As a software house, we’ve tested many, maybe the best time management apps. In the IT and software business – that has mostly business clients from USA and UK – we’re used to working with an absolutely large number of projects. Each of them requires of cooperation of many specialists, developers, designers, and – of course – project managers. During these years we’ve changed many time management apps ’till we’ve developed our own. In this article, we will share with you our experiences related to software that – in some period of time – we’ve implemented in our company.
What will you learn thanks to this article:
This chapter has one goal: to increase your awareness of the differences between many time management apps.
Let us simplify things a bit to give you an idea of what the market for this type of software looks like. Well, some of them are like combos, which contain many functions and features, and one of them is time tracking. You could say that these are project management tools, which apart from time tracking have such functions as team scheduling, project planning, project tracking progress, or budgeting.
There are also those whose core product is a time tracking and various features related to it.
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Workforce management |
Timesheet management |
Project planning |
Activities monitoring |
|
Employee and work scheduling |
Tasks time tracking |
Task assigning |
Computer activities tracking |
|
Workload and capacity management |
Billable and non-billable time tracking |
Project budgeting |
GPS Tracking |
|
Performance and utilization tracking |
Gestione della disponibilità |
Project progress tracking |
Overtime tracking |
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Team communication and collaboration |
PTO, absence tracking |
Project and resource forecasting |
Screenshots capturing |
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File sharing |
Estimates vs actuals |
Billable rates |
Video recording |
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Overtime tracking |
Invoicing |
Expense tracking |
URL and app tracking |
However, it is worth remembering that you will find such software which is oriented toward measuring the productivity of an employee, measuring the time of performed tasks – a measurement is usually done by a manager, especially those billable hours.
But, there are also those, which aim to support an employee during his professional and private activities. Those which are designed to support him in focusing on certain tasks (especially in conditions of remote work, where there are many distractors).
In connection with the above, we present a table, which shows (of course not all) features that appear in different time management apps.
Prezzi: $3.99 / per month / per team member
Available on the web, and as a mobile app (Android, iOS)
This tool was developed by a software house from Poland to manage the work of multiple people in an organization. It contains all the features such as resource scheduling, time tracking, a timesheet management tool, leave management, and – worth mentioning – customizable reporting. Often integrated with Google Calendar.
Teamdeck allows you to allocate resources so that you have the right number of people with the right skills for each project. You can also easily see what your employees are working on and whether they have the time to commit to a new project. For long-term projects, you can also create a schedule and set project milestones.
Teamdeck is also great for monitoring working time. You can download a mobile app to track your time on the go. Timesheets will show you which tasks are taking up the most time, so you can more easily calculate whether they are profitable for you or whether a process needs to be optimized.
Teamdeck also has a smart resource, an online calendar planner, with which it will be easier for you to schedule meetings and check the availability of your people. This is especially useful if you manage a remote team. To always keep an eye on whether your employees are on leave, use the holiday calendar. This way you will always know what each person’s availability is and who can replace them.
This is also a very convenient option for international companies, as you can run bank holidays for any country in the calendar and see all local holidays. If you need any data about your team’s work, Teamdeck will generate custom reports for you.
Prezzi: the most popular = $10 user/per month,
DeskTime is another well-recognizable time tracking tool, also considered the best time management app, directed at business users and freelancers as well. It is also useful for attendance tracking, absence tracking, and effective workflow project management.
This app describes itself as an automatic time tracker. what does it mean? This tool suggests what your employee or you worked on rather than you having to tell the app. An automatic time tracker removes the need to manually input data because it registers all computer and work activity.
This time management application allows full control of employees’ work thanks to computer usage monitoring. As a website, program, and application checker informs about activity and categorizes it between productive and unproductive.
Price: 3 plans; Business Plan – $5 per user per month, billed annually
Available on iOS, Android, and Desktop
This app appears in almost every list of top time management apps, so it’s impossible not to mention it. Despite the fact that the first version was created in 2007, Todoist is still used not by a few people, but by more than 25 million users worldwide. But what is it? Todoist is an application used to create typical To-Do Lists – hence its name.
The strength of this tool lies in its simplicity – minimalist design, functions limited only to those really useful make the whole thing very intuitive. Todoist also monitors your productivity, visualizing it in the form of points or levels, and this is an additional motivation.
In the application, you can very easily create thematic lists and group them into categories. For example, in the “personal” category, you might have a list of household chores or a gym plan. In the “work” category, on the other hand, you can create a list of tasks and subtasks for each project. You can also give each task a specific priority, indicated by a color.
Todoist understands natural language, so tasks like “pick up a package tomorrow at 2 pm” will automatically be added to your calendar. You can also delegate tasks to other users, which is useful not only at work when you’re dividing up responsibilities among team members, but also when you’re managing your home and deciding who cleans the windows, does the shopping, and takes out the trash. The application has several ready-made templates adapted to different needs and businesses, making it very easy for you to manage your personal and professional life at the same time.
A very convenient feature of this tool is its integration with other systems, like Google or Slack. Todoist is also available on virtually all devices and systems. So you can manage your tasks from your computer, smartphone, or tablet.
Price: pricing starts at $9.00 per feature, per month
Available on Web, Android, iOS
Attention is the most valuable currency in the online world, so it’s not surprising that every website or app we use will do anything to get it. We turn on Google to check “just one thing” or Instagram to reply to “just one message” and we don’t know when we’ve spent 20, 40, or 60 minutes on the internet without even doing the one thing we reached our phone for. Often we are not even aware of how much time we spend on such unproductive scrolling. And that’s exactly what Rescue Time is for.
The purpose of the application is to monitor your online activity and create reports on how much time you spent using particular websites and applications, how long you were productive, whether you work after hours or, on the contrary, do not work when you should. RescueTime allows you to be aware of how many minutes and hours you spend on different activities on the internet each day. Whether this is a lot or a little is up to you, but just knowing it helps you take steps towards change.
Monitoring and reports of the time spent online are available in the free version of the application. The paid variant allows the tool to send you notifications. Notifications are personalized to your needs. For example, RescueTime will send you a notification if you’ve been using social media for more than an hour or managed to be productive for 4 hours. You can also set a limit and let the app block sites that consume too much of your time.
Price: 4 plans; the fourth one – called for Teams – $14.99/month/user
Available as mobile app (iOS, Android) and desktop
In a meeting, at university, working on a project, on a walk, when the most interesting ideas pop into your head – you take notes all the time. Sometimes you make a file in google docs, sometimes you write something down on an old bill, in a notebook, on your smartphone, on messenger, in your calendar, or in an email. And everything is fine until you suddenly have to find the notes you need... somewhere. This is where Evernote comes to the rescue. This app is the perfect repository for all the notes you might need. You can conveniently write down and even record your thoughts and ideas in it.
You can also easily catalog other formats like photos, sketches, text documents, and voice files. And to keep all your notes organized and easy to find, you can assign tags to them. Evernote also has a calendar function so you can always check your plans for the near future. The app is available on all your devices, so you can create and check your notes whenever you need to.
Price: monthly membership = £3.95/month
Available on: iOS, Android, and Desktop
The biggest bane of the internet when you’re trying to focus is all the interesting things you see. A funny video, an interesting article, a new album or a friend’s post-everything takes your attention. For fear of missing something or forgetting to return to the content you’re interested in, you prefer to watch it straight away. If only there was a tool that would allow you to easily catalog all those interesting things and leave them for later...
Wait, there is. And it’s called Pocket. With this app, you can easily tag all the pages and titles that interest you. This way you won’t interrupt your work, but you also won’t lose valuable material you’ve found online.
Price:
Available on iOS and Android
We all like to get instant gratification for doing something well. We love to collect points and get rewards for it, we’re used to it from childhood when we collected stars for good behavior at school. As we grow up, other things have value for us... and yet this simple gratification can still motivate us. And it is this simple conditioning that Forest exploits. To stay focused think Forest.
Forest is probably one of the most fun time management apps in this ranking. Its purpose is to help the user focus for longer periods. How it works. Every time you need to concentrate, you launch the app and plant a virtual tree. You set a timer for how long you want to concentrate. If you leave the app before that time and start using your phone, your tree will die.
On the other hand, if you manage to keep your goal, the tree will grow. Every time you manage to concentrate without using your phone, you grow another tree, until you have created your virtual forest. This simple game encourages you to concentrate a little longer next time. The campaign partner is Trees for the Future, which plants real trees for every virtual tree in the app. Isn’t that great?
Price: 4 plans; the last one = $17.50 USD per user / per month / billed annually
Available on: web, iOS, Android
If you’re a visual learner and like to see all your tasks clearly laid out, Trello will be perfect for you. It’s a virtual whiteboard where you can stick cards with your tasks, prioritize them and assign a status: to do, in progress, done. For each task, you can add a note. Trello is perfect for managing the work of several people, delegating tasks, and checking how projects are going. Its great advantage is its very aesthetic and clear layout. The visual representation of tasks makes it easy to check the status of work at a glance. So, you can use time management tips or Trello.
Trello is very popular as a business tool, but it will also work as an excellent lifestyle application. You can manage all your projects in it: organizing an event, volunteering at the theatre, household chores with your housemates. You can also use Trello individually to always have a quick overview of your responsibilities board.
Price: The Ultimate Control plan is priced at $89/month, billed annually
Available on the web and as a mobile app for iOS and Android
ProofHub ranks among top-rated team collaboration and project management software, which offers a suite of powerful features in a centralized location, including employee time tracking software. ProofHub’s time tracking software is of great use for project teams as it allows them to improve their time management skills by tracking how much time they are spending on different tasks.
ProofHub’s inbuilt time tracking software enables users to track time using either manually or through automatic timers. You can also add timesheets to record time data and use them for client billing, estimation, payroll, tracking, and even time management. You can also set time estimates for different tasks to define how much time it should take to complete the particular task.
Other useful features that help you improve time management strategies and skills are – Project Scheduling Calendar, File Management Software, Online Proofing, Kanban boards, Table View, and Real-time updates. For example, you can add automatic reminders for your tasks to make sure that you do not miss them. Similarly, you can collaborate online on your documents to receive feedback and suggestions.
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It’s probably obvious to many people, not only project managers, account managers, and so on, what proper managing and efficient time execution mean. But to think reasonable about our topic, it’s better to have a clear and clarified vision of the meaning of the fundamental term used in this article. According to the Oxford Languages dictionary:
the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work.
Of course, the time isn’t like chewing gum that can be stretched in many different ways. And the second issue, a part of the day, a moment during the day also determines how we work, and how effective we are. For some people, performance duties better/faster are realized after waking up, for others – the same work is better at noon. This is – as it seems – what the Management Study Guide authors want to say:
Time Management refers to managing time effectively so that the right time is allocated to the right activity. (managementstudyguide.com)
Like with many things in life, it’s a process. Process of gathering experience, based on data that never are irrefutable. The process that can in a better or worse way optimized – depends on do you measure, how you measure, and what you measure. Nevertheless, paraphrasing the Mindtools suggestion on how to understand time management – it’s about planning how to split time between different activities.
From this point of view, without any data or – has to be said – mistakes you won’t be able to change anything, to organize and plan tasks. This process of gathering data is simultaneously a process of developing rules, and principles that organize time and tasks. These rules are also subject to optimization. So it’s an ongoing process. How it all has to do with the issue of time management in business or – to say it more accurately – time management and employees?
Our competitor in the market of time management apps – the Clockify software – understands time management as
(...) set of principles and tools that help you use your time more effectively. Thus, employee time management consists of all the necessary skills that would help your employees do their job more productively.
Clockify’s authors clearly suggest to who the time management principles apply to. Which, of course, is not true that only employees have to do with keeping track of time at work. Time management is directed to anyone, anywhere, regardless of the type of work or activity. But what is real, skills and supporting tools (such as a team time tracking software or a simple mobile time tracker) are irreplaceable in this long process.
Saying that the time management apps market is huge it’s not only trivial but childish. At the moment the number of such software isn’t decreasing. Moreover, year by year is growing. Referring to Report from B2B research company Markets and Markets:
The task management software market is expected to grow from USD 1.79 billion in 2017 to USD 4.33 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 13.74% from 2018 to 2023 The forgotten art of concentration.
From this point of view, it’s almost impossible to present each and any helpful, useful, and most relevant time management app. In other words (it has to be said): no one can say there is “the best management app” that is suitable for each company.
Any time tracking app, any time management app, any of the best employee time tracking software (however you name it) – isn’t bullet-proof; isn’t resistant to each criticism. Any software (not only online time tracker) has some aspect that is annoying, insufficient, or not developed enough to satisfy any users (not only project managers, but resource managers, HR managers, and – of course – employees, designers, developers). There will always be something that won’t match.
If we need to say everything that has been said above, in the one sentence: the best time management app means only and always the best for a particular company.
So, before you choose which app will help you manage time effectively, we suggest preparing some RFP, selecting vendors, and...just giving it a try. Let your team members as well have an opportunity to share with you their experiences. And just make the decision.
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