How a simple (free) IBM Lotus Notes Client app is saving me time!

10/20/2010 11:27 PM by Chris Toohey

Ever since moving to Group (more on that later), I've had an absolute demand to keep absolute track of my time. Not imposed by my boss mind you (outside of -- of course -- maintaining accurate records of customer billable hours), but something that I wanted to do. Luckily, there's an app for that...

Time Tracker -- available right now on OpenNTF.org for FREE -- has become an invaluable tool for me. With it, I can quickly keep track of my customer billable hours, and find out (provided I'm honest) what is an ineffective use of my time.

See, I'm not only the Project Chef, but I'm also a client!

From the Time Tracker project home page:

Time Management experts will tell you an individual only has 24 hours in a single day; proper time management isn't finding time in your day, but rather discovering and dealing with inefficiencies in your day. The best way to discover those inefficiencies - at least as recommended to me as part of the AMA Time Management Strategies seminar which I recently attended - is to document how you spend your day.

With that, I introduce Time Tracker, an Open Source Efficiency Tracking Utility for the Lotus Notes Client.

The idea is simple. At the start of your day - upon completion of your first task - create an entry highlighting what you did and whether you feel it was an efficient or inefficient use of your time. Based on several requests, you can also select the priority, apply categories, or even align your time against a project.

For Lotus Notes Client v8.0 and above, you can use the Time Tracker Widget to make this process even easier!

This thing just works, and it's something that I absolutely recommend not only to anyone who -- like me -- needs to keep track of customer billable hours, but who -- again, like me -- really wants to discover how to be more effective with their 24 hours per day.