RescueTime Is Getting Less and Less Usable
RescueTime is an excellent time-tracking tool — I’ve been using it since 2016. I really like its simple, seamless approach to tracking time.
All along, I’ve been pulling the total time and software development time out of its weekly reports and logging them into a Numbers spreadsheet for storage and visualization.
But over time, I started running into some problems.
Last year, it kept failing to record anything — the version seemed to have gone unmaintained for a long time, so I uninstalled it back then.
This year, I noticed the website had a complete makeover, the icon had changed too, and the new version looked a bit more modern, so I reinstalled it and tried it out for a few weeks.
But I found that its UI, which was ugly to begin with, now has a fresh coat of paint — yet I still can’t see the data I need at a glance, and the window takes up a third of my screen.
Before, it was fine just being a quiet presence, but over the past two weeks it’s popped up several times out of nowhere telling me: “You got distracted — you need to refocus.” I was literally writing code! So I clicked on its icon to see just how it decided I was distracted.
At a glance I can’t even see the data I care about. What’s the point of shoving last week’s data in my face like that?
And for today’s data, after I open the panel I have to wait a few seconds for it to refresh. Oh well — after all, all its data is stored server-side.
- The UI feels really messy now, it takes up a lot of screen real estate, and it wastes layout space.
- Recording and viewing data has a delay.
- It also throws false alerts.
- And some of the old data is incompatible with the new settings.
I want to find an alternative.
I asked ChatGPT, and it recommended a few. One was Timing — I really liked the interface when I saw it, but it’s also cloud-based and subscription-based.
There’s also a tool called Qbserve. The interface is decent too, and the data is stored purely locally on-device — that’s exactly what I was looking for.
Timing
Timing’s way of displaying things is exactly what I want, but it’s really expensive. And it’s cloud-based, so if something goes wrong, the data isn’t even mine to control.
Qbserve
One-time purchase, standalone. USD29 via PayPal. Or 数码荔枝 for RMB 99¥.
I’ll try the official version first.
This Timeline is so charming!
After two days of use, I feel it fits me perfectly.
I don’t record data to pass judgment on it — I just want it to record quietly enough, and when I open it, to instantly show me the intuitive data I care about most. And it pulls that off effortlessly!
Looks like I have no choice but to buy it.