3 ms·

"It is in no way "derailing" us when we work." Would you notice it if it did derail you 10% of the time? 5%? What's the interval? I'm not suggesting that it

"It is in no way "derailing" us when we work." Would you notice it if it did derail you 10% of the time? 5%? What's the interval? I'm not suggesting that it IS derailing you when you work (though I suspect it is some), I'm just curious how measurable that is and how you measure the "overall win". Saying that it "works" for you and others feels really subjective to me. What's the goal? Less overall time dorking around with time entry? More time spent on "good" stuff? More accurate time entry? If we actually gave full export of RescueTime data (which we will someday!), you could measure what percentage of the time users return to their task after your app comes into focus. Better yet, you could measure the mean time spent on task AFTER your app interrupts (compared to before). If you're going to sell the concept to productivity nuts, it'd be a great thing to study/prove down the road. Either way, I'm gonna give your app a try for a few days to see how it feels (and more importantly, how it changes my RescueTime data! ;-) ). I hope you don't take offense. I like the idea (if you ever meet Paul Buccheit, ask him about TimePie!)... But my crash course in productivity studies over the past year tell me that most productivity academics would run screaming from the idea. 'Course, academics are wrong all the time.

jamesbritt 18y ago
"I hope you don't take offense." Not at all. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to comment, and the feedback is valuable. " I like the idea (if you ever meet Paul Buccheit, ask him about TimePie!)... But my crash course in productivity studies over the past year tell me that most productivity academics would run screaming from the idea. 'Course, academics are wrong all the time." Here's the catch: I can be as productive as all hell, but if I can't accurately bill for my time, I'm screwed. And it's not just knowing home nay minutes I spent on this or that project, it's being able to look at notes attached to specific times that tell a larger story. Plus, the "pull" approach serves a secondary value: if I'm getting distracted and not staying on my tasks (say, reading HN instead of fixing JotBot bugs :)), the periodic "What did you do?" prompt gets me to realize this. It's an awareness tool as well. And that awareness comes then, at the time when I can get myself on back on track. So, while I have no real data on this, the routine reminder may be making me more productive. I agree that this is quite subjective; all I can say was I wasn't happy with the options I found, and find myself better off having built JotBot. I'll have to see about giving RescueTime another shot. Last time I tried, there was a problem because I use Linux.
jamesbritt 18y ago
" If you're going to sell the concept to productivity nuts, it'd be a great thing to study/prove down the road." The goals of RescueTime and JotBot may not be quite the same, and so the approach one takes isn't so well suited for the other. "What's the goal? Less overall time dorking around with time entry? More time spent on "good" stuff? More accurate time entry?" While JotBot may make you more productive, productivity per se was not the issue that lead us to write it. We needed to make accurate records of time spent on multiple projects in a simple but effective way. Of course, having records of time spent does make you aware of potentially wasted time, so it can make you more productive, but the real win is in the level of detail and how much easier it makes doing invoicing.

jamesbritt 18y ago

"I hope you don't take offense." Not at all. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to comment, and the feedback is valuable. " I like the idea (if you ever meet Paul Buccheit, ask him about TimePie!)... But my crash course in productivity studies over the past year tell me that most productivity academics would run screaming from the idea. 'Course, academics are wrong all the time." Here's the catch: I can be as productive as all hell, but if I can't accurately bill for my time, I'm screwed. And it's not just knowing home nay minutes I spent on this or that project, it's being able to look at notes attached to specific times that tell a larger story. Plus, the "pull" approach serves a secondary value: if I'm getting distracted and not staying on my tasks (say, reading HN instead of fixing JotBot bugs :)), the periodic "What did you do?" prompt gets me to realize this. It's an awareness tool as well. And that awareness comes then, at the time when I can get myself on back on track. So, while I have no real data on this, the routine reminder may be making me more productive. I agree that this is quite subjective; all I can say was I wasn't happy with the options I found, and find myself better off having built JotBot. I'll have to see about giving RescueTime another shot. Last time I tried, there was a problem because I use Linux.

jamesbritt 18y ago

" If you're going to sell the concept to productivity nuts, it'd be a great thing to study/prove down the road." The goals of RescueTime and JotBot may not be quite the same, and so the approach one takes isn't so well suited for the other. "What's the goal? Less overall time dorking around with time entry? More time spent on "good" stuff? More accurate time entry?" While JotBot may make you more productive, productivity per se was not the issue that lead us to write it. We needed to make accurate records of time spent on multiple projects in a simple but effective way. Of course, having records of time spent does make you aware of potentially wasted time, so it can make you more productive, but the real win is in the level of detail and how much easier it makes doing invoicing.