One of the things I need to do as a web devel­oper is track the amount of time I spend on a given project. Typ­i­cally I do this by keep­ing a text file open through­out the day that I make a note of what time I start on a task or project and what time I end. It works well for me because I’m a bit anal about keep­ing track of things like this — but I know there are times when I’ve forgotten.

Enter Tim­ing — Time Track­ing for Humans. Tim­ing is a Mac App that con­stantly runs in your menu bar and tracks the amount of time you spend using any­thing and every­thing you use on your Mac. And when I say every­thing — it is lit­er­ally every­thing. Not just the app you’re using, but what par­tic­u­lar aspect of that app you’re using.

For exam­ple, within Safari you can drill down and see what web pages you have open and how long you spent on each web page:

You can see that I spent 7 min­utes in Safari, the major­ity of which was at my blog while writ­ing this entry. Over time, I can tell how much time I’ve spent writ­ing at my blog and more eas­ily tell whether it’s worth my time and energy to write here. [ref]Disregarding the fact that I enjoy the writ­ing, how­ever much time I spend doing it.[/ref]

I’m not look­ing for­ward to see­ing how often I’ve checked the Twit­ter app.

It’s also on sale for 50% off for a lim­ited time so now is the time to pick it up.

(Links to both of today’s app posts are via Shaw Blanc’s fab­u­lous blog at shawn​blanc​.net. You can blame him if you, like me, are out $20 today.)