Time tracking using SlimTimer

I recently came across a tiny little program called SlimTimer, which helps maintain a timesheet of all that you and your team performs on day-to-day basis. SlimTimer is created by Richard White, a user interface designer, and hence many of the usual design issues that we normally encounter have been taken good care of. The philosophy of SlimTimer, as the author words it, is to avoid hierarchies in task allocation, reporting structures etc. Create tasks for individual tracking as well as tasks which are shared between your team-mates. It easy-to-use ‘click to time it’ option is impressive. Additionally, you can tag tasks with labels, which the author says will help you filter them based on those. I couldn’t find how to do it, though. SlimTimer is based on AJAX, which is a comparatively newer technology. Web pages can get updated with information faster through AJAX, because the entire web page doesn’t get reloaded, but only relevant parts are.

To work with SlimTimer, you won’t need any download, but just need to signup. The signup is for free. Once you signup, you will get a screen with 5 tabs, each of which supports distinct operations like add new tasks, manage tasks, reporting etc. You can also operate the timer for each task through a separate page, by clicking on the task. Click on it again, to stop the timer. Each time, the total time spend on each task gets added on and is saved to the site’s database. However, in case somebody goofed up with the entries, this can be edited later on.

More impressive is its integration with bubbles. Bubbles brings in certain advantages to using SlimTimer, but the most usable that I felt was its ability to minimize it to the Windows system tray. Now, you won’t need to open your browser to access SlimTimer, but can be accessed from the system tray directly.

I started using it only a few days back, and I am feeling that it is beneficial. Also, the author looks committed about the future developments of this program. This program is free as of now, and he promises that it will remain so for ever…