Sorry for posting this here, but since reddit meltdown I can't post there.
Here is the deal:
I am working freelance with a very flexible schedule, and I also live in the woods and have two young kids. As a result, I have both things I normally do every day (driving kids to school, working, preparing lunch, etc) -- and a ton of non-work stuff to do that often need to interrupt what I normally do (doctors appointments, do stuff in the garden, etc.).
Now, I have a very hard time staying on top of it all. To the point where I am finding it difficult planning a time to go to the hairdresser. Since my freelance job pays me by the hour, I set myself to work x hours in the day (on average per week) to ensure a fairly constant salary. But with all the other stuff I need to do, I always need to catch up on work I skipped and end up getting confused about how much work I did and how much work I can put in in the following days. The whole thing means that I am constantly struggling about what I should or shouldn't do.
So I am looking for an calendar app that's different to all the ones I have seen on the internet.
I think I need an app where there is a "default" mode, or "template week" or whatever you want to name it. That would hold the "regular things": work, driving kids to school, grocery shopping, etc. And then I could add "exceptional tasks", that would "interrupt" the "default" thing I would normally be doing at that time. This is so i can know when I take an appointment at the bank, this will reduce my work time by 2 hours. If it could also take care of padding the time with driving times between places that would be a huge help.
Anyone knows anything like this?
Otherwise, I'll just make a spreadsheet
I can speak for Toggl (toggl.com) for having great visualizations and making it easy to view your time in different ways, generate charts/invoices, manage multiple clients, and more.
However, the UI/entry side leaves something to be desired. They used to let you do this via a browser extension which was open source, but they recently close sourced it.
- Connect multiple calendars which have fixed events ("Pick up Hana at 7PM")
- Add tasks which are automatically rescheduled and rearranged around this fixed events ("Call mom and check in")
- Create booking links to let others schedule time. The interface for this is way better than Calendly
> and end up getting confused about how much work I did
There's lots of apps for just that purpose. Clock-in/out every time you start/stop. Especially if you're working on multiple projects the same day. I don't even have one to recommend specifically - there are many good options.
2. time tracker - I need to track my projects automatically and not log them manually. This gives me 2 benefits - I don't waste time (and don't forget to) log the time - I know exactly what I've spent time on
The best time tracker for Mac is timingapp.com, but expensive. However it's integrated with my IDE and I can map a certain project (directory/filename) to a certain client once and it'll be added to this project automatically in the future. I think they have some reports you can use for your monthly billing.
Another one not that good but still wokring is rescuetime.com, they don't automate the path/filename part and thus you can track per app, but not per filepath in that app.
I am in a similar situation as you. My solution is to use a separate calendar app and a separate time tracker app. I did not feel a need to combine them in a single tool.
For calendar I use Google calendar. I add repeating appointments with just myself for things like driving kids to school. They repeat weekly, forever. I block off time for my clients and for other ad-hoc things as I figure the week out.
When I sit down to work for a client, I clock in. I don't send these time logs to anyone. It's just for me to know how much time I've put in. It's too easy to loose track of work when you're having fun.
At the end of each year, I run a Python script which through AppleScript creates an event at the beginning of each month that reminds me to send some papers to my accountant. Instead of just setting the event on the 1st of each month, the script chooses the first working day of the month, taking into account weekends and bank holidays.
Considering you can create multiple calendars, the script (with a cron job) could read the events in the "Exceptional" calendar and update the "Work" calendar.
Something similar might be possible with Google Calendar through the API.
Within TickTick, you can add in tasks to appear on the calendar so your tasks can be moved around your appointments. You can set up repeating/recurring tasks.
Also, consider using Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology- gets everything out of the brain so it can be used for thinking.
The TickTick free app is awful - premium is MILES better.
For regularly recurring things, I just create a reminder in Calendar. It's got repeating reminders. They stay in your active reminders list till you mark them Done.
For one offs, I make reminders or events.
For things not connected to time, I make a Keep list.
I use a Calendar home screen widget, and Keep pinned notes widget, plus three single note tiles on my watch.
On one part I have my regular weekly schedule, on another a list of sporadic tasks, and then a list of things I want to accomplish.
it's usually more for a daily planning tool (where as you want a hourly planning) of resources where people are working. You can usually define a time a project requires and the "end of project date" will be extended to a later date if some blocker is added (such as holidays).
maybe one of the gantt project tools could be used for your case.
or ask in the cal.com community, if you are ready to sponsor someone should be able to build it.