Best Free Project Time-keeping Utility

Do you need to record the time you work on a project, or even a series of tasks you work on? There are many good, free tools available with varying degrees of functionality to suit just about any need. While the ability to have time recording to multiple tasks simultaneously is available in many of the programs reviewed, the true benefit of this is debatable.

Some people claim they have the ability to multi-task. The reality is, we may be task switching, but we are not truly multi-tasking, or working on more than one thing at any time. It is impossible for a programmer for example, to be editing code in one window and debugging in another simultaneously. You could be running a long compile on a large application in a different window, but that is the computer doing the compile in another window without your intervention. Is it reasonable to be charging time to a customer for compiling when you are not actually doing any work, while working on something entirely different, possibly even for the same customer? I don't believe so, that seems a lot like "double dipping" to me. However, not everyone will agree, and that is why multi time recording may be a feature to you.

Task Coach is my personal top choice for features alone. It is an excellent task management and time recording application, and the most complete and fully featured application reviewed here. Task Coach goes much further than simple time-keeping. It is a fully featured task management package with the ability to create many levels of sub-tasks within tasks, and customizable color coded categories for different tasks. Tasks can have priorities, due dates and alarms set, and you can very easily track the time spent working on any task by simply right clicking it and then selecting either Start or Stop Tracking Effort. Time tracked in sub tasks is totaled in the highest level task, and logged in individual sub tasks. Entire trees of tasks and sub tasks can be marked as completed or uncompleted. Detailed descriptions, notes, budget and revenue tracking, file attachments and even date based reminders are all supported. While the authors list Task Coach as "Alpha state software" with cautions to back data up frequently, I have found Task Coach to be stable and reliable, as well as very easy to use. Data is stored in XML format so it can be easily backed up and extracted if necessary. Like TimeTool, Task Coach will continue to log time even if you shut the program down, so if you need to conserve the memory it uses while working, you can start the application, start tracking time, and shut it down. Start the application again later and stop tracking time and you will have all the detail you need. Two things that other applications do that would make good enhancements to Task Coach are the ability to export to CSV or other text files for easy import into a spreadsheet, and the ability to create reports and graphs of time spent on various projects without drilling into the Task Coach detail.

• Data is stored in XML format.
• Ability to create sub-tasks within tasks, and have the time worked on each sub-task "roll-up" and be conted as part of the total time.
• Multiple customizable categories allowed, color coded any way you like.
• Ability to set alarms and reminders, including recurring reminders (daily, weekly, monthly) and the number of recurrences.
• Ability to set different priorities on different tasks and sub-tasks.
• Detailed task capabilitie: notes, budgeting (hours), cost per hour for cost calculation, file attachments.
• Many more ...

• No export to CSV format.
• No GUI or other reporting capability.

Abstract Spoon To-do List is a serious contender for top pick, and as I test it further, my own preferences and recommendation may even change. This review is far from complete, however it is worth an initial mention, but so far I am quite impressed, it offers many interesting and unique options, a few in particular stand out, the ability to import from, and export to multiple file formats including an Excel spreadsheet, as well as Free Mind (mind mapping), and other similar software. Something else I particularly like with Abstract Spoon's To-do List is that it comes as a single zip file containing everything it needs, with no formal installation procedure required, and when first run, it asks if you want to use the registry or a .ini file for poratbility which is an important feature to me. This is a serious contender for my top pick recommendation. More details will be coming as I test it further and report back.

Pros

• Small 720Kb download, no installer, self contained zip file with all dependencies included
• Portable, asks at first execution if you want registry or ini file config saving
• Ability to encrypt a task list
• Small memory footprint, 8.7Mb running memory
• Allows setting priorities, due dates, time estimates (minute, hour, day, month, week, year), percent completion, risk etc
• Shows overdue items with red triangle at top corner
• Only one task can be actively timing at any time - both a pro and possibly a con to some people who feel they can charge time to two tasks simultaneously.
• Allows setting unique color per task / sub task
• Allows plain or rich text comments for each task/sub task
• Multiple filters - status, task type, priority etc
• Configurable to keep n # previous backups
• Powerful import/export - includes web page, plain text, CSV, FreeMind, Gantt Project, Outline iCalendar
• Display times in any unit of measurement - minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years
• Assign tasks to other people with the ability to share data ona  networked file share
• Simple verison control and check in / check out capability, or the ability to tie into a more comprehensive verison control software
• Tabs allow having multiple task lists open simultaneously
• Sort and search options are powerful for task, and multiple depths of sub tasks
• Ability to set priorities that can be different for subtasks within a task, set estimated time and percent complete, recurring tasks (daily, weekly, monthly etc.)

Cons

• Does not show due date of a task once the task is marked closed
• Does not continue timing while shut down. This may not be too relevant, and needs to be verified, however for some people it may be useful to terminate tyhe application to conserve memory, but still continue timing.
• No way I can find to view time logged by date and time, it seems to record only the total time logged, not the actual times themselves.

Project Timer is worth a look if all you need is a simple utility to record time against different projects. It's truly basic, not much more than a series of glorified stopwatches, but it's simple to use and does exactly the job required. Whether you want to record the time you spend on just one task or multiple projects, you will probably find this little program very handy for it's simplicity alone. You can view the time spent on the project for the current day, week, month, or total effort. There is even a nice graphical view of time logged, customizable to display the current, or three previous weeks of time periods with different graph styles – histogram, line, or both.

• Multiple timers can run simultaneously, but this is also con, to have multiple timers running you need multiple program instances running which uses more memory.
• Colors and fonts can be customized, but only for the current running session, only one color setting is saved.
• Projects can be renamed in the opening dialog when selecting the project to open by clicking twice, slowly - not double clicking which opens the project.
• Very simple to set up and use
• Easy to display time for day, week, month, or total, and also as stats for past the current or previous 3 weeks in histogram form by day.

• Only one color and font setting is allowed, which affects all future instances.
• The program very simplistic with no data export or other reporting capability, data is stored in a binary data file.
• The application itself is semi-portable in that the application can be copied to a flash drive (560Kb), but data is not portable and is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows user>\Application data\Project Timer\Project Timer.dat

Cratchit TimeTool is a good simple alternative is. It's very lightweight, has an extremely easy to use interface and can save to CSV files for import into Excel. It easily handles multiple projects and only needs to be running when you clock on or off. Only one task can be accumulating time at any time while running. Starting a time collection on a task is as easy as clicking on it, and stopping is equally easy, click the stop button, or click another task to start it accumulating time.

• Data can be exported to CSV format.
• Times can be adjusted which can be useful if you forgot to start the timer, however this creates a potential for misuse, or adjusting the accuracy of recorded time.
• Toolbar and menu options provide the ability to add, delete and rename tasks, stop time, export to CSV and adjust time.
• Status bar shows totals in minutes and hours, active task or none,
• Secondary toolbar shows input for time adjustment, adding, renaming or deleting tasks.
• The application is fully portable (662Kb) with data stored in a text file in the application directory, data file named ttdata.txt

• Quirky (buggy) scroll bar behavior scrolls the tool icons and status line at bottom of the window.
• The export options are for CSV export - delimiter, quotes etc
• No color, font etc. customization options are available.

Time Tracker is an interesting alternative that has a lot of merit and may appeal to many people for the simple and customizable automation aspect alone. It takes a different approach and tracks time spent in all open windows, with time accumulating for each individual running application, based on which window is currently active. It even records system idle and system locked times. You can create your own tasks just like all the other applications and though the behavior is a little quirky, you can start and stop the custom task timers independently of the actual window time tracking. Rules allow you to create custom tasks and define rules so that for example, you designate all email, calendar and instant messaging window activity as administration, and all putty terminal emulation as Unix support. All time from those windows is then automatically accumulated into those tasks. The funkiness that comes in, is that you can double click the custom administration category to start the timer running, then switch to a putty terminal window, and it will accumulate time to both custom Administration and Unix Support tasks. When you then open a window that is in another custom task, such as email or calendar, the Unix task stops accumulating time, and when you switch back to a putty terminal session, the Administration task stops accumulating time. I think this is simply a bug in allowing the user to start a custom task then switch to a window in another custom task, but this could be a useful bug for some people wanting to double book time. The real beauty of this application’s automation system is that if you define tasks and rules carefully, you can simply switch tasks and never have to do any clock starting and stopping. In addition to the full process list display, there is also a collapsible / expandable tree view where you can drill into the major tasks, e.g. WINWORD.EXE and see a list of all processes related to that process, or drill into the Administration custom task and see what all your admin activity consisted of. The third tab titled Chart shows a nice colored pie graph with a percentage breakdown of all time spent on each task. Each time you exit, the application offers to save it’s data to CSV format, and appends to the existing data so all historical data can be manipulated in Excel or Open Office Calc, but only current data since start is show on the current application display.

• The tool automatically records time for all processes / windows based on the active window, stopping and starting timers as you switch between windows. For custom tasks and rules, the active timer is shown with a green arrow, the inactive timers with a red || type icon like the pause button on a video or other audio player.
• There are three different views, a full list of all processes detected, a collapsible list of processes, and a pie chart showing activity in terms of percent of time on different tasks.
• You can create custom tasks, and set time already expended on the new task, but the time can only be changed at the time of creating the task.
• Custom rules allow grouping tasks and processes (active windows) to be recorded within one particular activity.
• Data is recorded CSV on exit, appended to the file so all previous history is maintained.
• The application is fully portable (1.14Mb) with data saved in the same directory as the program.

• Only current activity is displayed, there is no way other than opening the CSV export to view previous activity.
• There are no color customization options. There is a simple configuration which opens notepad to edit options such as transparency, always on top, gridlines, filter windows, save tasks only, save fractions of hours and others.

Zanami Time Tracker is another simple time recording utility, with multipe tasks able to be timed in a single instance of the program, which reduces the memory foot-print for thsoe who want to track multiple simes simultaneously. The program is very simple, and can even be completely terminated, and when started again, elapsed time is recorded as though the program had never shut down at all, eabling saving that extra little bit of memory when needed. The program is very easy to use, but what totally killed it for me was that there is no export to CSV, text or any other capability, and while you can view the history of all dates and times recorded against a task, you can't even copy and paste that information into another application. The data file is in a proprietary binary format, so that you can't access data that way either, and to top it off, if you mistype when creating a new task, there is no way to rename the task. I did try hacking the binary file with a hex editor and successfully changed a single mistyped character, but adding or removing characters corrupts the data file so all your recorded time is unusable. While this might be a nice simple utility for basic time recording, it's usefulness is extremely limited by having no practical way to extract or use the data short of writing it down, or typing it by hand into something else like Excel or Open Office Calc.

• Multiple tasks can be tracked at the same time.
• Elapsed time is recorded even when the tool is shut down.
• You can sort based on Activity name, Duration (total time recorded), Status (stopped/running) or Created (date & time task created).

• No ability to rename tasks if they are mistyped. You can hack with a hex editor to change individual characters, but you can not add or remove characters, the binary data file becomes corrupted.
• No customization ability, no colors, fonts etc.
• No data export capability.
• No GUI reporting ability.
• Portable application, but not portable data which is stored data in C:\Documents and Settings\<user>Application data\Time Tracker\TimeTracker.sdata.
• Options only to: Add Activity, Delete Activity Resume Activity, Pause Activity, History of selected activity (text display only - date, start time, end time, no total per task session).

• Another alternative suggested is an online service, Freshbooks which by the nature of the way it works does not completely meet my criteria for a 'best free application' as it requires a constant internet connection. This may however be adequate for some people, though the free access components are limited, and of course users are encouraged to use the for-a-fee acesss components for additional funtionality . A number of separate download are available at a cost, at least one of which allows offline time-keeping that can later feed back to the Freshbooks online application. One feature of this service that may appeal to some people is that Freshbooks also provides abilities to generate, and mail invoices directly from their site, all for a fee of course, though a limited trial is available. More details will be coming as I test it further and report back. (update August 25, 2008)

• RescueTime - new suggestion. What I have managed to look at so far, it seems to be similar to Freshbooks in it's web interface with an agent reporting back what applications have been used and for how long. More details will be coming as I test it further and report back. (update August 25, 2008)
  

• ManicTime - new suggestion. I have taken a look, however I have not yet been able to install Manic Time as my sandbox (test) PC is running Windows 2000 Pro, and Manic time requires the .NET 3.5 framework and Windows XP with Service pack 2. This makes it somewhat limited for many people, however I will try it on an XP and Vista computer as soon as I am able to. (update August 25, 2008)

Cratchit TimeTool
Website: http://www.cratchit.org/TimeTool/
Download link: http://www.cratchit.org/TimeTool/
Author: Cratchit
Version: 0.5
Date: Unknown
Download file size: 460 Kb
License: Freeware (GNU)
Operating systems supported: Windows (perhaps also Linux)
64 Bit version available: No, but this 32 bit program works in a 64 bit environment
Portable version available: Unknown
Other languages supported: No
Additional software required: No

Project Timer
Website:  http://pc.revivalteam.de/index.php?site=timer
Download link: http://pc.revivalteam.de/index.php?site=timer
Author: Daniel Schulte
Version: 1.4.1
Date: November 2, 2002
Download file size: 311 Kb
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: Windows
64 Bit version available: Unknown
Portable version available: Unknown
Other languages supported: No
Additional software required: No

Task Coach
Website: http://www.taskcoach.org/
Download link: http://www.taskcoach.org/download.html
Author: Frank Niessink and Jerome Laheurte
Version: 0.70.2
Date: August 6, 2008
Download file size: 7.6Mb (Windows installer), 7.9Mb (Portable version), 1.1Mb (Source code zip file)
License: Freeware (GNU GPL)
Operating systems supported: Windows (2000, XP, Vista, others may be possible), Linux (.rpm, .deb, Gentoo Ebuild), Mac OS X, Unix may be possible given source code and appropriate libraries.
64 Bit version available: No, but this 32 bit program works in a 64 bit environment
Portable version available: Yes, available from http://portableapps.com/apps/office/task_coach_portable, however the portable version is sometimes one or two releases behind.
Other languages supported: Yes
Additional software required: None for Windows, but Python source is available and you can run it from source if you have a Python interpreter and wxPython installed. For Linux you will need Python and wxPython windowing libraries.

Time Tracker (Roland Bennett)
Website: http://ttracker.sourceforge.net/
Download link: http://sourceforge.net/project/platformdownload.php?group_id=191069
Author: Roland Bennett
Version: 4.4
Date: September 13, 2007
Download file size: 553Kb (zip file)
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: Windows (tested on 2000; XP, Vista, others may be possible)
64 Bit version available: No, but this 32 bit program probably works in a 64 bit environment
Portable version available: Yes, no registry entries detected (yet), no Windows installer procedure
Other languages supported: No, English only
Additional software required: None

 Zanami Time Tracker
Website: http://gnezdov.net/programs/TimeTracker/Default.aspx
Download link: http://gnezdov.net/programs/TimeTracker/Time Tracker Setup.exe
Author: Sergei Gnezdov
Version: 1.7.1
Date: April 14, 2005
Download file size: 980Kb (Windows installer)
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: Windows (tested on 2000; XP, Vista, others may be possible)
64 Bit version available: No, but this 32 bit program probably works in a 64 bit environment
Portable version available: No
Other languages supported: No, English only
Additional software required: None

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