A Productivity Watchdog for Your PC
So you really think you're productive at work? Now you can put your money where your mouth is by tracking your computer usage.
Jason Fitzpatrick at Lifehacker just wrote about Productivity Meter, a time-tracking tool that runs in the background on your Windows machine and keeps tabs on your activities. It's pretty nifty:
"Productivity Meter tracks the active versus idle time, how your active time is split among applications, which applications were used the most, and which websites you browsed and for how long. You can review the stats for the last day, week, month or a user defined block of time."According to Fitzpatrick, one of the most useful features of the software is the ability to tag programs, windows, and domains; this allows you to tell Productivity Meter which of these you access for certain tasks and jobs. You can also print out graphs and timesheets to keep physical records of your time spent (useful, for instance, for proving to your boss that you aren't frittering your day away on Facebook).
I can see where this would be a very useful tool for analyzing your productivity, especially if you're one of those people (like me) who often wonders where the day went and why I didn't get more done, even though I was at my desk the whole time.
The program is free for the first 30 days, after which the timecard functionality is removed; thereafter you can still access all graphs and information in the main dashboard. And sorry, Apple folks, this is a Windows-only app.
(image courtesy FruitfulTime)
http://lifehacker.com/5123041/productivity-meter-tracks-your-computer-usage