10 Best Time Tracking Apps for Better Productivity

Robots taking over our personal lives instead of the world? It may sound far-fetched, but the impact of artificial intelligence is undeniable, especially when it comes to boosting productivity. One popular category of AI-powered productivity tools is time tracking apps.

Time tracking apps help us keep tabs on how we spend our time, whether we want to improve productivity, track billable hours as a freelancer, or optimize team efficiency as an employer.

With numerous time tracking apps available, finding the right one can be daunting. That’s why we’ve curated a list of the 16 best time tracking apps to simplify your search.

But before we dive into the list, let’s quickly explore the basics of time tracking apps and their value. These apps enable us to monitor and manage our time effectively, leading to improved productivity and better task allocation.

Now, let’s jump into the list of the top 10 time tracking apps that can transform the way you work and help you accomplish more in less time.

What Is A Time Tracking App?

A time tracking app is a software application designed to help individuals or teams monitor and record the amount of time spent on various tasks or activities. These apps typically provide features and tools that allow users to track and manage their time effectively.

Time-tracking apps offer functionalities such as:

1. Task and project tracking: Users can create tasks or projects and track the time spent on each one. This helps individuals understand how much time they allocate to specific activities and identify areas for improvement.
2. Time logging and timers: Users can start and stop timers to track the exact duration of their work sessions. This allows for accurate time recording and analysis.
3. Manual time entry: Users can manually input the time spent on tasks or activities that were not tracked in real-time. This feature is helpful when users need to record time retrospectively.
4. Reporting and analytics: Time tracking apps often generate reports and provide analytics on time usage, productivity trends, and task distribution. These insights help users make informed decisions and optimize their workflow.
5. Integrations: Many time tracking apps integrate with other productivity tools such as project management software, calendars, or invoicing systems. This enables seamless data synchronization and streamlines workflow management.

Time-tracking apps cater to various needs, including personal time management, freelance work, team collaboration, and project billing. By utilizing a time-tracking app, individuals and organizations can gain a better understanding of how time is utilized, identify productivity bottlenecks, and make data-driven improvements to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

Benefits of using Time Tracking Software

Using a time tracking app can be beneficial for several reasons.

Firstly, it allows you to understand how you spend your time. By tracking your activities, you can identify tasks that consume excessive time and find ways to improve your productivity.

Secondly, time tracking apps help you manage your time effectively. They provide visibility into the time allocated to different projects or tasks, enabling you to plan and prioritize accordingly.

Lastly, time tracking apps ensure accurate invoicing. If you’re a freelancer or consultant, these apps help you keep track of billable hours, ensuring that you charge clients correctly and get paid for the work you’ve done.

In simpler terms, time tracking apps help you analyze your time usage, manage your schedule better, and accurately bill clients for your services.

1. Clockify

Clockify is a popular and user-friendly free time tracking app that has gained popularity among users for its simplicity and ease of use.

One of Clockify’s standout features is its effortless time tracking capability. Users can easily track time on different projects, tasks, or clients without any hassle.

Additionally, Clockify provides robust reporting features, allowing users to gain insights into their time usage. By reviewing these reports, users can identify areas where they can make improvements and optimize their productivity.

Let’s explore how Clockify can be applied in practical scenarios.

1. Personal Productivity: Imagine you’re a student juggling multiple assignments and studying for exams. With Clockify, you can create tasks for each subject or assignment and track the time spent on them. By reviewing the time logs and reports, you can identify which subjects require more attention and adjust your study schedule accordingly. This helps you optimize your time and enhance your overall productivity.
2. Freelance Time Management: As a freelancer, accurately tracking your time is crucial for invoicing clients and ensuring fair compensation. Clockify simplifies this process by allowing you to create projects for each client and record the time spent on specific tasks or projects. You can generate detailed time reports, which serve as reliable records for billing purposes. This ensures transparency and professionalism in your freelance work.
3. Team Collaboration: In a team environment, Clockify proves invaluable for tracking time and managing project timelines. Let’s say you’re part of a marketing team working on a campaign. Clockify enables each team member to log their time on various campaign-related activities, such as content creation, social media management, and analytics. Project managers can track the team’s progress, analyze time distribution, and ensure tasks are completed within the designated timeframe.
4. Remote Work Optimization: With the rise of remote work, Clockify becomes an essential tool for remote teams. For example, a virtual customer support team can use Clockify to log their time spent on customer interactions, issue resolution, and training sessions. The app provides an accurate overview of each team member’s productivity and helps managers identify areas for improvement or additional training needs.
5. Consulting and Professional Services: Clockify is a valuable asset for consultants and professionals who charge clients based on billable hours. Let’s say you’re a lawyer working on a client’s case. By tracking your time spent on research, meetings, and document preparation using Clockify, you can create accurate invoices reflecting the actual work performed. This ensures fair billing and avoids any discrepancies in client communication.

Overall, Clockify offers practical and versatile usage in various real-life scenarios. Whether you’re an individual seeking personal productivity, a freelancer managing time for billing, a team collaborating on projects, or a professional providing services, Clockify proves to be a reliable and effective time tracking solution.

2. TimeDoctor

TimeDoctor is a powerful time tracking and productivity software designed to help individuals and teams manage their time more effectively. Here’s an overview of TimeDoctor and its key features:

1. Time Tracking: TimeDoctor tracks the time you spend on tasks, projects, or specific activities. It provides accurate and detailed reports of your work hours, giving you insights into how you allocate your time throughout the day.
2. Productivity Monitoring: The software measures your productivity by tracking the websites and applications you use during work hours. It provides a breakdown of your time spent on productive tasks versus distractions, helping you identify areas for improvement.
3. Employee Monitoring: TimeDoctor offers robust features for team management. It allows employers to monitor their team’s activities, track attendance, and measure productivity levels. It also provides screenshots and webcam shots at random intervals to ensure accountability and discourage time-wasting behaviors.
4. Client Billing: For freelancers and consultants, TimeDoctor offers billing and invoicing capabilities. It tracks billable hours and generates accurate reports for client billing, streamlining the invoicing process and ensuring accurate compensation.
5. Integrations: TimeDoctor integrates with various project management and communication tools such as Trello, Asana, Slack, and more. This enables seamless synchronization of data and allows for a centralized workflow management system.
6. Focus Features: TimeDoctor provides productivity-enhancing features such as website and application blocking during focused work sessions. These features help eliminate distractions and improve concentration.
7. Reporting and Analytics: The software generates comprehensive reports and analytics on individual and team productivity, time usage, and attendance. These insights enable users to make data-driven decisions, optimize workflows, and improve overall productivity.

Overall, TimeDoctor is a comprehensive time tracking and productivity tool suitable for individual users, freelancers, and teams. Its robust features, including time tracking, productivity monitoring, employee management, client billing, and integrations, make it a valuable asset for optimizing time management and enhancing productivity.

3. Timeular

Timeular is a unique and innovative time tracking device and app combination designed to help individuals track and manage their time more effectively. Here’s an overview of Timeular and its key features:

1. Time Tracking Device: The Timeular device is a physical cube with different activity labels on each side. Users can flip the cube to track their time spent on different activities or tasks throughout the day. It provides a tangible and interactive way to log time.
2. Mobile App Integration: The Timeular device seamlessly integrates with the Timeular mobile app, available for both iOS and Android. The app connects to the device via Bluetooth and syncs the tracked time data, providing a comprehensive overview of time usage.
3. Automatic Time Tracking: Timeular utilizes motion sensors in the device to automatically detect when the cube is flipped to a different side, accurately capturing the time spent on each activity. This automation eliminates the need for manual time entry, making the tracking process effortless.
4. Detailed Time Reports: The Timeular app generates detailed time reports, giving users insights into how they allocate their time across different activities. It provides visual representations and analytics to help users analyze their productivity and identify areas for improvement.
5. Integration with Productivity Tools: Timeular integrates with popular productivity tools such as Trello, Asana, and Google Calendar. This allows users to sync their tracked time data with these tools, providing a unified view of their tasks, projects, and time spent.
6. Goal Setting and Insights: Users can set goals within the Timeular app to track progress and work towards specific objectives. The app provides insights and recommendations based on the tracked time data, helping users make informed decisions about time management and productivity improvements.
7. Team Collaboration: Timeular offers features for team collaboration and reporting. Users can track time individually or as part of a team, enabling managers to gain insights into the team’s time allocation, productivity, and project progress.

Overall, Timeular provides a unique and interactive approach to time tracking, combining a physical device with a mobile app. Its automatic tracking, detailed reports, integration capabilities, goal setting, and team collaboration features make it a versatile tool for individuals and teams looking to optimize their time management and boost productivity.

4. Harvest

Harvest is a popular time tracking and invoicing software that helps individuals and businesses efficiently manage their time, projects, and finances. Here’s an overview of Harvest and its key features:

1. Time Tracking: Harvest allows users to easily track their time spent on tasks, projects, or clients. It offers various tracking methods, including manual entry, timers, and automatic tracking with integrations. Users can categorize time entries, add notes, and specify billable or non-billable hours.
2. Project Management: Users can create projects, set budgets, and assign tasks within Harvest. It provides a centralized platform to track project progress, manage team collaboration, and monitor project timelines and milestones.
3. Team Time Tracking: Harvest enables team members to log their time and track their individual tasks. Managers can review and approve time entries, ensuring accurate and efficient time management across the team. It also offers team scheduling features to coordinate and allocate resources effectively.
4. Expense Tracking: Users can track expenses incurred during projects, such as travel costs, supplies, or client-related expenses. Harvest allows for easy expense categorization, attaching receipts, and billing clients for reimbursable expenses.
5. Invoicing and Payments: Harvest streamlines the invoicing process by generating professional-looking invoices based on tracked time and expenses. Users can customize invoice templates, set up recurring invoices, and accept online payments through integrations. It also provides features for tracking payment statuses and sending reminders.
6. Reporting and Analytics: Harvest offers comprehensive reporting and analytics to gain insights into time utilization, project profitability, and team performance. Users can generate detailed reports on billable hours, project budgets, and financial summaries, helping them make informed decisions and improve efficiency.
7. Integrations and Collaboration: Harvest integrates with various popular tools such as project management software, accounting platforms, and communication tools. This allows for seamless data syncing and enhances collaboration across different systems.

Overall, Harvest is a versatile time tracking and invoicing solution suitable for individuals, freelancers, and businesses of all sizes. Its features for time tracking, project management, expense tracking, invoicing, and reporting make it a comprehensive tool to streamline workflows, optimize resource allocation, and ensure accurate financial management.

5. Insightful

insightful is a comprehensive time tracking app that provides GPS location tracking and detailed reports for effective time management.

With insightful, you can track not only the time spent on various tasks but also monitor idle time, breaks, and weekends. This gives you valuable insights into how you allocate your time and alerts you when you’re not being productive.

The app offers automatic time tracking, making it effortless to monitor your work hours without interruptions. Additionally, for tasks that aren’t supported by automatic tracking, you have the option to manually track time.

In addition to time tracking, insightful offers employee monitoring, time and attendance management, automatic time mapping, and other useful features. This allows you to keep a close eye on your team’s productivity and ensure efficient project management.

To provide evidence and accountability, insightful offers screenshot capturing, tracks app and website usage, and provides other project management functionalities.

insightful provides a 14-day free trial for users to explore its features. After the trial period, you have the option to subscribe to their Time Tracking plan, which is priced at $8 per month. Additionally, they offer an Automatic Time Mapping feature available for $12 per month. This allows users to choose the plan that best suits their needs and budget, ensuring they have access to the desired functionalities for efficient time tracking and management.

6. DeskTime

DeskTime is a comprehensive time tracking and productivity software that helps individuals and teams optimize their time usage and boost productivity. Here’s an overview of DeskTime and its key features:

1. Automatic Time Tracking: DeskTime automatically tracks and logs the time you spend on different applications, websites, and tasks. It provides accurate and detailed reports of your work hours, helping you understand how you utilize your time throughout the day.
2. Productivity Analysis: DeskTime measures your productivity levels by categorizing time spent on productive, unproductive, and neutral activities. It provides insights into your work habits, identifies time-wasting activities, and offers suggestions for improving productivity.
3. Employee Monitoring: DeskTime offers employee monitoring features, allowing managers to track their team’s activities and measure their productivity levels. It provides data on attendance, breaks, and time spent on different projects, helping ensure accountability and effective team management.
4. Project Time Tracking: Users can track time spent on specific projects or tasks using DeskTime. It helps in evaluating project progress, estimating future workloads, and analyzing time allocation for better project management.
5. Offline Time Tracking: DeskTime also allows you to track offline time, such as meetings, phone calls, or non-computer-related work. This ensures a comprehensive view of your time usage and accurate tracking of all activities.
6. Focus Time and Website Blocking: DeskTime includes features for setting focus time intervals, where distractions are blocked to enhance concentration. It enables users to block specific websites or applications during focused work sessions, minimizing distractions and improving productivity.
7. Detailed Reports and Analytics: DeskTime generates detailed reports and analytics on individual and team productivity, attendance, and project time tracking. These reports provide valuable insights for optimizing time management, identifying productivity patterns, and making data-driven decisions.

In summary, DeskTime is a feature-rich time tracking and productivity tool that offers automatic time tracking, productivity analysis, employee monitoring, project time tracking, and detailed reporting. It helps individuals and teams improve time management, enhance productivity, and achieve better work-life balance.

7. Toggl

Toggl stands out with its unique and user-friendly website, offering a range of intuitive features.

One of its standout features is the one-click timers, which make it effortless to start tracking time and eliminate distractions during work.

Toggl’s automatic syncing ensures that all your tracked activities seamlessly update across all your devices.

The Timeline feature is particularly useful, allowing you to accurately track the time spent on each app and website.

Integrating your Google Calendar with Toggl’s calendar view provides a comprehensive overview of your schedule and time entries.

For those who tend to forget tasks, Toggl has a task reminder system. The Autotracker feature comes in handy for keeping track of your tasks automatically.

To streamline your workflow, you can pin your favorite or frequently used time entries at the top of your timer page for quick access.

Moreover, Toggl offers integration with over 100 apps, expanding its functionality and making it a versatile time management tool.

8. MyHours

MyHours is a user-friendly time-tracking app designed to help you track time for different projects effortlessly.

Creating new projects and tasks and starting time tracking is quick and easy with just a few taps.

The app provides a convenient timer to keep track of the duration of your work on each task.

With its intuitive dashboard, you can easily interpret data and create visually appealing reports.

As you track time, MyHours automatically generates a timesheet that displays your activity timeline.

If you have a team, you can invite members, assign roles, and monitor their activity and performance.

You can also set reminders to ensure timely completion of tasks for yourself and your team.

In summary, MyHours simplifies time tracking for projects, offers a user-friendly interface, provides automatic timesheets, supports team tracking, and allows for convenient task reminders.

9. Hubstaff

Hubstaff is a comprehensive time tracking and employee monitoring software that helps businesses manage their remote teams effectively. Here’s an overview of Hubstaff and its key features:

1. Time Tracking: Hubstaff allows you to track time spent on tasks and projects accurately. It offers desktop, web, and mobile apps with built-in timers for easy tracking.
2. Employee Monitoring: With Hubstaff, you can monitor your team’s activity levels, screenshots, and app and website usage. It provides insights into productivity, idle time, and overall work patterns.
3. GPS Location Tracking: Hubstaff’s GPS tracking feature allows you to track the location of your remote team members. This is particularly useful for field-based or mobile teams.
4. Online Timesheets: Hubstaff generates detailed timesheets that provide a clear overview of hours worked, tasks completed, and project progress. Timesheets can be customized and exported for payroll or client invoicing purposes.
5. Project Management: Hubstaff offers project management features, allowing you to assign tasks, set deadlines, and track project progress. It helps in organizing and prioritizing work to ensure smooth project execution.
6. Payroll and Invoicing: Hubstaff integrates with popular payment gateways and accounting software, making payroll and client billing seamless. It streamlines the process of generating accurate invoices and paying team members based on tracked time.
7. Reports and Analytics: Hubstaff provides comprehensive reports and analytics on time tracking, productivity, and team performance. These insights help businesses identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions.
8. Integrations: Hubstaff integrates with various project management, collaboration, and accounting tools such as Asana, Trello, QuickBooks, and more. This allows for seamless data synchronization and enhances workflow efficiency.

10. Everhour

Everhour is a user-friendly time tracking app designed to track time for projects and clients effortlessly.

It offers a simple and intuitive timer, allowing you to easily record the time spent on different tasks.

In addition to automatic time tracking, Everhour allows manual time entry for tasks that require it.

A standout feature of Everhour is its ability to track time spent on specific websites. This is especially useful for providing clients with accurate time reports for particular tasks or projects.

Integration with popular project management tools like Asana, Trello, and Jira enables seamless time tracking for assigned tasks.

Everhour believes that tracking project time is crucial for improving team performance, monitoring projects, and optimizing resource utilization. Their simple time tracking tool aims to help you achieve these goals.

In summary, Everhour provides a straightforward and efficient time tracking solution with features such as an easy-to-use timer, detailed reports, manual time entry, website-specific time tracking, and integration with popular project management tools.

conclusion

In conclusion, time tracking apps have become indispensable tools for individuals and businesses alike, seeking to enhance productivity, streamline workflows, and manage their time effectively. The 16 best time tracking apps mentioned in this article offer a range of features and functionalities to meet diverse needs.

From Clockify’s simplicity and free availability to the GPS tracking and detailed reports of WorkPuls, each app brings its unique strengths to the table. MyHours provides a user-friendly interface and convenient task tracking, while Hubstaff offers comprehensive employee monitoring and project management capabilities. Everhour stands out with its ability to track time spent on specific websites.

Whether you’re a freelancer looking to accurately bill clients, a team leader aiming to monitor and optimize your team’s performance, or an individual striving for better time management, these time tracking apps offer valuable solutions.

Ultimately, choosing the right time tracking app depends on your specific requirements and preferences. Consider factors such as ease of use, reporting features, integrations with other tools, and pricing options.

With the help of these time tracking apps, you can gain insights into how you spend your time, identify areas for improvement, and maximize your productivity. Embrace the power of technology and make the most of these tools to take control of your time and achieve your goals.