I needed a better way to track the time I spend on web design, development and maintenance projects, and several months ago, a friend recommended Hamster.

Tracking Time with Hamster

Hamster is a Gnome application that sits in a panel so you can access it easily. It’s available in the repositories of several Linux distributions and, if you’re an Ubuntu user, there are APT sources you can add to install via Synaptic.

After tracking my time for several months, I’m consistently surprised at the blatant discrepancy between how much time I thought I spent on a project and the actual amount of time I actually worked.

If you’re looking for a way to better understand and influence where your time goes, give Hamster a try.