Ask HN: What combination of tools do you use to track your day?

7 points by trendoid 8y ago ↗ HN

I know this is not a novel question. But I am thinking of tools that collect data that can be exported and combined together to give a complete picture of how my day was spent. Are there any set of tools you use that are more powerful as a combination than individually?

3 comments

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zapperdapper 8y ago ↗

I'm not quite sure what you want to track but here are a few I use:

- Google Docs spreadsheet to track all aspects finances - Google Docs spreadsheet to track work projects using GTD - Pedometer+ (iPhone) to track steps (target 10,000 a day)

Perhaps you were more interested in time-tracking tools? I know that two-thirds of my time is typically working and sleeping. I don't do social media so no time wasted there.

There is an enormous list of time-tracking software (with ratings) here:

https://www.capterra.com/time-tracking-software/

The only one I have heard of is RescueTime, but there are tons more.

It's the things you can't predict that can mess up your schedule though - got home from a garden party Saturday and ended up having to deal with a swarm of bees that decided to come down our chimney...

pinks 8y ago ↗

I built a prototype of something like you describe, and felt that it really helped keep myself accountable. Happy to add you as a test user when I re-deploy it! Email is in my profile.

rpod 8y ago ↗

org-mode is extremely versatile and can be used to organize any kind of data. It has time-tracking support built-in, which I use to track my time at work (methodology inspired by http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Clocking). Any other type of data you are tracking (e.g. step counter) you could export to org tables. Granted, it would require a bit of customization to generate custom reports/summaries for these tables, but its customizability is exactly what makes it so powerful.