RescueTime is an great web-based application that helps you manage your time by providing real-time stats on where you are spending most of your time and which applications are you using the most. This information helps you optimize your day so you can have the most productive and efficient day possible.
To RescueTime's credit, they have been mentioned in The New York Times, Newsweek, US News, TechCrunch, PC World...and now The Web Conferencing Blog!
I have been using RescueTime for about a 1/2 year now and have found it very, very easy to use. It's typical of a web 2.0 application: easy, simple, no training needed, intuitive. I can modify and set my alerts and scoring parameters just the way I like them. For example, if I think email communication is a highly productive activity, I can assign a higher weighting to this category compared to another person who does very little email, in which case a lower weighting will be assigned. I can do this for every application that I want RescueTime to track. (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Email, Google Searches, internal applications.)
Imagine, if you are in a sales role, how great would it be to know if your day was filled with revenue-generating activities or it was a day of Facebooking and reading articles from ESPN or CNN News. If you are in a sales role, RescueTime can tell you how much time is spent in revenue generating activites/applications: a CRM application, order entry system, email, Excel, etc. Same holds true if you are a financial analyst or in Operations...you are most likely going to be in Excel running numbers vs. a CRM, inventory tracking system, case ticket system, etc.
If you are truly looking to understand your day to day business activities, you need to try RescueTime!
There is a free personal version, as well as, a small business and enterprise version. For a team of 10 people, it's only $8.50 per person.
RescueTime Highlights:
- RescueTime scores group and individual "Efficiency" (a ratio of productive stuff vs. distracting time) and "Productivity" (a measure of the sheer volume of productive time)
- RescueTime shows total active computer time spent
- RescueTime breaks down application and site usage by category
- RescueTime gives flexibility to look at your data with tags
- Total time broken down
- Top applications and website tracking
- Unique individual scoring compared to the RescueTime community
At the end of the day, RescueTime provides me with real-time visibility on how my day is going. Simply saying, "I think I had a good day," doesn't cut it in today's competitive economy where companies are constantly looking for ways to increase employee productivity and corporate performance. If you want to be more productive, more efficient, and take your business to the next level, try RescueTime.
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* There is no financial compensation for this blog.
