Time tracking for developers

malizmaj — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 13:17:34 +0000

On one hand, time tracking is a hassle. But on the other, it gives you hard data that can help you identify time sinks. Plus, when you're working for a client, you have to keep track of time.

Automatic time tracker

The most hassle-free way to track time you spend on projects and development is to install WakaTime, an automatic time tracker inside your text editor/IDE of choice.

Then, as you work and code, the tracker works in the background and calculates how much time you've spent on each repo/project.

You can access your time report in WakaTime dashboard and see your productivity broken down by day, project, programming language, and many other criteria.

Project time tracker

The best thing about WakaTime is that you don't have to lift a finger. But what if other people need your time logs? For example, your manager, payroll, or client?

In that case, you can use Clockify. It's a project time tracker that's more user-friendly and supports time tracking in a team. The only downside is that you have to start/stop the timer or enter hours manually.

So, the best solution is to:

Install WakaTime
Work/code
At the end of the day, check how much time you've spent on projects/files/repos, and manually enter hours in Clockify so the data is available to others

This way, you don't have to remembers what you've worked on at the end of the day or bother with starting/stopping timers.

Using an issue tracker?

If you're working in issue trackers like JIRA, YouTrack, Gitlab/Github, or even Trello, you can install the Clockify Chrome extension and start timers for issues right from inside JIRA or whatever else you're using

DEV Community: malizmaj

Time tracking for developers

Automatic time tracker

Project time tracker

Using an issue tracker?