Time tracking has never been so pleasurable.
Meet Ed Thomson, co-founder of Tiller; a revolutionary tool that keeps you on top of time tracking at work.
Tiller, is the sexy, game-changing time-sheet replacing tool.
Not everyone has someone nudging them at 5.35pm saying ‘Erm…. timesheets please!’ It just doesn’t get done, and actually, you probably have no incentive to regularly do it. Yes, you get paid at the end of the month. But what else?
Tiller’s genius was crafted by Melbourne-based design studio, Joan (Ed Thomson, Nick Hallam, Tony de Perio and Nick Johnston.)
Tiller diminishes the need for any other traditional style of timesheet. It is a physical hardware and desktop app that requires a simple, satisfying touch to track your time and tasks effectively.
Simply, Tiller improves time tracking through better user experience.
Dreams make reality
We chatted to Ed, co-creator of Tiller, about where the idea came from.
‘It was a bit of a joke at first. Over beers one day, we suggested that there should be some kind of external button you could press every time you finished a task or needed to track time.’ This came following a discussion about how much effort it takes to switch browsers when tracking time manually on a desktop. We laugh that it is actually an effort, but agree, it’s a genuine distraction you don’t need (or want to carry out) during your working day. The idea was to keep time-keeping mindful, and something that could be used to reflect on the day or at least stay present during the working day.
Ed’s theory is; ‘If you want to get a human being to do something, you need a reward or to make it really easy to do.’ Apart from locking the beer fridge on a Friday until everyone fills in their time-sheet, businesses hadn’t really found a solution…until now.
Why develop a product for growth?
As we chat about that ‘tada’ moment over beers 3 years ago, Ed delves into the thought process behind introducing a new product to their portfolio.
‘We wanted to scale the business in a different way, not just by hiring more people.’
Before a launch of the hardware became feasible, for the first 8 months, they tried out a version of Tiller themselves. Happy with the results and their increased productivity from proper time tracking, they developed the product further. Three generations of software later, they had a physical, basic prototype.
The team decided from the start, that Tiller needed to be available to everyone, not just Mac users. (Yep! some people still use windows!) So the team set out to make this a reality.
The guys tried out ‘Electron’ by GitHub. Electron is a single tool that allows coding for both windows and mac. It’s something that Slack uses, so it’s gotta be good. They spent the next 6-8 months redeveloping the Tiller software to it’s new, super modern stack that it is now.
Tiller: The product
Tiller physically is pretty god damn sexy. You just want to touch it, and that’s the point. With just a tap you can track your tasks and set timers. Then at the end of the day, you know exactly how much time you’ve spent productively. It’s such a cool little object, it becomes pleasurable to use and ‘creates a tactile reward’ for tracking your time. When you try it, you’ll get it.
Time tracking should be simple
It’s clear, that Ed disagrees with the old-fashioned concept, that people should be valued by the time they work. ‘There are loads of better ways to value people and a real way to value employees, is by the actual work they’re doing. It’s a really positive thing, to show you have a productive work day and a way to make your working day better is to track it. Tracking your time empowers you.’ He even compares buying Tiller to buying a Moleskine or a FitBit, ‘it’s an affirmation that I will value and respect my own time’
We know the creative world will be behind you on that one Ed!
The team used Kickstarter to help pay for the final product and build a customer base. The first release of Tiller is coming soon. We can’t wait to try it out ourselves!
You can keep up to date with the release, product and company updates on their Facebook page.
