WakaTime: Nearly Two Years of Tracking My Development Activity

I can spend eight hours coding and feel as though I've achieved nothing. On the other hand, a single hour can be enough to unblock a project.

So what do the hours I spend in my code editor really tell me?

In January 2025, I started using WakaTime to explore that question. I wanted to understand where my time went, beyond my own impressions.

In late October 2026, a notification from WakaTime prompted me to look back on nearly two years of using it—and to realize just how much my use of the tool had evolved.

Observing My Activity, Not Necessarily My Productivity

I originally adopted WakaTime to collect factual data about my development activity. I wanted to know how much time I was spending on different projects and, above all, on what kinds of activities.

This was partly driven by the need to track my work and prepare activity reports (known as comptes rendus d'activité, or CRA, in French). Rather than reconstructing my days from memory, I wanted measurable information to help account for the time invested.

WakaTime gives me visibility into my development activity, the projects involved, and the technologies I use.

But activity and productivity are not the same thing. Time spent coding is measurable. Productivity cannot be reduced to a duration: it also depends on what was actually accomplished.

WakaTime measures time spent on an activity, not the value of the outcome.

Putting the Time Invested into Perspective

Over the months, the statistics took on another dimension. Beyond the daily tracking I needed for my activity reports, they helped me see how my time was distributed across projects and compare my impressions with reality. Some weeks feel particularly busy; others, more fragmented. The figures help put those impressions into perspective.

Over time, my focus has shifted: beyond a daily or weekly summary, I want to understand how I allocate my time across projects and how that allocation changes.

From Time Spent to Its Theoretical Value

This is probably the use that interests me most today.

By grouping activities into project categories and assigning a reference hourly or daily rate, I can estimate the economic value of the time I devote to them.

WakaTime doesn't tell me how much I've earned. It helps me estimate the theoretical value of the time I've invested in my projects.

That distinction matters.

A hundred hours spent on a personal project do not constitute revenue. They do, however, represent an investment of time to which I can assign a reference value.

This perspective helps me appreciate the effort going into my projects, including those that do not yet generate income.

What Comes Next?

Looking back, these data have begun to influence how I approach my projects.

I became particularly aware of this when I examined the time I'd devoted to a volunteer project for an association. I knew I'd worked on it extensively, but seeing the numbers helped me grasp the true scale of that commitment and reconsider the balance between volunteering and developing my own business.

This history also gives me something more practical: a better ability to estimate the time new projects will require.

When building a website, for example, I handle the entire technical process, from design through deployment, using technologies and workflows I've chosen myself.

That experience, combined with the data I've collected, helps me better assess the time each stage requires and produce more realistic estimates.

Even with AI assistance, this experience remains valuable when estimating the work involved in a new project.

Today, these data help me both anticipate future commitments and question my priorities.

Ultimately, measuring the time I've already invested helps me plan the time I'll need to devote to my next projects.