Using Goals and Alerts to keep track of your behavior

So you've installed RescueTime. You've gotten a few weeks of data, and maybe you've learned some things that you'd like to change. In a lot of cases, just being aware of your measurements can be a pretty big motivator. Other times, however, you might need something a little more active. RescueTime has two ways to keep on top of specific measurements you're trying to make a dent. The first is setting a goal, and the second is giving yourself little nudges with our alerts feature.

Goals

You can set goals for a couple of different things in RescueTime:

• a productivity level (i.e., more than 5 hours of All Productive Time during All Time (24x7))
• a specific category (i.e., less than 1 hour of time on Video during Work hours)

Once you set up a goal, it will be tracked on your Dashboard, Your Goals Report, and shown to you in your weekly email. It is a great way to keep a close eye on a specific metric and track your progress. We share more details about how to set Goals here. 

Alerts

For RescueTime Premium Customers, if you want to get a bit more active about making changes, you can set up a daily alert. Alerts are very similar to Goals, but when you reach the time you've set up, you are given an alert via email or desktop and mobile. It's a great way to discipline yourself. For example, the team here at RescueTime all have an alert that goes off when we've reached 5 hours of productive work per day. You can find more details about Alerts here.