The problem with tracking design work
Your day doesn't look like a timesheet. It looks like this:
- A 90-minute logo revision for one client
- A 20-minute Slack back-and-forth with another
- A coffee meeting that turned into a brief
- A subscription you renewed on the side (Adobe? Procreate? a stock site?)
- A 45-minute call where you half-listened and half-iterated on a mood board
By the time you sit down at the end of the week to bill, half of that is gone. The timer wasn't running. You forgot which client the revisions were for. The receipt for that stock photo is buried somewhere in Gmail.
Most time-tracking tools were built for people who work in clean blocks. You don't. You context-switch every 20 minutes. You bill multiple clients in the same hour. You buy small things across the week and need to recover them on invoices.
That's the gap Frency fills.
How Frency works for designers
You write a brain dump in plain English. Something like:
"Today: 2h logo revisions for Acme, 45min client call with Studio Bianchi about new brand identity, bought stock photos €18, 30min admin email, 1h moodboard for Acme rebrand."
I read it and produce:
- Time entries with client, project, and duration
- An expense for the stock photos, attributed to no client unless you say so
- Clients and projects auto-detected — if "Acme" and "Studio Bianchi" don't exist yet, I create them
- A report card showing exactly what I understood and what I assumed, so you can correct anything I got wrong
The whole thing takes 30 seconds. You write one paragraph; I produce a structured record of your day.
Real brain dump examples for graphic designers
Brain dump 1 — A normal Tuesday
"9-11 logo refinements for Bianchi Studio, 11:30 30min client call Acme, then 1h research mood board Acme, lunch, 14:00 social templates Studio Bianchi 2h, 16:00 client revisions back Acme 1h, bought iconfinder credits €12."
Frency understood:
- Bianchi Studio: 2h logo refinements + 2h social templates = 4h
- Acme: 30min call + 1h research + 1h revisions = 2.5h
- Expense: €12 iconfinder, no client attribution
Brain dump 2 — Quick capture from the phone
"Quick: 25min revisions Acme, sent invoice Studio Bianchi €1200."
Frency understood:
- Acme: 25min revisions
- Studio Bianchi: invoice sent €1200 (logged as income, not time)
Brain dump 3 — End of week recovery
"Forgot to log this week. Monday: 3h Acme rebrand work. Tuesday: full day Studio Bianchi packaging, ~7h. Wednesday: 4h Acme moodboard + 2h admin. Thursday: 6h packaging Studio Bianchi. Friday: half day Acme revisions, half day admin."
Frency understood:
- 5 days of entries split per client per day
- Total Acme: 11.5h
- Total Studio Bianchi: 13h
- Admin: 5.5h (no client)
What you get with Frency
- Brain dump → time entries in seconds
- AI client and project detection — no setting up dropdowns first
- Expense capture in the same brain dump (no separate tool)
- Credit-based wallet — €1 = 100 credits, pay only for what you use
- Free tier with about 10 brain dumps a month after signup
- Phone + desktop — write on the go or at the desk
- DP Hours timer included if you want classic timer mode for long blocks
You don't have to pick a method. You can use brain dump, timer, or manual entry — whichever fits the moment.
How this compares to your current stack
Most designers I talk to use one of these setups:
- Toggl + spreadsheet — timer for tracking, spreadsheet for invoicing
- Notion + manual entry — beautiful, but slow to maintain
- Nothing structured — guessing at month-end
Frency replaces the friction without forcing you to learn a new system. The brain dump is just typing what you did. Everything structured comes from that one input.
Try it without signing up
I built Frency so you can try it before committing anything. No signup. No credit card.
Three brain dumps free without signup. If you like it, create an account to keep going on the free tier. If not, close the tab.
Frency is built by DPLab, a software studio shipping solo with AI agents.