I'm pretty slow on the uptake sometimes. Leon Bambrick's TimeSnapper app was the top pick of the Larkware 2005 Developer Tool contest. I knew then that I needed to look at this program, but it unfortunately was on a long list of things I needed to do. Over the last few weeks, however, it bubbled up to the top, as I have been thinking about the crazy way I work when I'm in front of the computer. With little patience at my disposal and always so much to do, I can't even wait 5 seconds for something to load up on my computer, and will go do something else to fill the void. Check email (which of course could steer me on a whole new course at the flip of a switch), newsgroups, the news, my blog reader, my own blog stats, another client project that I had a thought about. Anything and everything. And it's got me a little worried.

So I decided I would try TimeSnapper to really see if it's true. How long do I stay focused on any one project over the course of the day. And the answer is scary, but I will keep that to myself.

The program is surprisingly lightweight, taking advantage of our massive hard drives rather than memory. Not only can I gather evidence of my terrible habits (which can someday be used to cure me of them?), I can also go back and figure out when I stopped working on something billable even if I forgot to log out of my timeclock application.

Not only that, but in it's simplicity, as one user testimonial says "it just works". Thanks Leon. I'm not really sure if this is going to be a healthy mirror to hold up to myself, but hopefully it will have good effects!!