The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Activity Tracking Tool

My manager and I meet every month to discuss "What I have been doing for the business lately.". She uses this information as input to my yearly review. I want to make sure she has a very complete list of what I do. As such, I keep a daily activity log of the significant things I do during the day.

I am currently keeping this activity list in a word document and was wondering if there was a more suitable tool that I should be using to track my activities. I guess I am looking for an easy tool that I can pop-up and enter something and it will record it. Something quick and to the point.

Activity Tracker
Monday, February 23, 2004

Notebook.
Pen.

So crazy, it just might work...

anon
Monday, February 23, 2004

wiki, I used to use Treepad but then the data was imprisoned on my computer (of course I could save as html and then publish ...). I installed a wiki (twiki, very simple to install if you do those things) and I have not been sorry. Another developer also uses it and we have the main site for what we hope everyone can use. If my manager were interested he could look at my wiki and see a list of most recently changed documents (among much else) as I always note things there that I'm working on as I'm always working on at least 5 things at once and I need to keep track of them myself.

Me
Monday, February 23, 2004

Word is the perfect choice, though Notepad is slightly easier as it does not have the word overhead. Stick to what you are doing and don't worry about software to impose process or features.

m
Monday, February 23, 2004

http://www.captureworks.com/TaskCapture_MS.htm

Monday, February 23, 2004

So your manager has no clue what you have doing for an entire month?

How about creating a weekly status report document that you email or fax to your manager?

One Programmer's Opinion
Monday, February 23, 2004

Allnetic Working Time Tracker, I've recommended it many times here before, as have other people.

http://www.allnetic.com/

I've used the free 1.x version, from what I hear 2.x (the beta version) had some great features like export to XML. looks like ot costs $30 now.

www.MarkTAW.com
Monday, February 23, 2004

http://www.google.com/search?q=Allnetic+Working+Time+Tracker+site%3Adiscuss.fogcreek.com

Previous mentions of it.

www.MarkTAW.com
Monday, February 23, 2004

Use the source Luke! No really. I use the "history" from our SCM to produce status reports. the change comments should give you enough of a refresher of whats been happening. it also gives you a good incentive to make a decent comment about "why" a set of files were changed.

though to be honest I can't image how you have not been filling out a time sheet covering your activities either to charge out to an external customer or to bill to a cost center or other funding/budgetting mechanism. Where I work now you cant get paid unless your timesheet is submitted and signed by your team lead.

mikester
Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Not all companies are smart enough to track time to produce a product. Also, do you spend 100% of your time working on code? I don't and never have. You need to be able to track meetings, training, customer face-time, etc.

m
Tuesday, February 24, 2004

TaskCapture for Max OS X and Windows automatically tracks your time in software application documents. It is terrific stuff.

It's bigger brother is JobCapture, which has tons of automated timing features.

Robin Laylin
Thursday, February 26, 2004

Oh, yeah, the URL is http://www.captureworks.com for TaskCapture and JobCapture

Robin Laylin
Thursday, February 26, 2004

I just called CaptureWorks (yeah, I know them and like to help them because they write k-ass software) and have some good news. If you evaluate and decide to buy JobCapture or TaskCapture by the end of business day Friday February 27, 2004, CaptureWorks will take off 10% off the price of TaskCapture and 20% off the price of JobCapture. You must mention that you saw this on the Fog creek discussion broad.

Robin Laylin
Thursday, February 26, 2004