Time tracking
5
min read

Time tracking for students

Time tracking for students

Academia is a masterclass in effective time management. Even if you’re starting a doctoral position with years of experience behind you, it can still be a baptism of fire. Time tracking can help you weather the worst, keeping your time accountable, structured and balanced. But you shouldn’t have to waste time fiddling with timers or notes to get there. It’s precisely why we developed Timely – the first time tracking tool to automatically capture all your study time in the background while you work.

The time tracking app for students

Timely was designed to track all your work without taking you away from it. It completely removes dependence on manual input and timers, by automatically recording all the time you spend in different documents, apps and websites. You can access a flawless digital timeline of everything you do each day, and use intuitive reporting and calendar tools to structure and organize time more effectively. It’s the easiest way to manage your study without compromising your productivity.

⏳ Track all your study time automatically

By capturing every detail of your day automatically, Timely holds a mirror up to the way you work. You get an objective, complete record of all your time where every effort is made visible. It’s essential for gauging your own productivity – seeing what you achieve each day and helping to benchmark progress – as well for insight into how you actually use your time. Just head to your private daily timeline to see what you actually did.

📅 Create smarter schedules

This rich dataset can then be used to create a more intelligent schedule, which balances all of your commitments. Automatic time tracking shows you how long you actually end up spending on specific projects and assignments, so you can work out the average time required for different pieces of work. Once you know how much time to protect for each, use Timely’s Planning tool to quickly time block your calendar. At the end of your day, head to your private timeline to see how well you stuck to your plan and refine your time weightings for future ones.

⚡️ Use time more effectively

Real-time dashboards and reports make it easy to then analyze how you’re actually distributing your time. You can break tasks into projects to monitor how long you spend on each, and even set time budgets to set boundaries around each piece of work. It’s great for making sure you’re spreading effort evenly, and not spending too much time on unimportant tasks. You can also quickly scan your project activity feel to make sure you’re sticking to your priorities. Automatic time tracking will also help to surface distractions, low-value apps and processes, procrastination and energy dips.

💜 Protect your wellbeing

Burnout is a very real danger for every student. Productivity needs to reigned into a manageable workload and healthy work/life balance. Aside from helping you time block your schedule – protecting space for regular breaks and placing boundaries around your downtime – Timely helps you keep an eye on your capacity. It breaks down the total number of hours you work each day and highlights wherever you overcommit. It’s a small but powerful feature for staying mindful of just how much you’re burning every day.

Why students love Timely

Timely’s low-effort, high-accuracy approach make it an ideal time tracking tool for PhD, masters and undergraduate students with demanding schedules. With rich time insights and intuitive tools, it helps students improve self-knowledge and manage their time more effectively. But don’t just take our word for it – here’s what Timely’s student community makes of the tool:

“Timely automates the tedious clock-in/clock-out work of tracking time, while still giving me the benefits of seeing where my time is going. I’m using it to become more productive and better organize my time.”
– Michael, computer science student
“If you have multiple projects and want to easily monitor your time allocation across them, Timely is the perfect service to use. It helps me see how long projects and assignments actually take, so I can try to minimize the amount of time I spend procrastinating and use my time more productively.”
– Stephen, software development student
“Timely’s the best time tracking product I’ve found. I’m using it to improve planning (comparing scheduled time with the time I actually spend on tasks) and time distribution (so I work on what matters to me).”
– Martin, medical student
“Timely lets you track time effortlessly. But it’s also a great habit tracker, and can be used for other purposes than just work and education.”
– Fansu, web development student
“Keeping track of time spent on projects is too difficult to do manually. Timely helps me stay accountable and reflect on my progress.”
– Meg, PhD student in planetary geology
“I'm a very busy student and have already experienced burnout. I’m using Timely to manage everything that I need to graduate and protect my wellbeing.”
– Gabriela, neuropsychology student
I’m doing a doctorate while working on several different projects, and have been having problems finding an equilibrium between work/study/personal life. Timely is helping me log my time to better manage my activities.”
– Marcio, PhD student in computer science
“I spend wayyyy too much time on tasks and forget where I left off when I return to them the next day. Timely gives me an automatic record of everything I completed during a specific time frame.”
– Emily, medical student
I’m freelancing alongside my PhD, and Timely has actually allowed me to track and manage projects for the first time. Before using it, I just got stressed and felt like I wasn't working hard enough, but Timely shows me that isn't true. It also shows where I'm not investing enough time (or am investing too much).”
– Maya, PhD student
“Timely shows me what I do each day and how much time I spend studying/working. It’s so elegant; I’ve already recommended it to one of my friends, because of its beautiful design.”
– Kathelijn, student doing part-time work
Try Timely today!
Discover the power of Timely's automated time tracking now!
check mark
Accurately billing
check mark
Project profitability
check mark
Strict anti-surveillance policy
check mark
Trusted by 5000+ businesses globally