Timing App Update

Timing, a prior sponsor of MacSparky.com, is out with un update. If you don’t already know, Timing automatically tracks which applications, documents and domains you spend time withs that you can quickly figure out what you’re spending (and wasting) your time on. With this update, they’ve replaced the “Review” and “Details” screens with one unified, and customizable, “Activities” screen. They’ve also got plenty of usability improvements for you to streamline your time-tracking workflow even more:

• You can now start and stop timers right from the toolbar of the main Timing app.

• You can now also start timers via the right-click context menu of a project.

• On macOS Big Sur, toolbar buttons now show labels next to their icons to make their purpose more clear.

• They’ve completely reworked the app’s onboarding. If you would like to give the new onboarding a try, you can access it via the “Replay Introduction” item in the “Help” menu. Maybe you’ll learn a trick or two that you didn’t know about yet!

• Timing will now warn when creating a time entry causes other entries to get overwritten.

• Slightly increased the width of time entry editors, giving you more space to enter details.

• When starting a new timer, Timing will now suggest the most recently used project by default.

• By default, Timing will stop any running timers when your Mac goes to sleep or when you quit the Timing tracker app. You can now customize this behavior in the app’s “Tracking” preferences.

I’ve been using Timing as my primary time tracking app for several months and it is sticking with me. It is the accurate Mac data that really makes the difference for me. If you want to figure out how much time you spend on different projects and which activities (like games, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have the worst impact on your productivity, give Timing a try.

Focused on Timing

As I’ve been rethinking where the iPad fits in my life, I’ve been using a laptop a lot more for remote work lately. That sometimes surfaces new opportunities for me and one of those is improved time tracking with Timing. I’ve always run Timing in the background, but because I was doing so much work on iPad before, it wasn’t as useful to me. With the new order of things, Timing is now giving me incredibly accurate time tracking data without requiring me to push a button every time I context shift. I like that. I also really like Timing’s reporting functions.

Timing is out with some updates. To better reflects time entries, as opposed to tasks, "tasks" have been renamed to "time entries”, as that what is what this concept actually represents. They’ve cautioned that if you are using Timing's AppleScript functionality, you might need to replace "task" with "time entry" and/or "timer" in your scripts. 

The other update is a web app update. Now you can include app usage in the Timing web app's reports if you’re a Timing subscriber on the "Expert" or "Teams" plan. With this update, you can use the "App Usage" switch to include or exclude app usage from your reports.

If you spend a lot of time working behind a Mac and want zero-effort time tracking data, check out Timing.

Automate Time Tracking with Timing (Sponsor)

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Sponsored by Timing. A great habit to pick up as we head into the new year is time tracking. Figuring out what you are doing while you sit at your Mac can give you a lot of insight about where you are doing well, and where you are not. But in order to be useful, that data needs to be accurate. Requiring our monkey brains to manually turn timers on and off every time we switch gears is anything but accurate. That’s where Timing comes in.

Timing tracks your time for you, instead of making you start and stop timers. You can track how much time you spend (or waste) on each app, document and website, showing you exactly when you were working on what, when you slacked off, and how productive you have been, so you know how to improve your productivity. You can track on the go from your iPhone, and to make time tracking even easier, there are Timing Shortcuts ready for you to use.

Just this week, Timing announced a brand-new teams feature. With the teams feature, you can invite team members, who can then see and edit all the team’s projects. Each team member can also record time entries towards the project. My favorite part is that only manual time entries are visible to the manager, so there’s no worry about managers being creepy or tracking which websites you visited.

Stop guessing how you spend your time, and instead focus on doing what you’re good at with Timing. Download the free 14-day trial today and get 10% off for the first year!

Track Your Time with the Updated Timing App (Sponsor)

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Timing, the time tracker that automatically tracks your time for you. Timing has just received a significant update for Big Sur, and the new design is beautiful and modern. It fits right in with Big Sur. They've also updated the icon. The clock on the new icon updates in real-time, letting you put the current time in your dock. I've grown to appreciate having the time in my dock. (It also shows the current time in your menu bar.)

Timing's best feature remains its accuracy and automatic time tracking. Because Timing is automatically logging your time on your Mac, you get better data. You find out exactly how much time you spent in that Word document versus how much time you spent on Amazon.com. It is that accurate data that can help you keep track of how you are doing and make intelligent changes. I use Timing on my laptop and desktop Macs, and Timing handles syncing the data for me. If you want to get productive, the starting point is assessing how you are currently doing, and there is no better tool to do that on the Mac than Timing.

You can get Timing directly from the TimingApp website or as part of your Setapp subscription. Install it today and start getting accurate data on how you are spending your time. Download with this link for a free 14-day trial and get 10% off for the first year!

Timing App Screencast Series

I believe in time tracking as a productivity tool. I have talked about it on several podcasts over the years, and while I think getting a report of how you actually use your time can be an incredible benefit, I also understand why so few people do it. 

It is a complete pain in the neck to track your time manually. That is one of the reasons I have always liked the Timing application for Mac. It tracks your time automatically and gives you very precise data about what you did on your Mac and when you did it.

The Timing developer asked me to prepare a series of screencasts to explain how the app works. Consider the screencasts a small Timing Field Guide. If you have ever been curious about Timing and the concept of time tracking, check out the screencasts to help you decide if Timing is for you. The first screencasts are linked below. You can watch the rest of them at the developer's website.

Timing Adds Multi-Mac Synchronization

A lot of people are getting religion about time tracking lately, myself included. Working in a law firm for all those years I got used to tracking time I spend on client matters. However, what I missed was the idea of productivity-based time tracking. Sync

Timing (a sometimes sponsor of my podcast) brings that to your Mac. It’s a great app that sits in the background and keeps track of your what you’re doing on your Mac and gives you a nice report, even grades your productivity.

For me, it’s been a great way to find (and plug) those rabbit holes in my productivity.

Today Timing released a new version that gives you all of those features and also now syncs that data between multiple Macs. So if you’re working on desktop and laptop machines, your data just got a lot better. This also gives you an off-site backup for your data so you don’t lose Timing data regardless of how many Macs you use. The new sync is an an important addition, done elegantly. The update is free for existing customers. You can get the app directly from the developer or as part of your SetApp subscription

Get Your Act Together with Timing – Sponsor

One of the key first steps to figuring out how to be more efficient is to first figure out where you're spending your time now. You may think you know, but you probably don't actually know. I frequently track my time to get an idea where I'm doing good with my time (and where I'm not.) 

This week’s sponsor, Timing, is a tool to help you get rolling. Timing automates time tracking so you don't have to go manually throw a lever every time you change gears. This both makes time tracking easier and gives you more confidence in the accuracy of your data. The app pays super-close attention to everything you do on your Mac and then reports back to you. Timing’s beautiful (and customizable) reports show me exactly where I spend my time on my Mac.

Timing has a new feature they are about to release that lets you sync and view your data across all your Macs so now you've got excellent data across your iMac and your laptop. With a little pleading on my behalf, they've even agreed to give MacSparky readers early access to this new feature. To do so, sign up here.

Timing has been crucial for me, and I expect it can help you too. Don’t believe me? Download their free trial software and see for yourself. For a limited time, you can get 10% off. 

Timing Makes Time-Tracking Easy (Sponsor)

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Timing, my tool for tracking time on my Mac. Knowing how you spend your time is one of the most useful bits of knowledge you can have when deciding on new (and old) commitments. I've gone deep down the rabbit hole of time tracking as I try to figure things out for my own sanity and this week's sponsor, Timing, has been an essential tool for me.

Time tracking is hard. Having to throw a switch somewhere every time you change tasks or projects never works and is super-distracting. As a result, you end up with bad data. 

Timing fixes that. Timing automatically tracks which apps, documents, and websites you use — without start/stop timers.

• See how you spend your time, eliminate distracting activities, and improve your client billing.
• Timing lets you stop worrying about time and focus on doing your best work instead!
• Timing also understands that your time tracking data is super sensitive, so Timing keeps it safe on your Mac.

In short, with Timing you get detailed information about how you spend your time on your Mac with zero work on your behalf. Try it yourself with the free 14-day trial and get 10% off if you buy in the next two weeks.

Unrelated but cool – The developers of Timing have also recently released Faviconographer, a free utility that adds Favicons to your Safari tabs. If you ever found yourself wanting those icons on your tabs for easier navigation, check it out!

Timing 2 for Mac

Today Daniel Alm released Timing 2 for Mac, version 2.0 of his popular Mac productivity app. Over the last several months, I have definitely climbed on the timers’ bandwagon. I'm in the process of hiring people to help me out, and the first thing I needed to do was figure out where I was spending my time. Timing 2 for Mac does that. The best thing about this app is that it does the work for you. Timing provides automatic time tracking. As you jump around different applications, website URLs, emails, and even conversation partners in Messages, Timing quietly keeps track in the background. It then gives you an interactive timeline that shows you exactly when you did what. There’s even a rule system to take you even further down the road. There is a lot of data in this app that will shed new light on how you work.

If you’re concerned about privacy, timing runs locally on your Mac and nowhere else. It does not upload your data to the cloud and does not share with anyone.

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I’ve been running the beta for a few months, and I like it. The killer feature with this application is how granular it can get with automatic time tracking. To the extent I use other timers that require manual logging (switching the timer as I switch between tasks), it is really easy to forget and interrupt your flow when you remember. With Timing, I've been able to easily and accurately track all of my tasks while sitting on my Mac.

The biggest downside is that it works so well while at my Mac, I want something just as good when I'm working on my iPad or riding my bike. Either way, while I'm sitting at a Mac, I’ve got time tracking figured out with this app.

With this version, the developer has left the Mac App Store. You can download and purchase Timing 2 for Mac directly from the developer. My congratulations to Daniel on his hard work over the last year to get this new version out the door.

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