Time is Crucial! Manage it with RescueTime

Attention all computer users! Where does your time go? Many of you spend 8+ hours a day at work surfing the Web and then you come home and get on your computer some more – what are you working on…looking at…wasting time doing?

Many of you are unaware of what keeps you so busy and it’s likely that you would rather not spend time tracking your actions. There is a new product in Beta called RescueTime that calls itself “Ridiculously Easy” time management and it is simply just that. RescueTime takes the difficulty out of analyzing your activity and allows you to make changes to your work processes and increase your productivity.

RescueTime is a Web-based tool, coupled with a light download, which keeps track of everything that you are doing on your computer. The download is simple and it sits in your task tray, periodically sending updates of your activity to your own personal RescueTime Dashboard. The Dashboard is genius, appealing to the eye and tracks what you are actually looking at, rather than the several screens you may have open. When you click on “My Data”, your charts automatically refresh.

One chart breaks down your activity by time, displaying the times of day where your activity peaks and plateaus. Another chart displays your top ten visited applications or Websites.

There is also a tag chart that allows you to tag apps or sites that you visit frequently with tags such as communication, email, work and wasting time. The tag chart gives you a quick look at what your time is being spent on. I personally had a skyrocketing email bar – maybe I should take a break!

Tags are easy to assign. The tag screen has a simple, one input bar area where you can type any descriptor word you feel fits and click “Save Tag(s)”. The site is instantly labeled and is grouped with other sites that you similarly tagged – it couldn’t be any easier!

I think this could be an excellent tool for a company with hourly employees. Each employee computer could have RescueTime installed on it and the “boss” or person in charge could get monthly, weekly or daily reports on individual productivity. It could be an outstanding deterrent for disallowed Web surfing.

RescueTime is currently in private beta. If you visit www.rescuetime.com, you can submit your email, requesting an invite. RescueTime is set to offer a time management goal tool and the option for comparison against others in your industry for those who are serious about increasing their efficiency and finally getting a handle on their technology-driven life. I give RescueTime and A+ and I look forward to the full product release.