jTimeSched

It’s important to know how time goes by, but it’s even better if you organize your activities according to it. Sure enough you know what needs to be done every day, but with applications like jTimeSched, you can increase productivity, and know exactly just how much time it takes to get a task done.

On the one hand, the application doesn’t require any time or effort to get it installed, so you can go ahead and run it from the moment download is done. All you need to do is check to see whether Java Runtime Environment is installed, because it’s a mandatory component for functionality.

The application keeps things simple, and presents all of its features in a clean interface. Most of the space is dedicated to the tasks you create, with the possibility to enable a real time updating log of all operations you perform.

Adding a new task inserts a new line in the table, and all you need to do is fill in details for title, with options to also modify date created, overall time, and time spent today. You’re free to add more tasks, and double-clicking one lets you add any notes of interest to help you out.

When you’re done, you can simply remove a task from the list, or leave it there in case you want to track history of your work. Time doesn’t necessarily have to be written down manually, because hitting the start button counts how much you spend working on it.

You can only activate the timer for one task at a time. Sadly, there’s no option to set a limit, or any alerts when a specific number of minutes pass. What’s more, you need to manually add up all values for overall efficiency analysis, because of the lack of options to generate reports.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that jTimeSched is a practical little utility you can use on the go to keep track of how much it takes to perform daily activities. Tasks remain on the list until manually removed, so the total time adds up. It could have used options to generate reports, or at least group tasks together, but overall deserves a try.