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Notes on where your time goes

Guides, use cases, and honest comparisons about automatic time tracking on a Mac - written by the people building the free, open-source option.

New to the category? Start with how automatic time tracking works on a Mac, including the privacy and pricing tradeoffs between local and cloud-based trackers.

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 - Use a daily standup template with a completed example and editable draft. Turn work history into yesterday, today, and blockers without inventing outcomes.
How to review your deep work without a distraction blocker - Review a planned focus block against your calendar and work history, then choose one practical change for next week.

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 - Where Dayflow stores recordings, what each AI mode sends off-device, and which behavior you can verify in the open-source Mac client.
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 - Reconstruct last week from your calendar, tasks, and work journal. Verify outcomes before writing a review, status update, or invoice.
How much battery does a screen-recording time tracker use? - Capture and AI analysis have different resource costs. How to compare Dayflow's local and cloud modes on your Mac without relying on unsupported battery estimates.
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 - Learn what separates private self-tracking from employee surveillance, which data each tool collects, and how local-first time tracking protects your work.
What is an automatic time tracker? - Automatic time trackers log work without manual timers. Compare app logging, screen-based journals, and AI memory tools, then choose the right model.

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