What time-tracking system/app do you use as an Indie Hacker?

Clockify. Mainly because it's super simple and free forever. I can track a "parent" task and assign it a tag "subtask" so I can easily search for them later.

we use Harvest (https://harvestapp.com/) to track time and Gusto (https://gusto.com/) for payroll. Both are super user-friendly apps for all parties involved.

Harvest (https://harvestapp.com/) Definitely not perfect but very flexible to admin, easy for contractors to use and tbh once you settle on a time-tracking system, very hard to switch off since it contains so much valuable legacy data.

Hi. So I have built this automated time tracking solution, called timegram (timegram.io).

you don't need to start stop timers, manually make timesheets or anything else. It has a desktop app that runs in the background and record everything.
At the end of the day, when you log into your account, it provides you the freedom/luxury/choice (whatever you'd like to call it) to pick and choose the activities you want to share with your employer, so none of your personal data is shared.

And there are no screenshots or keystroke monitoring either.
Based on your post, I think timegram would be the ideal solution for you.

hit me up at [email protected] and I can give you a quick walk through.

I don't use any. I did try an offline time tracker (i.e., doesn't send anything to a cloud server), but stopped using it after I realized that I started pulling tricks to fool the time tracker. It also doesn't track time spent thinking and sketching things out on pen and paper. Sure, you can manually add offline time, but it's tedious. I don't actually need to track my time to that level of detail, so I deleted the time tracker.

Haha, this made me laugh because I use good old-fashioned paper and pen to write down my logged time on my startup. Reason being that I wanted something that would take my eyes away from the screen. So, it serves two purposes 1. time tracking and 2. it rests my eyes.

I use Todoist. To be honest, I just went with the first one that came up on a Google search. I actually found it really faffy at first but after a few weeks found that I really liked it.

I use PomoDone App (perhaps, I am biased because it's the product we're working for), as long as it focuses on a countdown timer rather than standard count-up one, reminds me to make a break, and works as a desktop app synced to browser extension (with embedded timers into several task management tools, including my fav Trello and Todoist).
However, I prefer the desktop version (and extension) rather than the mobile one.
https://pomodoneapp.com/

Redmine

From large companies and SMBs to startups and even freelancers, time-tracking apps help you monitor employee productivity with ease.

However, with hundreds of such tools available, choosing the right Time Tracking App can be challenging.

But I must suggest if anyone is looking for any type of app one must go for a one-stop solution i.e AppsHive.

AppsHive is the A-Z app directory platform.

You can check out these Time Tracking Apps: https://www.appshive.co/apps/productivity/time-management

weekly excel spreadsheet tracks everything i complete -- as long as my output looks good i don't worry too much about time spent.

I'm at the same issue / question currently, as my Web & Mobile-Dev Team grows.
As I don't want to pay to much for "only" time-tracking service, I'd looked for a open-source software.
I found https://www.kimai.org/ looks very interesting. I think I'll give it a try.

Hey Londoner,

Here is Faruk, the founder of MonitUp.com 🙂

MonitUp keeps track of which application you use for how long, and you can categorize applications as efficient and inefficient. So you measure your productivity.

7 days free, how about trying it?

I use Asana (paid) with my clients to track project tasks. I added a custom field for actual hours that I populate when I complete the task and I try to break down tasks into things I can achieve in one day. Honestly though, I always loose sight of the time tracking and my clients don't really care it seems.

Then I use Things 3 to plan out my day which is a mix across all clients and personal items. I love using obsidian.md which has a plug-in to import completed items from Things 3 into the daily note. This helps me track what I've done if I ever need to go back for reference or defend my time.

I use Asana + EverHour so I don't have to write the time note every time. The tracking button is integrated in Asana and it's very reliable.

I feel you, complying with the requirements regarding time tracking some employers or clients have sometimes gives me a headache! 🤯

I’ve never been forced to use real paper. I’m not sure what would I do if I were. Sounds scary to be honest! 😨But soon after I started freelancing, after a couple of weeks of work on multiple projects for one customer, I was asked to group all my time entries in a particular way. I was using Toggl at that time and even though I’d never experienced any of the issues you mentioned, it took me 4 hours of clicking through the UI to organize all my data. And it happened multiple times after that. Since I was paid by the hour, I multiplied the hours spent on fighting with the timesheet UI per my hourly rate to calculate the opportunity cost of using a solution that was great overall but not suitable for my needs and I wasn’t happy with what I found out. 😕 So I spent a weekend building a command-line time tracker focused on one goal: make it easy to organize time entries. The resulting app was a tool for crazy geeks, as it relied on using Sublime’s multi-cursors to edit database files 🤪… but it helped me save thousands of dollars! Recently I turned it into a SaaS, of course, because that’s what we do here. 🙂

So to answer your question, due to my need to rename or regroup time entries pretty often, I use software made specifically to make it extra convenient, because that’s how I can save significant amounts of money. If you are generally satisfied with Toggl, then I hope you’ll find a way to fix that one little issue, because it’s a neat tool with so many cool features! I believe the key is to find something that works well enough and then continue doing the actually work. In the end, we all have more interesting things to do than time tracking.

Cheers!

Toggl