App of the week: Hours

Welcome back to our weekly spotlight on helpful apps. We focus on a variety of products that are useful for work, personal use, or both, providing our own thoughts on the apps and what you can do with them. This week we keep track of time with Hours.

An intro to Hours
Productivity is all about spending your time wisely, but it’s hard to do that if you don’t know where your hours are going. This handy little app takes care of the problem in a really simple, easy-to-use design.

Hours makes time tracking a cinch by letting you set up a list of common tasks that you can change or delete at any time. When you start working on that job, you simply tap the item on your list and a timer starts. Do the same to stop the clock, or touch another task to move on. The app gives you a running breakdown of your activity at the top of the screen. If you forget to start the timer, you can go back and manually enter the time you spent on a particular task. However, the app sends you notifications if you haven’t started a timer in a while or have left one on for a long period of time.

Our review
Hours is a great app to have if you’re looking to keep track of how you’re spending your time, both at work and at home. It really is as easy to use as the developers say it is, so I didn’t waste any time adding, deleting, or changing my list every day to reflect my varying schedule.

The colour coding is great for grouping similar tasks, such as admin or project work, so you can build detailed reports on how your day is broken down – particularly useful if your day is being monopolised by a big assignment and you want to prove to your boss how much work you’re putting in.

The verdict
Hours Pro offers access for companies that includes reports for £5.99 per user per month – well worth the cost, I think, if you’ve got a team below you that you’d like to keep track of. However, even the free version includes handy features if you’re just looking to take back control of your days. There’s a web app and it’s available on iPhone (which also works with iWatch if you’re into wearables) so it’s pretty convenient no matter where you are.