RescueTime is dead, Long Live WakaTime
Hi all,
I checked in on my beeminder Program More goal today, and noticed no time had been collected yesterday, which is weird as I know I spent time on my PC and around 2 hours of that coding.
I then went to check RescueTime, to see if the issue was between them and unfortunately it was not. The RescueTime Linux app stopped being supported at least 18 days ago according to their help docs, and it has already failed to keep syncing with their service. This is a real shame as I still had a year and a half of subscription left with them before my next renewal.
Fortunately, a little while ago (around May 2024), I had a look at WakaTime and installed it on my main computer, and have been using it since for free. I've liked it and it gives way more detailed insights into coding, but obviously lacks any insight into how the rest of your time on your PC is spent, which I did like about RescueTime.
As I said though, I do like the insights I now get that I couldn't before, such as what files I'm spending my time in and how much time I'm spending on each individual project - for example we can see I've spent nearly 44 hours on Webmail Lookup.
I was also thinking about the time spent coding in the browser, such as researching and debugging the website, but I think that is a minimal amount of time, and when I reconnected BeeMinder for my Replacement Goal it informed me that with just IDE time alone, I spend on average 1 hour 17 minutes a day coding, so for now I'm not using the browser extension which they do offer. Since I'm hitting it so consistently it might soon be time to move the goalposts up a little - maybe an hour and a half daily.
Fortunately for me, I had 30 days saved up from my previous goal, so archiving taking 7 days wasn't really a problem - although I'm sure BeeMinder would have let me off if I emailed them and explained the situation. I also added those 30 days as additional time to my new goal, so I'm not immediately in hot water just because I had to move time tracking platforms. I did lose whatever time was yesterday, but I'd rather just call it 0 so that I know I didn't overestimate - it only means I have to spend a little more time programming anyway.
I also decided to pay for WakaTime now, since it'll be my main time tracking app going forward, I just never wanted to pay for two at once. Since it is implemented as plugins for each code editor, I don't see them running away from Linux support anytime soon (especially since I expect a lot of developers are on Linux). I think it'll be a net positive over time, especially since I did catch RescueTime on a few occasions collecting data while I was AFK, which has surely skewed my RescueTime data somewhat.
Thanks for reading and have a great day.
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This post was last edited 2 months, 1 week ago.