AstrolinksDesign work is hard to measure because it doesn't move in a straight line. You explore, you throw things away, you wait for feedback, you do round three. Time tracking for designers has to cope with that mess without asking you to babysit a timer. Astrolinks notes your day as it happens, and turns it into a clear update for each client.
The designer's problem with hours
Most designers either bill by the hour or quote by the project and quietly track hours to see if the quote held up. Both need honest numbers.
The trouble is how design days really go:
- a morning in Figma, split across two clients' files
- a feedback call that turns into twenty minutes of live edits
- an hour of reference hunting in Pinterest, Are.na and Behance
- exports, handoff notes, and a "small change" that wasn't small
When a client asks why the logo took nine hours, you want to answer calmly. "Three rounds, here's where the time went" lands better than a shrug.
How Astrolinks works for designers
It notes the work, not your screen
Astrolinks is a small desktop app for Mac that opens as one window with a sidebar and keeps counting from the menu bar. While it runs, it notes which app and window are in front every 5 seconds, and the web address in supported browsers. It reads window titles only. It never takes screenshots, so your unreleased work never leaves your screen.
Figma, Sketch, Adobe apps and Canva all put the file or design name in the window title. That makes rules easy. If every file for one client starts with "Brightline", that one word sends all of it to the right client. Read more on the automatic time tracking page.
Today's log, at a glance
Today shows your shift as one slim bar that fills in as you work, how much went to each client, and every entry in order. Quick switches fold into the line they interrupted, and Show short visits brings them back. Delete what you don't want to keep. Change the client on anything that landed wrong.
Updates in the client's language
At the end of the day, Summarize my day gives each client a draft update. Each client can have their own sections and, with Pro, their own report language. On the last workday of your week, the Summary offers a weekly recap for each client.
Before a review meeting, a weekly recap is a good thing to send. It shows the work items and where the time went, so feedback starts from facts.
Hours and invoices
Set an hourly rate per client, in any currency. Hours shows the time per client by day, and with Pro, Make invoice saves a PDF or CSV invoice on your computer. If you quote by the project, Hours still tells you how your estimate held up.
An example project
This is an illustrative example, not a real customer.
Leo is a freelance brand designer. This month he has a coffee roaster's packaging, a studio's social templates in Canva, and an ongoing retainer for a SaaS startup's marketing pages.
He names files with the client first, so one rule per client is enough. On Wednesday the roaster asks for a fourth round on the bag design. Leo keeps working. At the end of the day he opens the roaster's tab in the summary. It lists the Figma file, the feedback call and the export work, with times. He adds one line in his own words, "Round 4: warmer browns, larger origin label", and sends it by email.
On Friday he sends each client a weekly recap. At the end of the month, he makes the roaster's invoice from Hours in one click and saves it as a PDF.
Privacy for creative work
Your log stays on your computer. No keystrokes, no screenshots, no clipboard. Nothing leaves without a click. If you use Write with AI, Claude gets a summary of the day, never your log. Mark a client Private and nothing about them goes to AI. That's useful under an NDA.
Keep reading
- Weekly client recap templates you can copy
- How to invoice hourly clients
- How to set goals as a freelancer
- Working inside a studio? See Astrolinks for agencies