Whether you are a working professional or running your own business, your time is your most valuable asset. But how many times do we look back at the day with a feeling that nothing much was achieved? The clock keepsticking but you are not able to tick the items on your to-do list.
Thanks to the software like Sapience which provides you with data to keep you informed on how you spend your time. Sapience is a wonderful tool which keeps a track of how you spend your time – onPC, on mobile, in meetings or traveling – and provides insightful data and reports. You can analyze the reports yourself to know how you spent your day – how much time you spent on social networks, emails, phone calls or meetings. As Peter Drucker has said, “What gets measured gets done” - so I would definitely recommend this app to be in your productivity kit.
While working on the PC, Sapience app runs in the background and tracks the on-PC and off-PC activities. The mobile app (available on Android and iOS) tracks the mobile activities such as calls, travel, emails and other app usage.I was especially impressed with the mobile app and here, I am going to talk only about that.
Smartphone helping you be smarter
The mobile app is a small file of around 3MB which I installed on my Android phone. Once installed, the app runs in the background, so it does not interfere while you are working on your mobile. Of course, there are quick access options to help you pause the app or change some settings. If you have Sapience Enterprise subscription, then you can make this App sync the work related information to your Sapience server
I liked the overall installation and setup process which was very smooth. The defaults are quite sensible and it is very easy to customize the settings. For example: It’s very easy to switch on/off the app tracker or the location tracker. The location accuracy can be set to High Accuracy or with a Balanced Power mode to help you save your phone battery. You have an option to set “Business” or “Personal” as default purpose of the call – especially useful for someone who is on the field or spends a lot of time in commute (this point is explained in more detail later in the review).
Getting Started and Features
Once the app is installed, it will start collecting usage data in the background. You can continue with your regular phone usage during this time. In the beginning it will need your inpust to classify a call, app or location as work or personal but as it builds its knowledge base, al the classifications will start happening more or less automatically. When sufficient time is passed and the app has collected reasonable data about your mobile usage patterns, it presents some cool charts to help you know how you spent your time on the mobile.
The variety of information the app provides is really good. As someone who understands data quickly when presented in the form of charts, this app did not disappoint me. It gives a quick analysis of how much time you spent on calls, also tracks if the calls are private or business, tells you the time you have spent on travel along with the distance covered, gives a nice analysis of which apps you used and for how much time –such cumulative data presented in one go can be quite a revelation to you. Many a times, we don’t even realize this but the shopping apps or mobile games can take up hours of our time withoutus realizing it.
Obviously, the data started making more sense and became more meaningful after longer usage of the app.
One of the cool feature of the app is that it also gives you a sense of how much distraction your phone is causing for you I had read somewhere that on an average, humans check their mobile phones 150 times during the day – you will know what to do if Sapience tells you that you check your phone 200 times in the day! While it is natural to get distracted in this hyper-connected world, having such hard data in front of us can certainly help in being focused. What say?
Who can benefit greatly with this
I think this app is of great value for those of you are on the field (like sales professionals or support professionals) or for those who use these long commute time spanstofinish tasks on the to-do list.
Here is how I imagine the scenario –
You are a sales person going for a client meeting. You would want to keep a track of the time which you spend in travelling for the meeting. You would also like to track the time you spent in the meeting. No need to note it down in your small diary – just turn on the app and it will do the tracking for you. This is your on-work time which is well accounted.
Here is another scenario -
You have a long 2-hour commute every day – instead of wasting the time in doing nothing, you choose to respond to few emails, fill in your task sheet, assign tasks to your team, talk to the clients or quickly catch up on your internal social media network. You would have otherwise done all this after reaching the office. So even though you are commuting, you have essentially started your work day and therefore the time should be accounted as the part of your work day. Isn’t it?
Most of us have hundreds of apps installed on our phone – news, entertainment, shopping, games, movie booking and what not. Personally speaking, I don’t even realize how the time passes when I am using my favorite shopping app. Thanks to the brilliant user experience of most of the apps, it can get quite addictive but can take a serious toll on the productive time. I thought the feature of Sapience where it shows the most frequently used apps (along with the time spent on each app) – right on your face – is quite useful. Knowing that you have spent 1.5 hours of your mobile phone usage time in using the apps can tell you a lot about your working patterns!
This is one useful app which I would highly recommend you having on your phone.
Knowing Your Productive Time
I thought this app is a lot better suited for working professionals on the field who use these smartphone as extensively as their laptop.
