Notes on where your time goes

Use cases

What an automatic work journal is actually for.

• An app for ADHD time blindness: making lost hours visible - Time blindness means the hours vanish without a trace. An automatic work journal replays where they went - no timers to remember, no logging to forget.
• How to write standup updates automatically from your work history - Stop reconstructing yesterday from memory. A work journal that records your screen can write your standup update for you - here is the exact workflow.
• How to review your deep work without a distraction blocker - Blockers police you in the moment. A review habit changes behavior over weeks. How to run a deep-work review from an automatic timeline of your day.

Guides

Straight answers to the questions people ask about time tracking on a Mac.

• Is Dayflow safe? What a screen-recording time tracker can and can't see - Dayflow records your screen, so the safety question deserves a real answer - where recordings are stored, what leaves your Mac, and how to verify every claim in the source code.
• How to keep a Mac timesheet without manual entry - Timekeeping software for Mac that fills itself in - how automatic timesheet tools work, which ones suit billing vs self-tracking, and a setup that takes five minutes.
• How to remember what you worked on last week - For performance reviews, invoices, and Friday updates - why memory fails at reconstructing work, and how to have a searchable record instead of a guess.
• How much battery does a screen-recording time tracker use? - Almost none, if it is built right - here are the actual numbers. Why one frame every 10 seconds costs ~100MB of RAM, under 1% CPU, and minutes of battery per day.
• How to see where your time goes on a Mac (no timers required) - Three ways to get an honest record of your Mac time - the built-in Screen Time report, an open-source app logger, and an AI work journal - with the setup for each.
• Time tracking without surveillance: tracking for yourself, not your boss - Most "time tracking software" is employee monitoring wearing a productivity costume. What separates self-tracking from surveillance, and the tools built so reporting to anyone is impossible.
• What is an automatic time tracker? - An automatic time tracker records where your time goes with no timers and no manual entry. How the three kinds work - app loggers, screen-based journals, and AI memory tools - and how to pick.

The comparison pages

The full head-to-head pages live outside the blog:

• The best automatic time trackers for Mac
• RescueTime alternatives · Rize alternatives · Timing alternatives · Timely alternatives · Memtime alternatives · TMetric alternatives
• ActivityWatch vs Dayflow · Apple Screen Time vs Dayflow
• Toggl on a Mac · Clockify on a Mac