RescueTime alternatives are utilities just like the one in question which helps you manage your day and stay productive throughout your working hours. With a little assistance from this tool, you can spot your inefficiencies and learn to manage your time so that you do not fall behind schedule. The internet is a hub of distractions for all professionals and it is extremely necessary to keep yourself focused instead of just whiling away your time on social networking websites or blogs. If you are one of those who just cannot stop themselves from browsing through random memes and chatting with friends during work hours, you need to install one of the below-mentioned programs and let it manage your internet activities. Scroll right down for more information.
1 – Toggl:
Toggl boasts of easy and intuitive time tracking and is available for various platforms so you can make use of all the useful features of the service, no matter which device you are using. Its web version will help you track time spent on various websites on the internet, while the one for desktops based on Mac OS X, Windows or Linux, lets you monitor the hours you spend on various work-related tasks.
If you are always on the run, you can either opt for the Android and iOS application of the software or access it through a browser on your phone. After examining all of your activities, the program creates a detailed report and uses graphical representations such as pie charts and graphs to let you in on your productivity quotient.
Price: Free (basic), $5/month (advanced features)
2 – Time Doctor:
The second spot on this catalog of programs like RescueTime has been assigned to Time Doctor, which not only manages your time but also acts as a collaboration tool. Accurately tracking your time is bound to help you stay productive as you are likely to waste less of it when it is being tracked. One of the many advantages is that the program detects personal web browsing, visits to YouTube, online newspapers and other similar portals and will give you a nudge, basically to remind you that you should be doing something else.
At the end of the week, it prepares a time usage report that clearly lists the hours spent on various activities to help you manage your work-related tasks efficiently. It can work in conjunction with some third-party applications as well.
Price: Free (limited features), $5/month (solo plan)
3 – Manic Time:
Manic Time is a utility meant for Windows computers that runs in the background and silently auto tracks your activities to give you a detailed report at the end of the day. There’s no punch clock system and you are not required to hit start and stop buttons every time you begin or finish a particular task. The program boasts of a simple and intuitive user interface and saves the data locally on your system that you can delete as and when you want.
In the results, it will tell you for exactly how long you used the computer and for how much time it was idle. The application timeline is meant to inform you about the hours you spent on various apps and a document timeline has been thrown in for information regarding websites and documents opened during the course of the day.
Price: Free (standard edition), $67 (professional edition)
4 – Klok:
Next up on our roster of software similar to RescueTime is Klok 2 which displays your time spent on various projects through visual representations that help you analyze inefficiencies that may not come to light if you adopt other means like spreadsheets. You may be working on multiple projects at a time and dealing with more than a single client. So to make sure that you do not get all confused between various tasks, it lets you customize your project/client structure.
Klok tracks time on its own without requiring you to enter anything manually and the timesheet that you get at the end of the week can be exported as a spreadsheet as well. And if that’s not enough, it can even be integrated with the calendar app so you can synchronize your meetings and manage your time accordingly.
Price: $19.99
5 – Stay Focused:
And now for those who use Google Chrome, we have Stay Focused, a time management add-on that makes sure you do not waste precious time on updating Facebook status or chatting with friends. The productivity extension lets you decide the time you wish to spend on websites not related to work and once you exceed it, the browser automatically blocks access to all those portals for the rest of the day.
It is highly customizable and gives you the option of blocking specific domains, sub-domains, pages, in-page content or even videos, games or images.
Price: Free
6 – WorkTrail:
And the final option on this roundup of programs like RescueTime is WorkTrail, a time tracking tool that claims to be appropriate for all types of professionals including freelancers, consultants and those who are required to work on various projects and interact with clients on a daily basis.
Its features include live time tracking and one-click work entry for new tasks. Like the other substitutes on our list, this utility keeps track of interruptions as well. It allows you to edit existing tasks and take a look at the statistics to figure out inefficiencies.
Price: Free (for personal use)
Conclusion:
You can use one of these RescueTime alternatives to make sure that you allow enough time for all your work-related activities and manage the day to avoid falling behind schedule. These will make sure that you are not distracted for a long time and instead focus on finishing your work as soon as possible. But do you like the idea of using one of these programs for the purpose, or would you rather stick to entering details on a spreadsheet to coax yourself into staying productive? Do chime in with your responses.