Tick

I've realised that I really should be doing some sort of time tracking to figure out how well I'm using my time. I'd like to know how much I'm spending in productive work compared the work time wasted to tinkering about, spending time in meetings and blogging.

After a quick search, I've settled on using Tick. I've been tinkering around with Tick for a couple days now, and I think it fits almost right into what I need.

Pros:

• Simple, easy to use
• Integrates with Basecamp
• Clear, simple reports
• Supports several users - track time of your whole team
  

Cons:

• The non-free features, like Basecamp integration, are a bit pricey. 9$US a month is expensive for just a time-tracker. I'm not sure I'll keep with it after my free preview is finished for this reason.
  
• The Basecamp integration does not import milestones and to-do items, which are exactly the items I want to keep track time on.
• Adding new tasks to a project requires jumping through a few pages. It would be much better to be able to create tasks on the Time Card page.

Overall, it's a good product, and worth keeping tabs on. However, I'm not convinced that it is yet the killer app for time-tracking. The biggest sticking point is the price. I'm not saying it should be free, but the 9$US a month for the basic package is a bit steep. Especially to those of us that can't file it as a business expense and get reimbursed.

Idea Notes

Here's an item for the wishlist.

What I need is a good way to put together notes on ideas and initial sources that I have regarding nascent research projects. It needs to be a notebook, whiteboard & citation manager, orgranised by topics.

This sort of tool would let me create everything from back-of-the-napkin sketches to literature reviews to full-blown research proposals. When a project moves into the real work and research, then other tools would be appropriate.

I havn't found a tool that lets me do this nicely yet, though I haven't done any real inquiries into this idea either.

Maintaining Good Collaborative Practices

It's difficult to introduce a tool into another's work habits. And, as I've come to realise, it's much harder to keep a tool in another's work habits.

This point has left me with a bit of a conundrum lately. There are a number of tools that offer collaborative features that have been very useful to me lately. However, I've been running into the very large stumbling block that it's has been very difficult to keep my colleagues that are working on the same project using these tools.

Particularly, I've been extensively using Basecamp, Writely & CiteULike. These have all become indispensable tools in my work. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep the data contained in these tools up-to-date as my colleagues have been inconsistent in their usage of these tools.

I do save time by using these tools; I waste time because others are not using these tools. I'm not sure if on the balance I've gained something.

What to do?

Vitaly Friedman's Notebook: List of nifty tools for drawing diagrams, charts and flow-charts

Vitaly Friedman's Notebook: List of nifty tools for drawing diagrams, charts and flow-charts

That article contains a nice list of tools for the creation of charts and diagrams, items that are often needed in scientific writing. Some allow for collaboration and some not. I'll need to take a thorough investigation of the tools on this list to see how they stack up. Future posts will probably follow with some analyses.