Based on some pretty awesome feedback that I've received from people who apparently find Time Tracker v1.0 very useful, I'm adding a few new features and improvements to the user interface.

For my Lotus-themed works...

My development deep-dives are going to go into the appropriate product wiki.

My editorials are going to go into LotusJournal.com.

So it only makes sense that my open source applications and utilities go into our community's open source catalog: OpenNTF.org!

Thus, I've create Project: Time Tracker, which will now be run out of OpenNTF.org. So you can either submit feedback, request features and functionality here or over in the OpenNTF.org product page.

If you have an application that helps you get through the day - and both own the IP and are okay with the GNU or Apache licensing model - put it online and help your fellow yellowbleeders!

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!

See, I've got some ideas...

Ideas for new projects. Ideas for new articles. Ideas for new community efforts. And ideas for new and exciting stuff!

The problem is scheduling them into the daily grind. Notice I didn't say time, as my AMA Time Management instructor would be happy to note that I understand that we all get the same finite hours in the day - it's how effective we are with those hours. Our effectiveness comes from prioritizing and properly scheduling.

And thus, I'm putting priorities and schedules to each of these ideas...

Time Tracker
A time efficiency and tracking Lotus Notes Client application. Help find the missing hours in your day that you spend on websites like this one! Be more efficient. Fight. WIN!

Critical Path
A Project Management Lotus Notes Client application which allows you to align projects to your PMO, track individual tasks and project calendars -- all based on PMI standards.

Spread
A Microsoft Excel (and eventually other format) Lotus Notes Client NotesData Export Utility. The idea is simple: Have a format that you need to export into? Spread will do the job! Simply configure an export template based on your specific needs - the given NotesDatabase, NotesDocumentCollection criteria, etc. - and Spread will export based on your configuration settings. This one will be an actual product that I plan on selling, and looking at a $30USD price per user.

Prada
A Lotus Notes Client NotesDocument categorizer/labeller Application and Widget. The idea here is that you can categorize/label (ala GMail Labels) email, calendar entries, and other NotesDocuments - allowing you to group documents based on project, customer, etc..

Secret Community Project
Sorry - I don't want to go into this one any further than that at this time, other than to tell you that I have an idea for developers internal and external to the Lotus Online Community to create some truly amazing stuff. More details coming soon!

Lotus CMS
A Lotus Notes Database designed to maintain web resources. Single instance per site-setup that I'm already using to run one website in production today with great success.

DominoGuru.com v3
I've re-designed the site, and wired everything into my Lotus CMS. It's just a matter of making it the top priority to sit down, migrate all of the content to the new site, etc. That - sadly - will take some time, and I want to make sure that I get the above items (including the Lotus CMS itself) out before I tackle this one entirely!

MatchMaker
The more views that you have in a NotesDatabase, the more bloat and potential functional lag in the UX you'll experience. MatchMaker is a simple development utility that will allow you to create logically-controlled indexes - allowing you to quickly access like-categorized NotesDocumentCollections without a need to query the NotesDatabase at runtime.

Yellowcake v2.0
An admin/developer-defined NotesData CRUD Proxy and API that would allow you to quickly and easily integrate NotesData into existing web/non-Lotus Notes client solutions. While v1.0 never made it out of a few customer implementations and my own testing, I want to get this next release out there for general consumption.

Now, that's the in-order prioritized list of upcoming projects. As I'm plotting out the schedule, I'm hoping to put the Secret Community Project out while those lucky enough to be attending LotusSphere 2010 are in Orlando, Florida grabbing swag.

That means I'll have three open source/freeware (will more than likely put them out on OpenNTF) products online and available and one new pay-for-play product before the end of the year.

This - of course - includes distractions by things like the Blackberry Widget SDK/API, the occasional YouTube screencast, and other mid-day tangent that I might want to hop on here and discuss.

These sound good to you? Think I have any that are mis-prioritized? Am I missing something from this list? Comment to this post or send me an email with your thoughts!

Based on the feedback I got from here, on Twitter, and on Facebook regarding my upcoming Time Tracker application, I've made a few simple changes:

Priorities, Categories, and Projects

So you not only want to know how efficient your time is, but also what it's spent on?! Yeah -- that actually makes sense. So I've added Priorities, Categories, and Projects to not only the Lotus Notes Client UI document Form Design Element, but also the widget Form Design Element which can be loaded in the Lotus Notes Client Sidebar and allow for always-on, quick entries in the Time Tracker.

After all - and speaking for myself here - if it's not easy, it won't get used.

Configuration-based widget

Not wanting to have form-bloat should you not want to track Priorities, Categories, or Projects -- I've given you the ability to disable/enable those fields from the application Preferences.

So, if you don't want to track anything but the description, timestamps, and the status (efficient/inefficient), you can "remove" everything else at will.

More Views...

This was kind of a given: adding more categorization options (Priority, Category, and Project), I needed to add more views.

... upcoming changes and publication!

There are a few things that I want to add in here, at least for version 1.0.

The biggest one is adding Readers fields to the entries and having them defined by the application Preferences. Nothing major, but this will allow you to deploy a single instance in a project team, group, business unit, etc. and allow everyone to track their time against a common instance of the Lotus Notes Application.

Eventually, I'd like to create a mobile device client - which I'm thinking will be a version 2.0 feature - and am shooting for a Blackberry device Java client.

I'm shooting for a Monday - October 12th, 2009 - release of version 1.0, so if you have any suggestions for features and functionality that you'd like to see in this release, please let me know ASAP!