. We didn’t really find any thing in RescueTime which can qualify as a cons. It is 10/10 from us.

Avantages

Not only are the categories already extremely thorough, but the ability to create your own categories is just awesome! I only used this app for about 6 months before I stopped, not because I didn't like it, but because I got everything I needed out of it: Better time management skills.

Inconvénients

This is not the app's fault (goes for any app meant to help build habits or increase productivity): For the first week or so, there was a lot of "setting up" before it started working for me. You had to categorize each site you went to so that it could build up a dictionary/library and give you metrics. Like I said though, the app does it well, it's just tedious at the beginning.

Avantages

This software requires no set up at all. Everything is done automagically. Later, if needed, you can re-categorize some tasks. For example, if you are searching candidates in social networks you can tag this time as productive.

Inconvénients

Cons: Nothing really. Sometimes it is hard to see the picture of your time habits with a helicopter view, as this software tends to focus on large tasks.

Avantages

I am a tech-savvy person, and I like to research new technology more than 5+ hours are spent on this and I can't manage how many hours of the day I watch YouTube videos or watch Netflix Web Series, for a very long time I can't monitor my spending time And one of my favorite Youtuber is talking about Rescue Time. That helps them to manage their time and then I wondered why not I would also start to use and now, it has helped me to know how I spend my time and give insight full information about them, And I can just try to modify my time spending structure and get most out of the time.

Inconvénients

Great product can't find any cons for this software