Many companies can be sticklers for time tracking, and need to know how your work time is spent for billing and accounting purposes. Keeping tabs on how much time you've spent on various tasks is also important on the other end for consulting gigs that pay hourly.

You could try to keep track of your time using a pencil and notepad. Then again, you could commit a grievous mathematical error that results in your severe underpayment because you forgot to carry a digit. It's not NASA satellite-destroying bad, but it's still bad enough to ruin your day.

Or you could pick up a copy of yaTimer, a charming little application that uses colorful graphics and intuitive controls to make time-tracking a breeze. yaTimer lets you create any number of tasks, which are then represented on your screen like stopwatches, easily identified by color and your own written description. Whenever you begin work on one of your tasks, just click a button and the timer will start counting up or down (your choice). If you take a break, or move onto a different task, just click the pause button, and yaTimer will maintain a running total for that task.

Each task can be maximized so that you can fill-in more detailed comments, and indicate whether the time is billable, and at what hourly rate. yaTimer also lets you print out a report that shows how you split your time between different clients, as well as a timesheet report that can serve as a master summary of your activities.

yaTimer strikes that fine balance between being an application that is instantly approachable and easy to use, but with deeper functionality that demonstrates real power and flexibility.