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If you\u2019ve been following this blog for any amount of time now, you know what we\u2019re all about: time-tracking, optimized time management, and productivity-monitoring. We\u2019ve put our heart and soul (and blood, sweat, and tears) into crafting what we think is the perfect<\/em> time-tracking application: Timing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, we\u2019re not so naive as to think there aren\u2019t time-tracking alternatives out there. In fact, you might be using one of them! And since we do our best to stay impartial, we think it\u2019s valuable to compare alternatives and give you a fair breakdown of why you might choose one over the other.<\/p>\n In this article, we\u2019ll take a look at one time-tracking app in particular \u2013 Timely<\/a> \u2013 and assess its pros, its cons, and how it stacks up to Timing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Timely is a time-tracking app that promises to take the hassle out of time-tracking for both individuals and teams. In other words \u2013 like Timing \u2013 it doesn\u2019t require manual start-and-stop timers to function. It gives users the ability to automatically track their time, organize their work by project, and manage and view their time usage. And just like Timing, it offers a free 14-day trial so you can give it a go yourself.<\/p>\n Here at Timing, we\u2019re all about automatic<\/strong> time-tracking. Manual timers simply require too much of your time and attention to pay off. And they don\u2019t often capture your time usage accurately \u2013 giving you an incorrect picture of how you\u2019ve actually<\/em> used your working hours and minutes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s for that reason that we decided to give Timely a whirl in the first place. Timely automatically logs your time so that you get a correct overview of your time usage at the end of your work day (or week, or month).<\/p>\n Here are a few of the other pros of Timely \u2013 features that make it a strong contender as a time-tracking alternative.<\/p>\n One of the most powerful features of Timing is that it tells you exactly how many hours and minutes you\u2019ve spent on various URLs, apps, and systems. If you think you\u2019ve spent 10 minutes in your email inbox \u2013 and you\u2019ve actually spent 45 minutes \u2013 you\u2019ll gain that valuable (and surprising) insight.<\/p>\n Likewise, Timely automatically generates a detailed breakdown of your time usage as you go. After less than one hour of work on a Friday morning, I was able to see that I spent 18 minutes on a particular Google doc, 6 minutes on LinkedIn, 4 minutes on Thesaurus.com, and 3 minutes on my banking app.<\/p>\n That breakdown helps me not only to see how well I\u2019m spending my time, but also helps me to categorize my time effectively, which brings me to my next point\u2026.<\/p>\n Timing understands that your work is not uniform; it can typically be broken down by project or client, regardless of the type of work you do. That being said, Timing gives you the ability to create different categories for your work, as well as the ability to \u201chelp\u201d the app proactively assign your work to the correct category through creating keywords and paths.<\/p>\n Timely also gives you the ability to create different projects for your work. It also allows you to retroactively categorize your work \u2013 made particularly helpful through \u201csuggestions\u201d that Timely makes based on its AI-powered software.<\/p>\n A third pro of Timely is that it ties income into your time management. In theory, you should be able to see how much money you\u2019ve made after a certain amount of work. This is especially helpful for staying within budget for a specific project or client \u2013 and for managing multiple users that may be working on a single project with a set budget.<\/p>\n The downside to this feature is that it\u2019s not particularly intuitive. I liked the idea of knowing how much money I was making according to my time usage; but found it difficult to locate where I\u2019m meant to determine income and\/or budget in Timely. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Timely certainly has some features that we appreciate and value \u2013 especially automatic time-tracking and organizing. No doubt about it: Timely is useful for tracking time, especially for teams and managers.<\/p>\n That being said, we found some cons of Timely that may make it an inferior choice for individual freelancers, owners, and solopreneurs<\/a>. Here are the downsides:<\/p>\n Timely\u2019s user interface isn\u2019t very visually engaging or easy to understand. It doesn\u2019t monitor your productivity score, or most productive\/active hours, and it doesn\u2019t give you a variety of charts and graphs to help you quickly see how you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n Timing, on the other hand, gives you a color-coded, visually stimulating Overview of your time usage based on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly basis. It makes it fast and easy to monitor your time usage throughout the day, and to check your time usage retroactively.<\/p>\n Timely provides a list of how you\u2019ve used your time, but it doesn\u2019t show when<\/em> you\u2019ve performed certain tasks. This makes it difficult to manage your time usage on a micro-scale (key for any freelancer or solopreneur).<\/p>\n In Timing\u2019s Review tab, you get a detailed timeline of when you\u2019re working (and what you\u2019re working on), as well as highlighted \u201cgaps\u201d where you stopped working (or got distracted). The benefit is that you can see how well you\u2019re remaining in \u201cthe flow\u201d and how successfully you\u2019re sticking to schedule.<\/p>\n After using Timely for about a week, I found that it wasn\u2019t super user-friendly. While I did<\/em> figure out how to create projects, I didn\u2019t quite master all of the functionality \u2013 as it wasn\u2019t super clear on how to do so. Instead, I found myself checking Timing repeatedly in order to get quick, easy insights into my time usage.<\/p>\n The bottom line?<\/strong> Timely works almost like a project management tool. It features a tab for \u201cPeople,\u201d which in theory displays time usage for different users, as well as billable hours<\/a>, non-billable hours, and overtime. But it doesn\u2019t provide a lot of useful and engaging insight to actually help me improve my time usage. And it\u2019s a bit challenging to navigate and use.<\/p>\n Timing offers the same functionality, with the ability to bring on multiple users and monitor their time. Timing, then, might be a better tool for teams and<\/em> individuals \u2013 providing richer, more valuable insight into time management<\/a> and productivity. Timing is also a bit less expensive than Timely, costing $6 per user at a basic level (compared to $8 for users of Timely).<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been using Timely and you\u2019re interested in a tool to help you dramatically level up your productivity, you might want to try out Timing.<\/p>\nWhat is Timely?<\/h2>\n
The Pros<\/h2>\n
Logs where and how you\u2019ve spent your time.<\/h3>\n
Allows you to organize and categorize projects.<\/h3>\n
Allows you to track your income.<\/h3>\n
The Cons<\/h2>\n
Doesn\u2019t have a clear U.I.<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nDoesn\u2019t make it easy to see when<\/em> you\u2019ve accomplished work.<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nNot very user-friendly.<\/h3>\n
Monitor Your Productivity & Optimize Your Time-Management with Timing<\/h2>\n