I spend a lot of time at my desk as a writer, but not all of that time is of equal value. If you have a desk job, I suspect you would also be surprised to see how you actually spend your time. On an hour-by-hour basis, I was spending a lot less time actually writing and more time swapping between Discord and Facebook Messenger. What I thought were small, harmless diversions were actually sapping my productivity and breaking my workflow.

I wouldn't have realized this without downloading ActivityWatch. It's a free and open-source app that tracks the active window on your machine, breaking down how you're spending your time minute-by-minute. I've never believed in any magic bullet for improving productivity, but ActivityWatch is about the closest I've found. By pinpointing how I was wasting time, I've started to get more done in a shorter time because I'm no longer opening up tabs that have nothing to do with my current task.

ActivityWatch provides a detailed breakdown of how I spend my time

Multiple views and data points

When you first install ActivityWatch, it will take several minutes before any data is available for viewing. The application has to have tracked your activity for a time before it will display in the Activity View, but once it does, the breakdown it offers is impressive. By default, there are six main views in the summary: Top Applications, Top Window Titles, Timeline (bar chart), Top Categories, Category Tree, and Category Sunburst. You can add more visualizations (or change existing ones) by clicking the gear icon beside the name of any view.

You can even add custom views, although you have to use a specific watcher—the backend trackers used by ActivityWatch — to achieve that. There are dozens of additional watchers available in the documentation, but more on that later. Aside from the Summary, you can also view specific information by selecting either Window, Browser, or Editor on the nav bar at the top of the screen. The catch? If you don't enable the correct watchers, at least two of the views will have no data to offer.

It tracks more than just where you spend your time, but whether you're working at all

Brb, AFK

If you're inactive for more than three minutes, ActivityWatch marks you as AFK and logs that time. It's a surprise when I check my tracking and see I've been AFK for five minutes; after all, I was only checking out that video someone sent me. It was another wake-up call for me with regard to how I work. Even if I'm on the proper window on my laptop, it doesn't matter if I am staring off into space or scrolling social media on my phone.

This information can be viewed in the Timeline view. It breaks it down into two windows: the periods when you're AFK or not, and exactly what you were doing during that time. That proved helpful for identifying distraction triggers; I found that I often lost focus when shifting from one window to another, or when I had to log into something. As I said before, it's not a panacea for staying focused, but it helps me figure out where the problems are.

ActivityWatch is highly customizable

It can be changed to match your workflow

One of the great things about ActivityWatch is how much control it puts in the hands of the user. The Settings menu alone offers a lot of granular options, including what time each day begins and which day the week starts on. I can set it to always count me as active when specific windows are open, such as Zoom or Teams, and I can change the categorization. By default, it counts Google Docs, LibreOffice, and ReText as "Work" and Github (among others) as "Programming." I don't do much programming work, but I do use Github for exploring open-source software. I can change the way it ranks those sites to something closer to how I actually use them, like "Research."

Beyond that, the various watchers available in ActivityWatch's documentation open a lot of doors. For instance, there's one that tracks specific vault information and markdown files in Obsidian, while another tracks similar information in Neovim. There's even a watcher that can show the exact tracks that played on Spotify during a given window. The ActivityWatch community has poured a tremendous amount of effort into expanding the functionality of the base app.

Too much data can be a bad thing

It's easy to get overwhelmed

Here's the thing: ActivityWatch is really good at tracking what you do. It's easy to forget that it's a tool to help you, and instead view it as an overbearing teacher or authority figure breathing down your neck. I found myself more focused at times, not because I wanted to be, but because I was afraid of ActivityWatch showing too long an AFK period. And for what? No one is going to see this data but me. It's a diagnostic tool, not an employer grading my performance. There are times when it's necessary to get up and walk around, whether to clear your head or just stretch your legs. We aren't designed to be productive 100 percent of the time. ActivityWatch is powerful, but it should work for you — not the other way around.

There's a reason it isn't gamified

Treat it like what it is: a tool

ActivityWatch doesn't offer streaks or badges. The closest thing it has to being gamified is the "score" view, and that is a loose algorithm based on how much time you've spent in the "work" category. It shows a percentage of how productive you are, but it isn't a default view, and you don't have to enable it. I didn't find a use for it. If you find yourself pressured to work a certain way because of ActivityWatch's graphs, the best thing to do is change your mindset. Check the logs every so often—once a day, once a week, whatever works for you — and look for usage patterns. After that, turn it off.

It's not a judge you're trying to impress. It's a tool for carving through the distractions.

ActivityWatch is one of the most boring but useful apps I've found

ActivityWatch has a ton of customization options, and it's interesting to see how I work. But from a functionality standpoint? It provides information, nothing more. The rest is up to me. Despite that, it has done more to improve my productivity than the majority of apps I've used.