Minuteur, Keeps Track of Your Time

Regardless of what you do on your computer, whether it is working or playing or anything else, you spend a certain amount of time doing it. For some of those activities, the time spent on them is irrelevant, for others, time is of the utmost importance. Usually, timekeeping is something that is done on the fly by taking an occasional glance at the system clock and estimating the breaks taken; however, this method is nowhere near precise. For those who work on an hourly basis, time is pretty important, especially when you have several projects going on at the same time, keeping track of exactly how much you work on each and keeping a detailed record is a task in itself. Similarly, when you are working under a deadline, you want to know exactly how long you still have left to work, and since you are working on an hourly basis and often across several days and weeks, keeping track of how much time you still have left can be difficult.

To help in precise timekeeping, we can make use of our computer and an application such as Minuteur.

What it does
Minuteur is a small time keeping application that can act as a stopwatch and as a count down watch, while also keeping a detailed record of the timing operations it performs.

It is quite simple to use, and at the same time quite customizable and flexible so that it can adapt to your particular needs.

Interface
Minuteur is a small application, because it is the kind of tool you want to have up and running a lot of the time, and you do not want it to take up too much screen real estate or be too intrusive. Everything is contained in its minute windows, from controls to displays and several of the advanced functions, can be easily accessed through contextual menus.

The top half of the window is a time scale which moves dynamically as time passes, and at the bottom are all of the little buttons you use to control it. The buttons are round and simple, but color-coded to make it easier to see what is what at a glance. Those who are more keyboard-orientated will be pleased to know that almost everything can be done using the keyboard, using the predefined shortcuts, which unfortunately are not customizable.

Stopwatch
This is one of the two main ways in which you can use this application. To start the stopwatch, you just press the blue button on the right and it will automatically start keeping track of the time elapsed. You can pause and resume the stopwatch function at any time by using the appropriate button, which is conveniently placed in the middle of the window, below the current time indicator.

The time elapsed is shown both in the time scale and in a counter to the left of the window. This counter can show either the time elapsed or, alternatively, if you click on it, it will change into 'money mode' and display the amount of money accumulated based on your fee per hour which you set up in the preferences.

Countdown
This is the second main use of this program. To start a countdown simply press the green button and it will start counting down from the time currently specified. You can choose the count down interval by clicking on the left timer where a pop up menu will appear. By default the duration is two hours, but this can be changed. Alternatively, you can drag the time scale and scrub to the desired time, pressing the Command key to scrub faster.

Similarly to a stopwatch, the countdown can be paused and resumed by clicking the middle button.

Detailed records
When using the Minuteur's stopwatch function, the program will keep a record of all the work sessions spent on a certain task. The tasks themselves are added to the task list, and can be changed at any time. Within each task, the program will automatically save all the work sessions, with a date, time of start and duration, and an optional description.
Whenever you stop the stopwatch, you will be automatically taken to the task details where you can see the new entry and can type in your own description of the session.

The program can also display the total time spent on a task and the cost of the task, at the bottom of the window.

The Good
Simple to use, flexible timekeeping tool, with a great look and feel.

The Bad
The keyboard shortcuts cannot be customized and there is no way to hide the titlebar of the program's window that takes up a third of the window size.

The Truth
If you are looking for a good time keeping tool, this is it. A very well designed piece of software.

Check out the screenshot below: