PC knows best: Tools to nag, remind, and track productivity

Trying to get work done is tough if you have an Internet connection. The constant urge to take a peek at a video on YouTube or check your personal e-mail is a siren song that for many simply cannot be ignored. Luckily, there are several sites and browser add-ons that can help keep us in line, be it with basic productivity or making sure we do not stumble in moments of weakness.

Gmail "e-mail goggles" and "take a break" labs add-ons

Don't drink and e-mail.

Want to send that e-mail at 4 a.m.? Unless you're up early, and getting a jump start on the work day, Google's Gmail thinks you're drunk and will wisely make you do the math problems to prove you're not. Of course, if you really want to outsmart the machine you can simply turn this Gmail labs add-on off from the settings menu, which requires no math whatsoever.

Likewise, the "take a break" labs add-on can make you stop whatever work you're doing to go enjoy the finer things in life. It keeps tabs on how long you've been working in Gmail and will give you a pop-up that requires doing something else for 15 minutes before coming back to your in-box. This is recommended if you don't want to install one of those ergonomic nag programs on your machine.

E-mail discipline

E-mail discipline bars you from using certain sites until you get work done.

(Credit: Mozilla)

Want to hop on Facebook or check your personal e-mail for a little while while drudging away at work? You'll need to earn it with E-mail discipline. This Firefox add-on keeps you from visiting nearly 20 different sites including MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter without doing a little bit of work between sessions. As long as you ignore these places for two hours at a time it lets you browse for a short while, before putting up a nag screen that tells you to get back to it. Users are able to override the nag screens at any time by clicking the "cheat" button.

Procrastato

Like E-mail discipline, Firefox add-on Procrastato works off a blacklist of sites you probably shouldn't be visiting. Once you're on one of these sites (which you add in manually) it starts a timer in the background. If you're there past your allotted amount it gives you a pop-up message telling you to get back to work.

MeeTimer

If pop-up nags aren't your thing, and you don't feel like being scolded for bad online behavior, worth checking out is MeeTimer. Once installed it simply keeps tabs on how long you're spending on each site and breaks it up into percentages--including how much of that was done during "work" time. Consider it the browser equivalent of parental guilt trip. It's not mad at you, just disappointed that you spend 29 percent of your working day on Facebook.

See how your daily browsing is broken down with MeeTimer. You might be shocked.

(Credit: Mozilla)

HassleMe

If you want the nagging features of Google or Yahoo calendar with some level of anonymity there's always HassleMe. The site will send you a friendly reminder e-mail to do something, be it to take out the trash, reply to a certain e-mail, or finish a project. You get to pick how often it sends these messages, and it promises to change up the times ever so slightly so you cannot anticipate when it will arrive.

ReminderFox

If clogging up your e-mail in-box with reminders sounds less than desirable, check out ReminderFox. This Firefox add-on puts a to-do list on the side of your browser. You can set deadlines for each task, along with reminders that will pop up, and can be acknowledged, ignored, or delayed, just like in Microsoft Outlook.

LeechBlock

Along the lines of MeeTimer and Email Discipline, LeechBlock lets you organize sites you probably shouldn't be going to in sets. You can prioritize each set, and block yourself out of using them down to certain times of day, or how much time you've already spent using them. Consider this something similar to the parental settings on a TV, keeping you from accessing content you shouldn't be looking at when you're supposed to be working.

Any we missed? Leave them in the comments.

[MSTinPA]

Your great article cuts to quick for me and my daily web distractions. However, I like about 68% (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0&qpmr=15&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qpcal=1&qptimeframe=Q&qpsp=39) of the rest of Internet users out there continue to use Internet Explorer. Your article would make one think that Firefox was the only browser in use. Are there no tools like this for IE users? You did look for them right?

MeeTimer looks like a super solution to my needs. Getting a clear picture of how much time I am wasting would be very helpful. I am sending an email to [e-mail] with a beg for an IE version of MeeTimer. I cannot have been the first person to have asked for this.

[rizarsurf]

Is there a particular reason you can't use Firefox? If you'd try it you would really like it.

The reason the article mainly refers to Firefox extensions is that the open nature of the browser itself is what has allowed many developers to write the many diverse extensions that the author refers to.

Internet Explorer is not as open when it comes to customizing it.

I have both Firefox and IE installed at work and Firefox is actually supported by our tech support.

[MSTinPA]

Replying to rizarsurf: After my post on Thursday, I downloaded the latest version of Firefox and loaded the MeeTimer extension to get a look at it for myself. It is a really nice tool; however, here is why I won't use it:

I have to have IE for testing and for usage of a legacy web application I work with
I don't want to use multiple browsers
No tech support for Firefox - not that I think I need it
(off with my head) I like IE

[skwerlhater0]

Quick fix to your problem - if you must have IE, this may or may not work but there is a Firefox extension called "IE Tab" which lets you open up a new tab as if it were Internet Explorer.

It works for me on pages only designed for IE that won't load in Firefox, it might work for you and testing, depending on what you're testing really.

[xnatey]

And what about google chrome? Are these applications available for chrome as well?
I like the ideas though! Thanks!

[darksantos91]

Unfortunately Google Chrome doesn't support extensions yet. Though maybe in the next few months it will.

[patsfan4life19]

MSTinPA, did you know there is an "IE" tab add-on for firefox? It utilizes IE's rendering engine.

[iff2mastamatt]

I use IE7, FF, Opera, Avant, & Chrome. The more the merrier :)

[joevai52]

I hope this article is meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. If it isn't, and people actually need programs to tell them how much work time they're wasting and to remind them to get back to work, then I know why the economy has slowed so much: lack of productivity.

[ethomaz]

We develop an application for automatic time management that is available for Mac and Windows. It's called Slife and is a free download at http://www.slifelabs.com.

[c|net Reader]

The most cursory examination of Slife suggests that it wouldn't correctly distinguish the many different things done using a particular application. For example, web browsing can be work related or not. E-mail can be business related or personal. Editing files could be for personal or business use. Even within the business side of things, there may be various projects to track, so it hardly seems sufficient to know how much time was spent using a particular application. Does the tool track by web site, document, e-mail subject, etc.? Maybe it would be helpful, but then I'd worry about just how accessible that information is.