How do you keep track of time developing?

Its called a clock and reading the time 

Edited by MadDog - 22 December 2004 at 1:00am

Got to agree with MadDog on this one. Unless you are going to jack around with something like MS Project, then the watch and some database of notes is the way to go for me.

When I'm working on a web site, I rarely work on just 1 or 2 pages. I have a set of goals that I try to accomplish. If I'm on an hourly deal (or just trying to gauge my time), then I make a note of when I start, what I do, and when I finish. Then I record that information in my client's files or wherever.

There are probably better ways to do this with software, but I haven't found anything yet that actually "saves" me time. Most of them actually cost me more time trying to work with the app to track the time.

Another suggestion that is not too time consuming is to use a calendaring app such as Mozilla's calendar or Sunbird (still in beta) or even MS Outlook. Start a task, do you goals, and then stop the task. You can then look back later and see where you time was being spent. My problem has always been remembering to start or stop the task.

I suppose you could also write a fairly easy database app in Access or MySQL to track this as well. Then if you ever wanted to really manipulate the data, it would be a little easier to deal with. I still think that a watch and notepad is easier. Maybe at the end of the day (or weekly) then input that data into a database or app or spreadsheet.