To determine how you spend your time, TagTime literally randomly samples you. At random times it pops up and asks what you're doing right at that moment. You answer with tags.

See messymatters.com/tagtime for the whole story.

We're currently auto-tweeting git commits: @tagtm.

Code

The core Perl implementation of TagTime itself is in the following files:

• tagtimed.pl -- the TagTime daemon
• launch.pl -- launches the pinger by popping up an xterm
• ping.pl -- prompts for the tags
• util.pl -- utility functions
• settings.pl.template -- user-specific settings

In addition are the following files:

• install.py -- install script

• grppings.pl -- grep your TagTime log file

• cntpings.pl -- tally pings in your log file matching given criteria

• tskedit.pl -- task editor / to-do list that integrates with TagTime

• tskproc.pl -- helper script used by tskedit.pl

• tasks.vim.template -- vim macros needed for the task editor

• merge.pl -- just a stub, for fixing/merging TagTime logs

• beeminder.pl -- sends your TagTime data to your Beeminder graph

• beemapi.pl -- partial Perl implementation of the Beeminder API

The script directory contains various scripts we've used, like for various games and contests and commitment contracts and whatnot. Basically, incentive schemes for getting ourselves to procrastinate less. We view TagTime as the foundation for all such lifehacks, since it's a way to guarantee you always have data on where your time is going. It's hard to flake out on reporting to TagTime since it actively pings you. You can be perfectly passive -- just responding when prompted. That's why we call it "time-tracking for space cadets".

The src directory currently contains Python code contributed by Jonathan Chang for a new back-end for TagTime. It hasn't yet been integrated. Same with pyqt which was contributed by Arthur Breitman. The src directory also contains the source for an Android app by Bethany Soule (bsoule) with contributions by Michael Janssen (jamuraa).

Thanks also to Paul Fenwick, Jesse Aldridge, Kevin Lochner, and Rob Felty for contributions to the code.

Installation and Quick Start

0. Clone the repository on Github
1. cd into your local tagtime directory
2. Run: python install.py USERNAME
3. Verify in settings.pl (wherever it says CHANGEME) that the install script filled in everything correctly
4. Make sure you have X11 (on Mac) or Cygwin (on Windows) running (not an issue on Linux)
5. Run: ./tagtimed.pl &
6. Answer the pings! (Always answer with what it caught you at right at that moment)

Perl Newbies

1. Run: sudo cpan
2. At the cpan prompt run: upgrade (this may not actually be necessary)
3. For each thing that TagTime complains about, like 'can't find LWP::UserAgent', run: install LWP::UserAgent

Advanced Usage

TagTime's Task Manager is documented in the file template.tsk
It's for vim users only. You don't need it to use TagTime.

Basic ping-tallying:

./cntpings.pl username.log  (run w/o args for options)

(Special tags: 
 off = tagtime (launch.pl) didn't run;
 afk = away from keyboard;
 err = you closed the window without answering the ping)

How to make the tagtime daemon automatically start on bootup in OSX:

sudo ln -s /path/to/tagtimed.pl /Library/StartupItems/tagtimed.pl

Pick a distinctive sound for your pings by setting $playsound in settings.pl. Sample sounds are in the sound directory. Non-mac users, see README file in sound directory.

A handy vim macro for duplicating the previous line's tags in the tagtime log:

"replace tags on this tagtime line with those from the prev line.
"(warning: must have timestamp in square brackets on both lines)
map <f4> mzk0el"vy/\([\\|$\)<cr>jd/\([\\|$\)<cr>h"vp`zj

Extra Features

Editor: If you hit enter instead of answering the ping it will open up the editor.

Ditto: If you enter just a double-quote character (") it will enter whatever pings you entered last time. (Thanks to Paul Fenwick for implementing that.)

The Math

If your tagtime gap is g minutes then the probability of at least one ping in any x minute window is 1-exp(-x/g). The window corresponding to probability p is -g*ln(1-p). For example, with g=45, there's a 10% chance of getting pinged in any window of duration 4 minutes 44 seconds. There's a 50% chance of getting pinged within 31 minutes. There's a 99% chance of a ping within 3.5 hours. The probability of waiting over 10 hours for a ping is one in a million.

Beeminder Integration

To set up TagTime to automatically send reports to Beeminder, first set up a goal there (either a "Do More" or "Do Less" goal). Copy the url and plug it into your settings.pl file under the Beeminder section.

Each goal on Beeminder will track a collection of one or more tags on TagTime. Regular expressions are encouraged! See settings.pl for more details.

Android App

There is an Android app available on Google Play. The source and build instructions are in src/and.

Email Bot (via Mailgun)

This is mostly intended as a stopgap measure for iOS users who want to get pings on their phone. You'll be pinged by an email bot and will enter tags by replying to the ping emails. After setting things up, you'll have to run or schedule a Python script update.py to schedule a new batch of ping emails, write your pending replies to the TagTime log file, and send your data to Beeminder. Note that the emails are meant to be the sole data source for your log file. Combining email data entry with the daemon or anything else that writes to your log file WILL result in errors.

The files are the following (Python 2.7):

• setup.py -- initial setup
• update.py -- reads and logs replies, schedules pings, sends to Beeminder
• mailgun.py -- interaction with Mailgun APIs
• pings.py -- random number generator for ping times; cf. util.pl
• misc.py -- miscellaneous functions
• settings.py -- user-specific settings for Mailgun and Beeminder
• prevping.py -- for debugging, displays latest ping time

Here's how to set this up:

0. If you're new to TagTime, set it up as per instructions above. The only thing you really need to get working is sending data to Beeminder. To see if this works, either run the daemon and answer some pings, or make a username.log file with some test pings (see format in samplelog.txt), then run perl beeminder.pl username.log username/slug and check if your Beeminder graph is updated correctly.
1. Sign up for a Mailgun account.
2. Put the required email, Mailgun, and Beeminder info into settings.py.
3. Create a Mailgun Route with filter expression match_recipient("tagtime@ sandbox12345.mailgun.org") (or whatever you set bot_email in settings.py) and action store().
4. Run python setup.py.
5. Schedule or manually run python update.py about once daily or more frequently.

At the moment the email bot will not work well in combination with anything else that writes to the log file, so you should turn off the Perl daemon after you've set up the email bot. Note also that presently there is very little error handling. For this reason, run update.py manually at first rather than scheduling it, and pay close attention to correct syntax in your ping replies.

You'll probably want to enable push notifications on incoming emails on your phone. To limit push notifications to TagTime pings, get an email app that you're not already using, link it to an email account you'll only use for TagTime, and enable push notifications only for this email app.

Google Group

For discussion and questions: TagTime Google Group.