Tracking Drawing time

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I was wondering if there's a way to track how long you've been working on a specific project.

The project consists of several components and since there will be different setups to try out digitally, the project will be created over course of several days/weeks, as I'm doing this in my spare time.

I would need that information because I'm creating a hobby project for a friend, but before actually making it real life he wants to know if it's cost effective (design, build, materials vs. store bought, ready-to-go alternative)

[lichtzeichenanlage]

As a developer I don't get this requirement, because development is not only typing something into a IDE but is often just thinking, planing, reading etc.. Somehow I can imagine that it's not completely different in this environment. And how would you track down all the other tasks?

[Anonymous]

Machining time is easy trackable, as is initial basic measuring.
Other costs like materials, finishes, hardware,... are also easy (invoice)

It's just the modeling time that I find difficult, because it's going to be spread over several weeks.

I was just wondering if there wasn't a plugin or property where you could easily keep track.
If not, it's not a huge problem; I can keep track in Excel or on piece of paper.

[etfrench]

Whether or not it's cost effective is entirely based on your skill level, which will usually be better after completing a project.

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

For my freelance work I use an iPhone app called hours tracker.

BTW I do this sort of estimation work professionally and have done so for about 20 years of my engineering career. I have developed concepts, budgets and proposals for factory automation machinery/systems ranging anywhere from $100k to $20 mio. This includes hardware, manufacturing and man hours for development, engineering, mechanical design, controls design, programing, installation etc.

I think this is an excellent exercise and it's going to be very educational. In my experience across multiple engineering disciplines I can say that most employed engineers are terrible in estimating how long something takes.

Experienced contractors that charge by the hour have a much tighter grasp of this.

[lichtzeichenanlage]

Perhaps I should clarify my post. I'm not against tracking time. I'm working as a freelancer in several roles and estimating efforts is often part of it. I just don't think, that a automated tracking tool will do the trick. Like @TrippyLighting mentioned. Get an app on a mobile device and you should be able to track a lot of tasks. Depending on what you plan to build you might have to track preparation and post processing times for your machining tasks, too.