Hello,

I just put a script up on my site that I thought you guys might find helpful:

http://gregcerveny.com/20061109/keeping-a-time-log-bash-script/

n order to accurately judge how I?m spending my time, I?ve created a simple time log script. When I start my day I open up my command prompt and type.

l start

This creates a single line entry in log.txt

11/09/06 10:33:23 start

As you can see, some mornings I get a later start. Then, whenever I finish a task, or remember to make a log entry, I just summarize what I did since the last entry.

11/09/06 10:38:50 comment page
11/09/06 10:59:34 comment on flickr photos
11/09/06 11:00:27 look at analytics

Everything is always entered as a summary since the last entry. This prevents the need to regularly update the time log or to predict what I am doing in the future. The only time I enter a time specific entry is for starting/switching projects, finishing for the day, or taking a break.

1/09/06 11:01:32 break
11/09/06 11:04:23 start tadpoled

This is powered by a simple bash script I run within cygwin.

#!/bin/sh
MESSAGE=$*
echo -e `date '+%D %T'`"\t$MESSAGE" >> log.txt

I have it aliased with ?l? for log to make it easier.

alias l='log.sh'

It?s kept as simple as possible and really just a good check-in.