How Productive Are You On A Mac? Really?

Mac users like to think of themselves as more productive on a Mac. We’ve heard the story over and over again.

The Mac gets out of the way and lets us focus on doing our job the right way. How do you know for sure?

Just how productive are we really, especially when compared to Windows users?

Is the Mac really a personal productivity machine, or the BMW of personal computers?

After all, a Kia will get you there, too. But the BMW can be more fun, entertaining, and stylish, right?

OK, if it’s all about productivity, how do we know how productive we’ve been? Try Productivity.

I’m sure you’ve thought about this. Wouldn’t it be nice to know how much time I devote to running various applications on my Mac?

Off the top of my head I know I spend a lot of time doing email, so I’m in Mail.

There’s browsing, so I have most of my browsing time in Safari, but I use Firefox, too. I wonder how much?

There’s Microsoft Office to consider. I work on a few projects in Word and Excel.

How much time am I wasting in iPhoto just dinking around. Out of a full day, how much time is iTunes running?

These are the questions to statistical answers that we don’t have any answers for. Until Productivity.

Productivity is one of those nifty little Mac applications that tells you something about your Mac usage—the things you may suspect, but didn’t know for sure.

Now you can know for sure, and maybe change a bad habit or two to become even more productive.

Remember, with efficient productivity comes more time to goof off and gain inspiration.

Productivity works in the background of Mac OS X. It tracks you and your applications.

Application tracking is rather easy. Productivity records the application you’re using at any given tiime; how long, average CPU usage, and so on.

But it also checks what you’re doing while you’re using the application—mouse, keyboard, etc.

If you’re on the phone, leave the room, talk to someone who walked in, visit with a client, sit and think with a problem, or just listen to your iPod, Productivity won’t record that activity.

I know what you’re thinking. Connect Productivity to the built-in iSight camera on new MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and iMacs, to check on your other office activities.

Talk about your Big Brother. No, Productivity doesn’t do that. Yet.

Productivity doesn’t spy. It records information, but not what you type or what you enter into the keyboard—only the fact that you’re doing so.

For those of you who sit on your Macs in the office and check out the latest porn sites in Safari (with the setting at Private Browsing, of course), Productivity won’t snitch on you.

It will record how much time you browse and read, and browse and read.

The Productivity features are basic. You can record data by each user on your Mac, then view and sort the information.

Limit the data view and graphics by dates, find various averages, break out mouse and keyboard usage for each application, and so on.

What you get is a display of average CPU usage for the Application List over a timelline of your chioce.

Can Productivity help to make you more productive? Yes, and no.

It’s a nifty tool to track some of what you do on your Mac each day. Over time, certain patterns will develop.

Giving you an idea of what you’re actually doing may give you clues and tips to become more productive.

Don’t worry. Big Brother is not only not watching you, but not yet capable of pointing out the error of your Mac usage ways.

It doesn’t record what you type into Word, only that you’re using Word.

Likewise, it doesn’t record what you enter into a database, or what sites you visit while using a browser. It only records the fact that you did so, and when.

Over time, that information can be sorted, graphed, displayed. That gives you a better idea of what you and your Mac are doing.

Of course, it also gives you a better idea of what someone else is doing on their Macs. So, in a way, Little Brother is watching, but it’s someone else.

I see room for expansion and more features for Productivity.

Smart capture of application keyboard and mouse patterns will develop a more accurate way to track usage.

Even a motion sensor tie in to iSight would let Productivity know that you’ve left the room, so you’re no longer productive on your Mac (that’s a big maybe).

I’d like to see the charts show a comparison between users, too, and perhaps a networked version which pulls data from each Mac to a single Mac for display and comparison.

Productivit is fun, interesting, and can help some get better with their time each day by showing what’s happening to the time.

Future versions need to incorporate more value for schools and small business users.

Click Here for a look at Productivity and the download link.