A basic Python command line time tracker, inspired by a post on Hacker News by James Britt (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6897425).

Basics

To install:

pip install timetracker

To run:

timetracker

It's recommended that you alias it to @, for easier use:

alias @=timetracker

Using timetracker

Logging

Just invoke timetracker followed with a string of whatever you're working on:

@ repaired the flux capacitor

If invoked without arguments, it will prompt you to type a note.

timetracker will save your note, timestamped, into a .log file stored as follows:

$ROOT/YYYY/MM/dd.log

By default, $ROOT will be a timetracker directory in your home folder. You can change that by editing the config file ~/.config/timetracker/timetracker.conf; it look as follows:

root = '~/location/to/other/folder'
time_format = '%H:%M'

root is where the logs will be stored; time_format indicates how dates will be structured in the log files.

Viewing past logs

You can view past logs using the showlog command.

timetracker showlog will show today's log.

timetracker showlog dd/mm/yyyy will show the log for the given date; e.g. timetracker showlog 24/02/2014.

Some handy shortcuts are also available:

timetracker showlog yesterday

Tips

You can integrate it in your workflow in a nice way; for example, by writing a script that will invoke it every hour, or every time you do a git commit, etc. A good way to not forget about it is to have your terminal greeting remind you to use it!

The program appends to existing files in a non destructive way, so you can configure it to write to your Dropbox folder (or whatever other data backup system you use) - in that way, you can keep track of your notes across computers :)