Looking for work productivity tracking software for freelancing
FRIENDS. I am seeking a very specific type of productivity software. Please read everything I’m saying before diving in with recommendations.
As you know, I have severe ADHD. I want something that will let me keep track of exactly how long I am actively using certain software, preferably with start and end times along with “you used X for Y hours.” And I mean actively using, as in, I have to actually be clicking on stuff in the program.
The reason for this is that I want to be better about keeping track of my hours when I do freelance work, so that I can start re-adjusting my prices to better reflect how long it actually takes me to do things. The problem is, my horrific executive dysfunction means that all efforts I make to use analog methods like stopwatches and spreadsheets eventually just kinda… fall apart. Inevitably, I’ll do something like forget to start the watch and end up doing a twelve hour binge session without realizing I haven’t started it, or I’ll start it but then go upstairs to read a book or go swimming and forget to turn it off, or I’ll start it and stop it and fail to write it down.
This is also why JUST keeping track of when I open and close programs and how long they’re open isn’t good enough. There’s many, MANY times where I’ll open InDesign but then get stuck on Tumblr for like, four hours. Or I’ll open Word and Photoshop, but then wander off to water my plants & weed the garden—both productive things by themselves, but not things I’m billing hours for. I really need something that goes “Okay, you’re clicking around in this program every X seconds/minutes, so you’re still alive and haven’t walked off.”
The easier to use and less hands-on this software is, the better. Meaning, if it’s set it and forget it and automatically saves everything to a spreadsheet without me having to touch it, like it’s flagged to “notice” when certain programs that I indicate open… yeah. Basically, I’m looking for a prosthetic executive function here, something that will do the heavy lifting of keeping track of stuff much the same way an artificial leg would do for someone missing a leg.
An ideal would be a program that launches on startup, and then automatically records things to a file like:
8/24/2017
1:07 PM: opened InDesign
1:23 PM opened Photoshop
2:04 PM closed Photoshop: Active Photoshop use 10 minutes
3:35 PM closed InDesign: Active InDesign use 1 hour 45 minutes
Super cool would be if I could then look back at like, a month, or even a year, and see how much I actively used each program. Is there anything like this out there?
