WorkWatch

WorkWatch is a Linux terminal program for honest worktime tracking and billing. It is a tool for help, not for enforcing anything. It is free software and is distributed under the terms of GNU General Public License.

The program's name is a combination of "work" and "stopwatch" words. It really does like a stopwatch but measuring hours and minutes. Well, in fact, it measures milliseconds in order to measure very accurate time but it isn't fully visible by the user who cares only hours and minutes.

The worktime is measured fully interactively because it is more honest and asserts more time ctonrol than classic static measurements in other timetrackers. It requires more mindfulness from user but also (and maybe much more) from developer. However time is very precious resource in today's world so I think it can help to make time used better.

Installation

It is pure JavaScript and Node.js application so you need npm to install. Install it globally for convenient usage.

$ npm install -g workwatch

Since version 0.0.3 you have to create a data directory used for data files. Previous version were doing it automatically but this helper feature has been removed. To create a data directory just type:

$ mkdir /path/to/data/dir

The most default data directory is $HOME/.workwatch. If you are making an update the data directory shouldn't be harmed during procedure since there is no special script to create or modify it.

Usage

To start your first measurement just type:

$ workwatch start

After you finished your work just go to the program's screen and press CTRL+C to stop measurement. If you want it to be stored in your worklog type the following command:

$ workwatch reset

Agree to store it and assign it a project or task you were working on. If you want to view the entire worklog type:

$ workwatch log

The program measures time interactively. It measures hours and minutes taking every finished minute into account. You can stop and resume the measurement by pressing CTRL+C and then calling workwatch start again.

You can make WorkWatch to consider some additional time when you stop the measurement. This is called time rounding because the program will round the time count up by one minute.

You can make as many measurements as you can starting from 1-minute long ones up to 23:59 on the given day. You can't make measurements excessing that time. The program will automatically stop at 23:59 and you will be able to continue next day after reseting.

Documentation

For full program usage, see the User Guide.

For further program development and discussion see the project's issues.

License

Unlike many Node.js packages, I distribute WorkWatch and its documentation under the GNU GPL license version 3 or later.