I highly recommend RescueTime, which tracks exactly this - it looks at what software you are interacting with/what websites you are on, and reports many hours a week you were on your computer and how much of that was productive. For example, last week I was on my computer 30 hours (I had a lot of meetings) and I was productive 75% of that time, which averages to 4.5 hours of productive computer time per workday.
It's neat to track my productive hours per week over time - I can see clear cycles based on projects, number of meetings, and my general motivation level. Some weeks I'll average just 2-3 hours of productive time a day, others I can get close to 6. 5-6 hours seems to be a ceiling on how long I can spend coding in one day.
Seconded. RescueTime is extremely useful to help you drill down and see your actual productive time during any given day. It is self-reinforcing as well as you are more tempted to stick to high-value activities versus hanging out on twitter (HN!) or whatever else distracts you during the day. You'll quickly learn that 5-6 hours per day of actual productive time is really difficult to achieve on a continuous basis.
Exactly. Why guess? Why not know exactly how productive you are?
Last month I was 71% productive as defined by those tasks which are directly leading to output. An average of 5h 36m per working day. My best day was Monday, 14th April. I'm more productive in the afternoon than the morning.
My largest non-productive time block is on this site called news.ycombinator.com.
I just started using this couple of weeks ago and has been really helpful so far. I now have an idea what's the reason behind not getting something done on a particular day.
I am just using this for a couple of weeks, but sometimes looking at the hard numbers makes you realize where exactly you spend your non-productive time and where it can be avoided.
It's neat to track my productive hours per week over time - I can see clear cycles based on projects, number of meetings, and my general motivation level. Some weeks I'll average just 2-3 hours of productive time a day, others I can get close to 6. 5-6 hours seems to be a ceiling on how long I can spend coding in one day.
https://www.rescuetime.com/