Are you one of the poor schmoes who has to fill out time tracking reports every week? Do you work on dozens of different tasks every day and continuously forget to write down what you are working on every time you make a change? How would you like a product to help you fill out your status reports without you having to remember to write things down as you go along?
Check out this tool: www.timesnapper.com
At the Visual Studio 2005 launch event, Jim Wooley and I were discussing the Time Snapper - a tool which will take screenshots of your desktop periodically through the day and then show them to you so you can remember what you were working on and when. It's a completely free tool and it seems to fit in perfectly with the way I used to fill out my status reports. I'd frequently forget to use any tool to mark when I was changing tasks and I'd end up reviewing my VSS check-ins, e-mails and IM conversations to piece together my day. Looking at screenshots of what I was actually working on would actually be so much more helpful!
Of course, now I work in an environment where it's not required that I track my time. However, I think I'm going to use the tool to track my productivity. I bet I'll find that I spend too much time in e-mail and IM conversations...
-- Matt Ranlett