RescueTime Erfahrungen

Consistently great, but dangerous for managers

Kommentare: I've used RescueTime for years. It's the ultimate in "set and forget" software. Essentially it sits on your computer and silently watches your productivity, totaling up the time you spend doing actual work and the time you spend goofing off. At the end of the week you get a nice little email report telling you how you did. It does a great job not shaming you when you do poorly, as I have many times. When you have a really productive week, however, it rewards you by documenting that fact.

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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.

Frictionaless Time Tracking

Kommentare: I primarily use it to understand and track my own efficiency and make sure that what I am actually doing aligns with my strategic and operational directives.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

The tool of champions!

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

My favorite solution for seeing where time is spent

Kommentare: Easiest way to track productivity and time spent across applications/categories.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Cannot recommend this enough.

Kommentare: This is the first thing I install in all my new machines and browsers, the information it provides is invaluable and really eye-opening, and really worth the low price-tag honestly. I really recommend this for anyone looking to improve their productivity.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Identify & highlight distractions

Kommentare: I had experienced a drop in my income as a self-employed consultant. I felt that I was always busy, but was billing less, and this software made it clear to me that I was indeed busy all day, but on many distractions that were not contributing to income or projects, but were costing time and my energy.
RescueTime put me back on track, and I have stayed there for the past two years.
Savings/earnings are of the order per annum, I kid you not.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

Great tool to time tracking

Kommentare: I use daily rescuetime to track my time. It categorize the time by software you are log in. It shows me how I use my time

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

More reports in free plan. Better app from mobile devices

The stats will surprise you

Kommentare: Definitely worth it.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Great automatic activity tracker, with only the limitations of that approach

Kommentare: RescueTime is a very well-designed solution for automatic activity tracking; I am just no longer really convinced that this is the right approach (for me). The focus on applications (not projects) makes the collected data of limited value (for me). I still use it, since it is free and doesn't hurt, but I am not relying on the collected data for analyzing my working patterns anymore

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

Updating the Linux client could be smoother / better automated.

Great for staying accountable

Kommentare: RescueTime brings insights into how you use your time, whether it's in a productive way or not. Can shed light on just how much time you spend on your computer.

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

Unleash Your Potential with RescueTime's Powerful Time Tracking

Kommentare: RescueTime became a crucial tool for time management during my internship in the pharmaceutical product development and research division. The software's automatic time tracking offered insightful information about my work habits and assisted me in locating time wasters and potential improvement areas. I was inspired to stay focused and complete my tasks by RescueTime's productivity rankings. I was able to reduce distractions and keep up a high level of work by setting individualized notifications and focus time intervals. Overall, RescueTime made a big difference in my ability to effectively manage my time and be productive in a rigorous research atmosphere.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

The best time-tracking tool. Period.

Kommentare: Overall, I have a much better understanding how I am using my time. I have spotted a lot of time-consuming activies and removed or limited them, while increasing the beneficial activities. I am very happy with the software and intend to use it in the future too.

Vorteile:

This software has been a game-changer, and I have been a happy paying customer now for more than three years. The tracking is very precise and works on all of my devices. Reports and analytics are easy to understand, and the software allows a lot of customization when it comes to recorded activities and their categorization. All in all a top product.

Nachteile:

The only thing I don't like about RescueTime is that it can records me on multiple devices at the same time and counts those as separate. For example, I may listen to something on Youtube on my cellphone while I work on the laptop. RescueTime would then add both Youtube-time (harmful) and working time in its records. That can of course be changed by either modifying the records later or turning the tracking off prior to situations like this. However, I wish there will be some AI in the future to make this part more intelligent.

If I wasn't so cheap, I'd pay for it

Kommentare: While it's not the easy user experience to figure out, it's still a really helpful tool to reconstructing a day.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

How Dare You Make Me Focus

Kommentare: RescueTime was great at helping me re-focus my attention when I had been spending too much time on things that didn't move me forward, I'm looking at you social media...

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

RescueTime is a Very useful Online Time Management Tool

Kommentare: I love this tool and will continue to use it.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

One of the best in the market

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

Track your productivity (or unproductivity) with email reports

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Unintrusive way to track how you are spending your time

Kommentare: RescueTime helps me to motivate myself and do more. I can experiment with lifestyle changes and see how they impact my productivity.

Vorteile:

Detailed stats Focus mode API integrations Support for all relevant platforms

Nachteile:

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

Only tool that met my needs (using Linux background daemon)

Kommentare: Great. I've looked into all of its functionalities, including measuring how much time you spend on various websites, but I only use one very basic feature: finding out how much time I spend working per day!
I added the background process for Linux Ubuntu as a startup process and the tool stays completely hidden during use (the daemon doesn't even show in the notification area). I use Zapier to push the daily hour count to a Gsheet and then email that to myself as a daily report.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Does what it says. Works in the background so you don't have to worry about it

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

Interesting Tool but doesn't always work

Vorteile:

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

Nachteile:

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

Great tool to track your attention habits

Kommentare: Use this with care, as you should first be aware of what you want to measure.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

If you aren’t tracking your work , you are wasting time.

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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

Use it understand where my time goes.

Kommentare: Overall: An eye-opener or me and for many people

Vorteile:

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.

Nachteile:

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.

Time Management

Kommentare: Great product a must have for both the machine and the phone.

Vorteile:

It helped me in managing my time and properly allocating the hours in my day. Rescue time is just so amazing that it showed me where i was spending much of my time on.

Nachteile:

At times it can just record the time like you were on a particular application even though you were not at it.