There are many time tracking apps for Mac that automatically record the hours you've spent online. Some even offer granular data that tells you how much time you spent in a particular app. A new app called Balance is taking a slightly different approach to timekeeping, allowing users to manually clock in and out their screen time.
Balance it hopes to help users develop a set of healthy work habits instead of getting granular data about their productivity. It won't tell you how long you had Slack, Microsoft Teams, Chrome, or any other app open on your machine, but it will give you an overview of overall system usage and time spent in multiple sessions in a week.
For this system to work, Balance sends you a reminder if your machine has been on for more than five minutes but you haven't logged in. Quitting is simple too, just lock your Mac. Unfortunately, if your system goes to sleep, Balance doesn't record a quit clock.
Image credits: Balance
Since there's no automatic tracking, the app can't tell if you've taken a break, even when you walk away from your computer. So it will remind you to take a break after 60 minutes. You can easily adjust these settings as per your convenience.
Balance also gives you a Pomodoro timer (25 minutes on and 5 minutes off) through the Focus Mode menu. The application lives in the menu bar of your Mac, so you can quickly access all the options. Shows the active time of the current session by default, but you can change it to the total duration of the session, including breaks, or the time since the last break was taken.
Alexander Sandberg, the developer of Balance, says he created the app because I wanted a timekeeper who understood the balance between work and life. Working from home, he often sat in front of his system well beyond his working hours, he said in an interview, and that's when he thought of building Balance.
“I chose a manual signing system for Balance because I think helps create a 'ritual' for checking in and out of work. Especially when you work from home, it's important to have something that helps you differentiate between work time and rest time. For example, I have heard of people taking a short walk to and from 'the office' at the beginning and end of the workday, even though their office is at home. This is to help the mind and body differentiate between life and work.”
While Balance is good for developing the habit of clocking in and out, it might take a bit of getting used to. You may have many sessions that you forget to start or end. So can end with false positives at both ends.
Balance is available as free for everyone with the Pro version that costs $2.49 a month (or $24.99 a year) as an introductory price. The paying customers will get features like session history with data of trends. Balance also provides users the option to export their logs if they want to stop using the app or just want to analyze their data in a different way.
Sandberg said he's building more pro features, like a better session history overview with month and year; session categorization and labeling; and app lock and sitios web to help users concentrate more.
