Paymo—truly free time tracking
Applications / Ramblings / Usability
2 March 2010
2
So, update from a previous post. Less Time Spent was in fact a limited time free trial. I just logged in one day and wasn’t able to use any of the timesheets I had collected! I am back to an old alternative and one that works quite well—Paymo.
Paymo has a paid plan for those who want to use the system for invoices or for multi-users. For freelancers or one person use—it’s perfect and free.
The benefits of Paymo:
- It’s free—really
- It has a desktop widget so you don’t need to worry about closing browser windows
- The desktop widget can track if you have been idle and gives you the option to remove the time spent during this idle period—perfect if you forget to click “stop”.
- Invoicing tool should you choose to use it
- Track entries by Clients » Project » Tasks
- Nice chart overview on the homepage
- Reports—as all systems have
With any productivity tool—it’s only as valuable as you make it. Here’s how I use it:
- I don’t track time for EVERYTHING—just the items that make sense to be diligent about such as projects that I’m billing hourly or projects that I really want to see how long they take for future reference
- I use the widget, this way I can be free with Firefox
- I don’t bother with task templates. I set up a project and add tasks as I go—for example, if I am working on a website my tasks will start out as initial meetings, homepage designs, edits…
- Once a project is finished I archive it so I don’t need to keep looking at it
Are there any issues with Paymo?
Well, the only annoying thing for me, is that the widget won’t let me add projects. To add a new project I have to login to the website. Not a huge issue, but a little annoying.
So, hats off to a truly free system that lends a hand to those who don’t want to pay yet another $10/month subscription fee!
2 Comments
bittersweetnicky says...
“Most time tracking softwares are very flawed. Have you looked at Time Doctor?”