Thank you all for the responses!
nurikabe: Thank you for AllNetic Time Tracker recommendation, I've tried it and it looks like a quality tool. I haven't found a way to start/stop tracking and switch a task from keyboard, but maybe I've overlooked it. Do you log your breaks with AllNetic or only periods of time when you work?
Phil Newton: Great article! I liked the idea that you can use a time log to analyze specific parts of your day where you want to improve. About improvements over weeks - where they usually come from?
ivylamp: Can you explain free form time management some more? It sounds interesting and I never heard about it before.
Jes: I think schedule and time log work best together. Schedule gives you a structure of the day, so you can schedule to spend 1 hour on programming, for example. But after this hour passed, you can still end up with little done or much done. Time log is a tool that allows you to look behind the schedule - how you actually spent this hour of time? How much were you reading docs, actually coding, writing documentation, debugging, testing or maybe you switched to a browser to look up some thing and ended up web surfing for half an hour.
I feel that making schedule/todo list on a day before and numbering tasks is a strong complement to time logging. I think I should try it.
Tuumble: This sheet for time logging looks nice. I prefer keyboard, but I hope someone will find it useful. And I like the idea of putting smileys in a log!
My idea about time logging is that making an entry must take a minimal effort. It is a personal thing. For some, pen and paper is effortless, others like to do a few clicks with mouse. For those who prefer keyboard, logging using keyboard shortcuts and text typing is more appealing.
I personally like the keyboard approach more. I feel that keyboard is just faster. Ideally, new entry should be done with three steps:
- Press shortcut
- Enter text
- Press Enter
All other things (adding entry and current time to a file) should be done automatically. The .LOG trick with Notepad approximates it best to me, but it still requires two extra steps (save and exit). I'm thinking about writing a script which will allow making an entry in 3 steps. I will continue to write about my experience in this thread.