Workpuls Teramind ActivTrak Hubstaff DeskTime Time Doctor RescueTime Kickidler Veriato Work Examiner
OVERVIEW
Price $6/user/month $6/user/month $7.20/user/month $7/user/month $7/user/month $9.99/user/month $6/user/month $9.99/user/month $150/licence/year $60/licence (lifetime)
Free trial 7 days 7 days No 14 days 14 days 14 days 30 days 7 days Yes 30 days
Ease of use Very easy Difficult Very easy Easy Easy Very easy Very easy Very easy Very difficult Easy
TRACKING METHODS
Unlimited (tracker working 24/7)
Fixed (defined working hours)
Automatic (when computer is connected to a specified network)
Manual (start/stop)
Project based (track time only on projects)
GENERAL MONITORING FEATURES
Stealth mode
App and website usage
Real-time monitoring
Offline time tracking
Attendance
Activity levels
Keylogger
Geolocation
Remote desktop control
Website/activity blocking
SCREENSHOTS AND RECORDING
Screenshots
Screenshots on demand
Screen recording
PRODUCTIVITY FEATURES
Productivity trends
Websites and apps labeling
Category labeling
Productivity alerts
ADVANCED SECURITY FEATURES
User behavior analytics
Data loss prevention
Advanced file and web monitoring
REPORTING
Productivity reports
Team reports
Timelines
Email reports
Access management
PLATFORMS
Web
Mac desktop app
Windows desktop app
Linux desktop app
Mobile app iOS, Android iOS, Android iOS, Android iOS, Android iOS, Android Android
Browser extension Chrome Chrome Chrome
Other Citrix, VMware Chrome OS
OTHER
Support Phone, email, online Phone, email, online Phone, email, online Email, online Phone, email, online, in-person Online Phone, email, online Email, online, Viber, Whatsapp Phone, email, online, support ticket Phone, email, online
Knowledge base
Video tutorials
Integrations comming soon
API
Deployment cloud, on-premise cloud, on-premise, AWS, Azure cloud cloud cloud cloud cloud on-premise cloud, on-premise on-premise
Kronos Humanity Timeclockplus Tsheets Wheniwork Deputy Replicon Jibble EbilityTimeTracker OnTheClock BeeBole
OVERVIEW
Price(per month)Available upon requestFrom $2 per userAvailable upon requestFrom $6.40 per user+$16Free for up to 75 usersFrom $2.50 per userBasic plan:$30 for 5 users+$5 per additional userFrom $1.50 per employeeFrom $4 per user+$8From $2.20 per user$5.99 per user per month
Free trial30 days14 daysYes14 days14 days14 days30 days30 days,no credit card required
Ease of useDifficultEasyDifficultVery easyEasyEasyDifficultVery easyEasyEasyEasy
FEATURES
Timecard management
Scheduling
Shift Trading
Timesheets
Break time management
Real-time tracking
PTO Management
Payroll
Invoicing
Client billing
GPS tracking
Clock out reminders
Alerts
Manual time
PUNCH-IN METHODS
Web app
Mobile app
Time clock device
Time clock kiosk
Facial recognition
Fingerprint scanning
Geofencing
Group punch-in
REPORTING
Visual reports
Email reports
Time rounding
MANAGEMENT
Permissions
Manager approvals
Add time for others
Integrations
PLATFORMS
Web
Android app
iOS app
Mac desktop app
Windows desktop app
Linux desktop app
OTHER
SupportPhone and onlinePhone and onlinePhone,chat and onlinePhone and chatEmail and onlineChat and phonePhone,email,chat and onlinePhone and onlinePhone,email,chat and onlinePhone and onlineOnline chat and video support in English,French,and Spanish
Knowledge base
Video tutorials
Community forum
API

Take a moment and think about how you would define workplace productivity. What does your day have to look like in order for you to consider it productive?


Chances are that your definition contains one or more of these words and phrases: ‘amount of work’, ‘number of hours spent working’, ‘completed tasks’, or something similar. This is where the problem begins. We tend to define productivity quantitatively - in terms of the number of tasks we’ve managed to finish or the amount of time we’ve spent successfully resisting the temptation to open our Instagram. Then we try to ‘improve’ our productivity by blocking the distracting websites or creating a to-do list that we have to complete each day.

But that’s not the point at all.


In fact, thinking about productivity this way negatively impacts our job satisfaction, long-term professional development and work-life balance. What happens is that we get way too preoccupied with ‘finishing’ our tasks that we start favoring completeness over meaningfulness. We would rather reply to those insignificant emails that not even their senders care too much about than tackle that huge text we need to write, building we need to design, feature we have to code, or whatever it is that actually makes a difference to the company or client you work for (or to yourself, for that matter). We can simply tick the email thing off our to-do list faster.


The problem is that at the end of the day, we always feel like we fell short of what we were supposed to accomplish because there’s always more work to do and that huge task we need to work on isn’t completed. We’re tired and overworked and we have nothing to show for it.


Some have termed this concept productivity shame. Employees experience it more and more often, especially now that you’re available and online all the time. Employers have this bias too - they often believe that employee productivity can be measured only by the quantity of their output. It seems like it’s a never-ending cycle, but in fact it’s just a matter of perspective. And in this text, we’ll see how you can adjust yours so that you know how to recognize when you’ve done enough and regain some of that confidence in the quality of your performance.


Are Your Expectations Too High?


The most common problem from which productivity shame arises is unrealistic expectations. We’re really bad at estimating how much time we can spend working. We think it’s probably about six or seven hours every day, but that’s hardly ever the case in reality. This realization is why employee productivity tracker is such a popular tool these days. It makes it easier to see where your time goes and how much of it you can expect to dedicate to work.


So, if you take a look at your employee productivity tracker data and analyze it, you’ll see the real situation in terms of the number of hours you can spend working. It’s probably closer to two hours than it is to seven. This might be surprising, but we do tend to ignore the little distractions that we succumb to ever so often.


Once you see where your time goes during the day, you’ll have more realistic expectations about what you can manage to do. So, instead of giving yourself a six-hour workload that you’re not going to manage to finish, assign yourself a more manageable amount and you’ll have a greater sense of accomplishment. And don’t forget to constantly use employee productivity tracker to re-evaluate your performance on a regular basis.


Quantity vs Quality


As we’ve mentioned before, understanding that it’s not about how much work you do or even how long you spend working but about how much quality, innovation and meaningfulness you put in is one of the most fundamental things about productivity that you need to internalize.


Once you break the habit of looking at how many items you’ve crossed off your list, and start focusing on tasks that matter, even if they take a couple of days or weeks to complete, you won’t be disappointed by how ‘little’ you’ve done each day and start feeling satisfied by how much you’ve contributed to the big picture. So, it’s all about the priorities and you need to set yours in order to figure out what constitutes ‘enough’.


Strategies That Work


There are certain strategies that can help you maintain this kind of workflow, namely OKR and timeboxing. These aren’t new strategies, but they’ve recently become especially popular because huge influential corporations swear by them.


In short, OKR (objectives and key results) revolves around setting big ambitious goals and smaller tasks that can help you achieve those goals and then working towards them. These objectives aren’t supposed to be easy or even completely possible but the point is to have something to work towards and if you accomplish more that 60-70% of the goal, you can consider it a success. Similarly, timeboxing includes dividing your time into segments, assigning tasks to those timeboxes and then doing that task for just that long, even if you don’t manage to finish it.


The point of both these strategies and the reason why they’re considered healthy and reasonable ways to improve productivity is that you don’t need to complete your tasks. This reduces the amount of pressure we face and the emphasis that we tend to place on completion in favor of maintaining steady and meaningful progress. Plus, they work really well with employee productivity tracker which you can use to keep track of time.


Allow Yourself to Disconnect


Finally, in order to rid yourself of the feeling that you’re never doing enough, you need to learn how to disconnect from work when you finish with it for the day. You’re required to work for 8 hours, so unless there’s something that absolutely can’t wait, detach yourself from your work when this period is over. Leave your laptop in the office, put your work phone on silent mode, turn off your employee productivity tracker, and go home.


This will reinforce the idea that you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do for the day. It’ll also give you back some of the work-life balance that we tend to lose when we make ourselves available in the evenings and weekends.


Conclusion


Now more than ever, there’s a pressure on employees to do more work in less time because they finally have all the digital tools that make it easier to perform many tasks but also to stay connected even after work. However, ticking things off your to-do list just for the sake of having a sense of quantitative accomplishment can make you lose sight of the tasks and projects that are actually important. Hopefully, this article has helped you re-prioritize your workload and have more productive days - but in the right way.


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Productivity and Efficiency Improvements

How to Know When You’ve Done Enough: The Art of Not Disappointing Yourself

Written by
Kristina Valjarevic
Published on
March 12, 2020

Take a moment and think about how you would define workplace productivity. What does your day have to look like in order for you to consider it productive?


Chances are that your definition contains one or more of these words and phrases: ‘amount of work’, ‘number of hours spent working’, ‘completed tasks’, or something similar. This is where the problem begins. We tend to define productivity quantitatively - in terms of the number of tasks we’ve managed to finish or the amount of time we’ve spent successfully resisting the temptation to open our Instagram. Then we try to ‘improve’ our productivity by blocking the distracting websites or creating a to-do list that we have to complete each day.

But that’s not the point at all.


In fact, thinking about productivity this way negatively impacts our job satisfaction, long-term professional development and work-life balance. What happens is that we get way too preoccupied with ‘finishing’ our tasks that we start favoring completeness over meaningfulness. We would rather reply to those insignificant emails that not even their senders care too much about than tackle that huge text we need to write, building we need to design, feature we have to code, or whatever it is that actually makes a difference to the company or client you work for (or to yourself, for that matter). We can simply tick the email thing off our to-do list faster.


The problem is that at the end of the day, we always feel like we fell short of what we were supposed to accomplish because there’s always more work to do and that huge task we need to work on isn’t completed. We’re tired and overworked and we have nothing to show for it.


Some have termed this concept productivity shame. Employees experience it more and more often, especially now that you’re available and online all the time. Employers have this bias too - they often believe that employee productivity can be measured only by the quantity of their output. It seems like it’s a never-ending cycle, but in fact it’s just a matter of perspective. And in this text, we’ll see how you can adjust yours so that you know how to recognize when you’ve done enough and regain some of that confidence in the quality of your performance.


Are Your Expectations Too High?


The most common problem from which productivity shame arises is unrealistic expectations. We’re really bad at estimating how much time we can spend working. We think it’s probably about six or seven hours every day, but that’s hardly ever the case in reality. This realization is why employee productivity tracker is such a popular tool these days. It makes it easier to see where your time goes and how much of it you can expect to dedicate to work.


So, if you take a look at your employee productivity tracker data and analyze it, you’ll see the real situation in terms of the number of hours you can spend working. It’s probably closer to two hours than it is to seven. This might be surprising, but we do tend to ignore the little distractions that we succumb to ever so often.


Once you see where your time goes during the day, you’ll have more realistic expectations about what you can manage to do. So, instead of giving yourself a six-hour workload that you’re not going to manage to finish, assign yourself a more manageable amount and you’ll have a greater sense of accomplishment. And don’t forget to constantly use employee productivity tracker to re-evaluate your performance on a regular basis.


Quantity vs Quality


As we’ve mentioned before, understanding that it’s not about how much work you do or even how long you spend working but about how much quality, innovation and meaningfulness you put in is one of the most fundamental things about productivity that you need to internalize.


Once you break the habit of looking at how many items you’ve crossed off your list, and start focusing on tasks that matter, even if they take a couple of days or weeks to complete, you won’t be disappointed by how ‘little’ you’ve done each day and start feeling satisfied by how much you’ve contributed to the big picture. So, it’s all about the priorities and you need to set yours in order to figure out what constitutes ‘enough’.


Strategies That Work


There are certain strategies that can help you maintain this kind of workflow, namely OKR and timeboxing. These aren’t new strategies, but they’ve recently become especially popular because huge influential corporations swear by them.


In short, OKR (objectives and key results) revolves around setting big ambitious goals and smaller tasks that can help you achieve those goals and then working towards them. These objectives aren’t supposed to be easy or even completely possible but the point is to have something to work towards and if you accomplish more that 60-70% of the goal, you can consider it a success. Similarly, timeboxing includes dividing your time into segments, assigning tasks to those timeboxes and then doing that task for just that long, even if you don’t manage to finish it.


The point of both these strategies and the reason why they’re considered healthy and reasonable ways to improve productivity is that you don’t need to complete your tasks. This reduces the amount of pressure we face and the emphasis that we tend to place on completion in favor of maintaining steady and meaningful progress. Plus, they work really well with employee productivity tracker which you can use to keep track of time.


Allow Yourself to Disconnect


Finally, in order to rid yourself of the feeling that you’re never doing enough, you need to learn how to disconnect from work when you finish with it for the day. You’re required to work for 8 hours, so unless there’s something that absolutely can’t wait, detach yourself from your work when this period is over. Leave your laptop in the office, put your work phone on silent mode, turn off your employee productivity tracker, and go home.


This will reinforce the idea that you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do for the day. It’ll also give you back some of the work-life balance that we tend to lose when we make ourselves available in the evenings and weekends.


Conclusion


Now more than ever, there’s a pressure on employees to do more work in less time because they finally have all the digital tools that make it easier to perform many tasks but also to stay connected even after work. However, ticking things off your to-do list just for the sake of having a sense of quantitative accomplishment can make you lose sight of the tasks and projects that are actually important. Hopefully, this article has helped you re-prioritize your workload and have more productive days - but in the right way.