Time tracking apps are among the most predictable apps. They’re all designed to keep track of the time you’ve worked on your projects so you’re fair to both your clients and yourself. Then, the apps typically let you turn your timesheets into invoices, and perhaps track time on the go. Boring, but necessary.
And then there’s the new Timely. I’m pretty certain you’ve never seen a time tracking app like this. It’s the one time tracking app that you’ll actually want to use, it looks so nice. Plus, it’s simpler than most to use, thanks to its drag-and-drop calendar (apparently a popular new trend).
Managing Your Time in the Most Obvious Way Possible
We first looked at Timely this past June, where we found it to be a nice — if average — time tracking app that worked like you’d expect. It’s very rare for an app to change this much this quickly, but Timely has grown into a whole new app with its latest version, one you’ve got to try.
Every time tracking app out there uses the same concept; you log hours backwards in time. I want to flip that around. Instead of asking ‘what did you do this week?’, I’m asking ‘what are you planning on doing this week?’ As a result, you’ll spend seconds logging hours. All you have to do is to move your existing schedule to Timely.
~ Mathias Mikkelsen, Timely Founder
Timely’s been reinvented around a timesheet-style calendar that shows every hour of every day of your week in one quick overview. Hover over a date, and you’ll see a plus box to add a time entry directly on that date. Click the wrong date? No problem, you can drag the entry to another date. Didn’t include enough time, or accidentally wrote down too much time? Just drag up or down on the bottom of the time sheet entry to set it to the amount of time you worked. It’s a system that works great for quickly entering the things you’re going to do, then fixing them to show the time you actually spent on the project without having to tweak settings on every entry.
Then, there’s time tracking for what you’re working on right now that works in the same obvious way. Start a new task on today’s date, and you can start a timer in your browser that’ll keep working even if you’re messing with other time sheet entries. It’ll automatically expand for the time you spend, and can be resized later if you need to add time you spent working, say, after you closed your browser. Each entry is attached to a project, and can have a note about what you were working on, so it’s always easy to know where your time went this week. And, best of all, you can see your total billed time and money this week, along with your estimated time and money — in the top toolbar without having to add anything up.
Then, you’ll need to see how all your time was spent in a quick overview, and that’s simple in Timely as well. You can select your Projects or Reports views to see real-English explanations of how your time was spent, and where you made money over the past few days. It’s, again, a brilliant rethinking of the way most apps would show your data, and makes it really easy to see where your time went if you need more than the default timesheet view.
Now, as you may have figured by now, Timely is just about tracking your time. There’s no invoicing, no projects and tasks and extras. Just your time, in the simplest way possible to manage it. And honestly, that’s great. It’s the one time tracking app that doesn’t really take up your time to use it. You won’t have to switch to thinking of your projects and time in different ways — it works the way your calendar and task list already work, the way your brain is already used to thinking of time.
Conclusion
Timely is an all around winner if you have any reason at all to keep track of the time you spend on your work. It’s beautiful, innovative, and entirely unlike every other time tracking app in the best ways possible. And it’s free for personal use with up to 3 projects, then starts at just $14 a month for unlimited personal projects — or actually, if you sign up right now, it’s just $10/month with the current 30% launch discount. That’s cheaper than Harvest, for a time tracking app that’s far easier to use.
