RescueTime may just finally be the solution I’ve been looking for. Interestingly, it is a Ruby on Rails web-app combined with small downloadable apps that are available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. The downloadable app runs in the background and tracks your time usage of your applications, and even differentiates between the windows/tabs of the application, useful for tracking which sites you are looking at the most, or which terminal window you are in. The time usage information is stored in YAML files (more proof that RescueTime is RoR-based) in ~/Library/RescueTime/Logs/Pending which makes it easy to script something extra.

In fact, someone made a Mac RescueTime Log Script that lets you log your meetings or phone calls to RescueTime by generating a YAML file and putting it in the Pending directory.

BTW, if anyone is having trouble with Terminal.app in OSX not reporting window title (in the YAML files it shows up as window_title: ‘empty’). You need to enable access for assistive devices in Universal Access in System Preferences.

EDIT: Above fixes the window_title: issue, BUT web app dashboard doesn’t actually differentiate between the window_titles with Terminal yet :(

EDIT: I have stopped using this program because I am not entirely comfortable with all the websites I visit being uploaded to their server. An offline version of this program would be nice.

Other alternatives are iGTD2, OmniFocus, and Midnight Inbox. However, Things seems to have achieved a simplicity and user-friendliness that invites one to actually start doing GTD. It is definitely not as powerful as OmniFocus or Inbox, but it is less rigid and easier to adapt to your work flow.

Here is my tags list so far. I am also experimenting with collecting non-todos, such as ideas, into Things and just sticking them in the Someday section. That is what the very last tag section is for.