I’m a full-time freelancer and keeping track of my billable hours is an important task. Under Mac OSX 10.4, Tiger, I used a nifty little widget called, The Daily Grind. I really liked it a lot, but I’ve had some problems with Dashboard since upgrading to Leopard. So, I had to find an alternative. I dug through quite a lot of freeware and shareware timers and project management apps. I had a hard time finding something that was just right. Either they did too little, or way too much. Then, I found Timeous.
Timeous is actually a very simple application, but it makes keeping track of your time on multiple jobs a snap. You basically create a tab for each project, or task. You then just stop and start the timers as you work. Timeous logs each start and stop of each project’s timer, and keeps a running total of the time you’ve spent on that job. You can also enter an hourly dollar amount for each tab, and Timeous automatically calculates what you’ve made so far.
Once you finish your project, Timeous can export the logs as a text file, so you ‘ll always have a record.
Timeous is a Universal Binary so it works on both Intel and PPC Macs. The site doesn’t specifically mention Leopard, but the only problem I’ve had is when I re-order the tabs (via drag-and-drop), they revert back to their original order when I quite and relaunch the app.
One feature that I really like is Timous’s icon changes when the timer is running. It’s a small feature, but it’s very handy because you don’t need to keep The app visible to know the timer is running. you can just look in your dock.
If you looking for an application that can track your expenses, generate invoices, etc… keep looking. But, if all you need is a basic multi-timer app with a few extras, I highly recommend Timeous. You can’t beat the price… it’s FREE!
Oh, and if you’re into developing Mac software, the developer of Timeous, Kevin Wojniak, has made the source code available. Thanks Kevin!
Nice. I’m a Billings user myself (http://www.billings2.com/) which does all this and more (invoicing, expenses, etc) – but I might still play with this for other things – for example, tracking some of the community work that I do. And yes, can’t argue with the price… ;)
Taskcapture isn’t free but it’s definitely worth its price. I automatically starts a timer whenever you open a new document and then keeps track of how much time you spend on each one. It even stops the timer if you stop working on a file for x amount of time.
does Timeous have an automatic Pause when idle?
(in case you have to go pee, and forget to stop the timer, then the neighbor girl comes by, and you get with her, and then you’re hungry so you go get a sandwich, and then you’re back to work)
@ DOLAND – Nope, no auto-pause. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but it is free. :)
I’ve been using this for a month or so, and it performs well, with one exception: Each tab has an X that begs to be clicked, and if you click it, you lose the project instantly and permanently. Not a good feature. :(
I love this software so much. I’m sad it seems to be out of development. The update doesn’t seem to be available. Does anyone have Version 0.5? I also am looking for a copy of the source code. Thanks!
Whoops! Found it! Thanks, again.
http://code.google.com/p/kaincode/source/browse/
Glad you found it, Jon. As much as I liked Timeous, I did switch apps a couple years ago when I started having issues with it. Now I use On the Job. It’s a nice app, but a little expensive if you only need the timer portion of it. It does invoicing too, but I don’t use that part.