17 Best Online Time Management Tools to Increase Productivity (In Less Time)

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If you’re seriously considering investing in good time management software then this article is for you. Whether you’re a freelancer wanting to stay organized when on a tight schedule or a project manager looking to efficiently utilize your team’s work hours, effective time management is the need of the hour. 

You might be looking for some effective time management tips for work, but using top-rate online time management tools is the best way to make sure your valuable work time is not wasted.

No matter how you work, you would need time management apps to track how much time you are spending on what activities while at work. Time management refers to how you schedule and organize your time for different activities but at the same time, there are several challenges in how you manage your time. 

If you want to build a team that is effective in time management, I have summed up the top 17 time management tools that are considered as the best in the market today. 

Here is a quick overview, followed by their best features and pricing.

17 Time Management Tools That Can Help You Right Away

When it comes to efficient project management and seamless team collaboration, nothing beats ProofHub. This all-in-one offers project teams of any size, across various industry verticals, a suite of advanced features put in one place including powerful time management software. 

Ironically, in this age of hectic work schedules, 82% of people don’t have a time management system.  

If your team is consistently struggling to meet deadlines and you have little idea of how much time your team members are spending on different tasks and projects, using the best online time management tool is the best thing you can do right now. 

So, how does ProofHub’s time-tracking system solve your time management woes? 

Let’s understand how it works and helps businesses and their employees be more productive. 

• Timesheets.

  Manual time entries are prone to errors and faux entries. Using ProofHub, you can create timesheets, set time estimates, and accurately track time spent on tasks and projects to have a clear picture of how much time every individual team member spent on assigned tasks.

• Set time estimates.

  Working on any task without knowing its estimated time period is likely to result in dragging it unnecessarily long. ProofHub’s time management tool allows you to set time estimates for different tasks on timesheets. You can compare the actual time spent on the completion of each task against the estimated time and get notified whenever the tracked time exceeds the estimates. 

• Automatic timers.

  Tracking time spent on tasks you do is effortless with automatic timers. Start timers as you start working on a new task, pause them as you take breaks or switch to other tasks, and stop them once you finish a particular task. 

• Manual time logging.

  You can manually enter the time it took to get the work done and

  track time spent for billable or non-billable hours manually. 

• All-time data in one place.

  ProofHub allows you to have a comprehensive view of all time data of people across all projects, billable or non-billable, project progress, and status in bird’s eye view without the need to jump through projects. 

• Export timesheets.

  Export timesheets and use them for client invoicing, payroll, estimation, and even time management. 

• Archive timesheets.

  Archive timesheets from the Time section and use them later whenever required.

• Time reports. Using ProofHub’s online time management tool, you can create custom time reports of people and projects. It helps you to analyze how efficient individuals of your teams are as you visualize their output in a given time period.

Remove time wastage from work with ProofHub’s time tracking tool. Sign up now and save 40%! Limited time offer.

2. DeskTime

DeskTime is a desktop and mobile time tracking app for companies and freelancers. It’s filled with practical tools for anyone who wants to get more out of their time spent at work. This includes powerful features for productivity measurement, attendance tracking, and effective workflow management that boosts performance for teams and individuals alike.

DeskTime has integrations with project management apps that allows users to connect the time tracker with widely used tools like Asana, Basecamp, Jira, Trello, and GitLab, as well as Google and Outlook Calendars.

Here’s what makes DeskTime so popular.*

• Automatic online and idle time tracking

• Project and task time tracking

• Productivity calculation

• Absence calendar

• Shift Scheduling

• Invoicing and budgeting

• Smart reporting and data exports

• Popular management tool integrations

* Features vary between plans.

Pricing: Limited free plan for 1 user; Pro Plan $7 per user/ month. Discounts available for bigger teams and Annual plans.

3. Hubstaff

Hubstaff’s employee time tracking software allows the team to track work hours spent on every single project and task. Employees can choose when they want to record their time and also track how much time they spent on a particular task or project.

Here’s what makes this online time management software so popular.

• Focus more on completing work than tracking it

• Smart web, desktop, and mobile apps

• Feature-rich dashboard for easy team management

• Record time on the road with mobile-based time tracking

• Streamlines process for managing teams and payments

Pricing: Basic plan at $7/user/month and premium plan at $10/user/month. 

4. Calendar

Calendar is the best solution for simple and easy scheduling. It also adds helpful features such as a unified online calendar, time-usage analytics, and finding mutually agreeable meeting times easily. No other calendar tool offers all of these features together. Calendar’s unified dashboard allows users to view all of their different calendars across Google, Outlook, and Apple in one user-friendly interface.

Calendar also offers all of the scheduling tools you and your team need to effortlessly fill up a customized dashboard. Calendar accomplishes this via the use of emailable smart links. These smart links display your availability — at all times and across all of your different calendars —  making it brain-dead simple for the recipient to select and click a suitable time slot. Easy, one-click booking eliminates phone calls, email ping-pong, and scheduling mistakes.

Calendar smart links are available in several different styles that include one-on-one meetings, round robin, and multihost. Multihost provides links that display the availability of multiple people that can be checked using one link. Group scheduling links enable multiple people to book the same time slot, making it the perfect solution for scheduling training sessions or webinars.

What makes Calendar stand out in the crowd?

• Currently, Calendar is the only tool on the market that solves both your calendaring and scheduling needs in one easy-to-use package.
• Simple, intuitive smart links make it easy for others to schedule time with you.
• Calendar offers surprisingly competitive pricing given its functionality.
• Additional features such as Find a Time, insightful usage analytics, and others separate Calendar from other software packages.

Pricing: Calendar offers a limited free plan. The standard plan is priced at $6 per month per user. Calendar also offers a Pro Plan priced at $8 per month per user. Discounts are available for schools, non-profits, and larger teams.

Toggl makes time tracking so simple that teams love using it. This is a time tracking app that integrates with different project management systems. Toggl also has integrations for Chrome, Mozilla, Android, iPhone, and desktop

Here’s what makes Toggl so popular as one of the best tools for time management today.

• Unlimited projects and sub-projects for accurate time tracking

• Reports featuring team progress

• Online & offline time tracking

• Assign billable rates to your task

Pricing: From $9 /user/month.

6. Zapier

Zapier is an online automation tool that can connect two or more apps to automate repetitive tasks. With tools like Zapier, you can connect and automate your apps with just a few clicks. With Zapier, you can search for your favorite apps and choose from a list of “Zaps” (integrations), or create your own workflow.

Here’s what makes Zapier so popular.

• Sync with Google Calendar

• Publically share apps

• Set up triggers and actions

• Automate repetitive tasks

Pricing:  Starter plan at $19.99 per month, billed annually. 

Missing deadlines? Use ProofHub to stay on top of your schedule. Book your DEMO ASAP!

7. Focus booster

Focus booster is one of the most reliable time management software available today. With Focus booster, you can stop procrastinating and track your time to achieve more, understand how you use your time and feel satisfied knowing you are productive. Focus booster is ideal for freelancers, students and driven individuals, anyone with big goals.

Here’s what makes Focus booster so popular.

• Record your sessions and your timesheets will be created 

• Know when your next break is with top mini timer

• Work in short sharp bursts followed by short breaks, to be most effective

• Quick and easy reporting to share reports or use them to create invoices in seconds

Pricing: Individual plan at $2.99 and a professional plan at $4.99. 

8. TimeCamp 

TimeCamp allows you to track time and assign it to tasks in multiple ways. The most common is the manual timesheet, thanks to which you can either enter the duration for the desired task or use a classic start/stop method with our timer. It uses time-tracking for billing clients, measuring project profitability, or paying employees at the end of the month. 

Here’s what makes TimeCamp so popular.

• Automatic billable & non-billable time tracking

• Integrated payment getaway

• Budgeting in $ or time

• Powerful reporting

• Mobile & desktop apps

Pricing: Basic plan at $5.25/user per month and Pro plan at $7.50/user per month.

Clockify is a time tracking solution that is 100% free, full-featured for teams. It is designed for teams that can be used in the cloud or installed on Mac, Windows, or Linux OS. Clockify’s free plan includes unlimited core functionality as well as unlimited users, unlimited projects, and many other features.

Here’s what makes Clockify so popular.

• Track time using a stopwatch

• Manual mode to enter hours

• Track time on projects

• Mark time as billable

• Quickly load activities each week

Pricing: Unlimited users, free forever.

10. TSheets 

Talk of the best tools for time management and TSheets cannot be far behind. TSheets by QuickBooks offer easy time tracking through a web, mobile and time clock kiosk. Employees can clock in or clock out with just one click. This is the highest-rated app on top review hubs. 

Here’s what makes TSheets so popular.

• Mobile timesheets from an Android or iPhone

• Crew managers can clock in/out team members individually or at once

• Streamline scheduling

• Easily track labor estimates versus actuals, with Projects

Pricing: Premium plan at $8 per user, per month +$20 base fee per month.

11. Teamdeck

Teamdeck.io is a child of Apptension – product design and software development company that works with Uber, Netflix, Spotify. Teamdeck.io is resource management software with time management features.

Here’s what makes monday.com so popular. 

• Employee scheduling
• project planning
• Employee time tracking
• Resource utilization
• Workload controlling
• Availability management

Pricing: $ 3.99 / team member / monthly

Monday.com is rated as one of the popular tools for time management and a cloud-based work operating system that provides the ideal platform for time management for small to large businesses. With monday.com, users can add code-free automations to their boards to minimize human error and dedicate more time on the work that makes an impact. 

Besides time management, monday.com also allows users to communicate and collaborate in one shared workspace. It also integrates with the tools you already use to help you streamline your workflows to get more done in less time. 

Users can track time from any location at any time using the mobile app version.  

Here’s what makes monday.com so popular. 

• Fully customizable board to fit your workflow 

• Automates mundane processes 

• One flexible platform to plan, run, and track work 

• It has a flexible reporting feature that will give users the time breakdown by tasks, projects, and clients

Pricing: Basic plan at $39 per month, Standard plan at $49 per month, Pro plan at $79 per month, Enterprise plan is available on quote.

13. Monitask

Monitask is a time tracking, task management, and productivity monitoring application created for organizations and companies that employ a remote workforce. This application can capture computer screenshots randomly or at intervals assigned by the employer.

Employers can see the employee’s timeline to see how much time was spent on different projects, websites visited, applications that were running, and the employee’s activity level.

Here’s what makes Monitask so popular. 

• Accurate time tracking for employees and their tasks 

• Captures computer screenshots randomly or at assigned intervals 

• Easily generate online timesheets for employees

• Less overstaffing and lower costs 

• Improves employees’ level of performance

• HD screenshots, screen monitoring, and real-time dashboard features

Pricing: Professional version at $2.99 per user/month, Hosted version is available on quote. 

14. Tmetric 

Tmetric is a simple and accurate employee time tracking software that sets you free from tedious time tracking. It has a clean interface that provides great control over project budgets and time intervals. 

The software easily lets you monitor working hours, breaks, attendances, and leaves, so you can pay employees accurately and boost individual productivity day in and day out. 

Here’s what makes Tmetric so popular. 

• A detailed visual timeline 

• Also functions as a money tool tracker 

• Websites and app usage tracking

• Easy to use and customizable time tracking system

• Automatic activity time tracking

• Real-time monitoring 

• Browser add-ons for automated data capturing 

Pricing: Business plan is at $7 per month and the Professional plan is at $5 per month. 

15. RescueTime 

RescueTime is a powerful time tracking and distraction blocking software that provides accurate and intelligent insights into websites and applications your employees use during work. 

RescueTime is a feature-rich tool that blocks distracting websites to help users to focus on important tasks on hand. This application allows users to set smart goals on how they want to spend their time. It has all the right tools and data to help employees be at their productive best. 

Here’s what makes RescueTime so popular. 

• Gives detailed reports, trends, and insights

• Users can set Smart goals and real-time alerts

• Integrates with your favorite apps 

• Set daily limits on apps and sites

• Automatic tracking of time users spend on apps, websites, and even specific documents

• One-click offline time tracking 

Pricing: Premium plan is at $9 per month/user. 

Chrometa is a passive time-keeping app that can automatically capture the tasks that you and your teams work on. This application runs in the background and records your billable time. Chrometa also captures phone calls and text messages to turn time on a mobile device into billable time. 

This software is ideal for project managers, accountants, lawyers, and freelancers who can track which web pages, programs, and URLs were visited by their team members.  

Here’s what makes Chrometa so popular. 

• Automatic time capturing

• Offline time tracking 

• Overtime calculation 

• Billable and non-billable hours

• Timesheet management 

• Minimizes admin costs

• Automatically allocate time to clients and projects 

Pricing: Standard plan is at $19 per user/month, Plus plan is at $29 per user/month, and Premium plan is at $49 per user/month 

17. Harvest

If you need to track time, create professional invoices, or keep a closer eye on your labor costs, Harvest is one of the most simple-to-use tools to manage time.

Here’s what makes Harvest so popular.

• Start and stop timers as you work through your to-do list

• Integrates with the apps you already use

• Tracking expenses is as easy as snapping a pic

• Fix time tracking mistakes right from the reports.

• Review and approve timesheets for your team weekly.

Pricing: Free for 1 person, 2 projects. And Pro plan at $12 per person per month. 

Time is money. Save it to earn it! Get started for FREE!

Conclusion

If you want to be more productive at work, you’ve got to ace time management. It will benefit you in several ways – improve your chances of professional growth and success, reduce undue stress, and work on things that really matter.

The key is to dedicate your valuable work time to tasks and projects that deliver high value while eliminating time-wasting activities that hamper your productivity.  Using the best time management apps will enable you to understand where all your valuable time is going.

Go ahead, and pick the tool that you think offers you more bang for your buck. In other words, a tool that offers a suite of features, including that time tracking, to help you have greater control over your work. Good luck! 

FAQs:

Why is time management important?

Time management is important to help you prioritize your work and save you from unnecessary stress at work to achieve better results.

1. ProofHub

2. DeskTime

3. Hubstaff

How to choose the best time management tool for you?

Here are important features to consider when choosing the best tools for time management:

1. Pricing

2. Tracking features

3. Learning curve

4. Compatibility with devices

5. Reporting feature

Why is time management important in the workplace?

Time management is important in the workplace to ensure proper utilization of employees’ work time so they can meet deadlines and be more productive.

Vartika Kashyap

Vartika Kashyap is the Chief Marketing Officer at ProofHub and has been one of the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2018. Her articles are inspired by office situations and work-related events. She likes to write about productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, entrepreneurship among others and contributing to a better workplace is what makes her click.