Track your Internet usage with RescueTime

Posted on December 12, 2008 at 5:23 am

It’s so easy to lose track of time while browsing the Internet. With so many interesting and fun things available, sometimes you forget the real reason you’re even surfing in the first place. Consistently doing this will rob you of valuable time and possibly put you behind when it comes to work projects.

On some occasions, you may not notice that you’re straying away from your productive tasks. The simple activities of sending or replying to emails, checking the latest stock quotes, or just reading about current events in the news are all time robbers.

When your work day has ended, you’ll often find yourself looking back on the day’s activities and wonder where your time went. Spending most of your day on a computer can be easily tracked with the multiple tools available over the Internet.

Earlier I talked about one such tool, called 8aweek, which can be used to track your Internet browsing habits. Another really good one is RescueTime.

RescueTime is a simple monitoring application that will help you figure out what you’re really doing with your day. It has several pricing plans for you to choose from, but it also offers a free option for an individual user. RescueTime will track the specific amount of time you spend with an application or on a website.

It can intelligently notice if you’re actively on the computer or just left a page open during a break. Once your day has finished, just simply log into your RescueTime account to take a look at the evidence provided. You’ll have access to detailed information and graphs concerning your time while working on a computer.

In order to further organize the information you’re viewing, RescueTime also allows you to add useful tags to help categorize the way you spend time on your computer. If you’re a freelancer that works on a computer regularly, you’ll definitely find this application useful.

Tracking your time frequently can save you from wasteful browsing time that may take away money making opportunities for you. Organizing your day and staying on track will increase your chances of being productive, but sometimes your attention may be lead astray by other things. Being reminded about the amount of time you spend in a certain area or with a non-work application can help to get you focused again.

The best thing about RescueTime is that you’re not required to add a ton of data to get started. Within a few minutes of downloading and installing RescueTime, you’ll be ready to track your day on a computer. Your valuable time will be broken up into various charts and graphs for you to understand how your time is being spent. With a quick glance, you’ll know exactly what’s consuming your time.

Features like setting your goals and tagging can help to turn you into a productive worker before you realize it. Every website you visit and program that’s opened on your computer will be conveniently tracked with RescueTime.

If you need to capture time spent working for billing purposes, you’ll need another type of standalone application for that. However, RescueTime is great for examining your overall productivity level and to help nudge you in the right direction when working on a computer.

Ms Yokum
Tech Enthusiast & Blogger

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

2 Responses to “Track your Internet usage with RescueTime”

Mark said on : January 3rd, 2009 at 5:41 am

I used to use RescueTime – but I have switched to FruitfulTime ProductivityMeter – http://www.fruitfultime.com/pr.....dition.php

Much more features + it’s offline hence there are no privacy issues!

Will said on : February 28th, 2009 at 2:30 pm

I would like to track total MB used per day on both uploads and downloads. I am less interested in amount of time or which websites I visited. Is there a free program that can do this? Thanks.