For freelancers and telecommuters, tracking time spent on projects can be difficult or time-consuming. There are software out there you can use to do this, but sometimes these just don’t have the right features, or are too complicated to use.

Sure, you can always use spreadsheet applications, but those can be cumbersome, and you’re constrained to keeping track of stuff on just one computer.

My solution: Google Spreadsheets.

This lets me “time in” so I can easily track how much I spend on my different tasks. The columns I usually use are:

• Date/Day
• Start time
• End time
• Time spent for task
• Total time for the day

– The sum of the individual tasks done for the day

• Total time for the week

– The sum of the time put in for that whole week (Mon to Sun)

• Total time for the month

– The sum of all time put in for a month

Sure, I do have to copy around formulas to different cells. But it’s as easy as Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V. And I do have full control!

Many of us face the need to log into a single service with distinct identities one time or another. For instance, you want to access your company or client’s AdSense account, but you’re logged into Gmail. Instead of logging out of Gmail, you can fire up a different browser. Say, your main browser is Firefox. You can open IE for this purpose.

But with Google Chrome’s Incognito mode, life is now easier. You don’t have to open an entirely new application just to login with a different identity. Lifespy has an excellent tip.

Since it handles cookies separately, that also means that you can load two sessions of the same service and log in via separate accounts for each window. Well, this isn’t too different from launching a Firefox window and an IE window but at least you’re just running the same application.

You can even login multiple times. The fact that each of Chrome’s tabs and windows is a separate process makes it even better. Each session is distinct from the other.

Just be sure to open a new Incognito Window by typing Ctrl-Shift-N, or selecting the feature from the dropdown box at the right of the unified URL/search box.