There is a timer widget that I find handy for time-tracking, called ChronoTrack. (UPDATE: here is the latest 2.0 version: http://www.nimblepoint.com/widgets/chronoTrack_v2.0.zip) I like to keep it tucked away in the bottom corner of my desktop. Here’s how I do it…

If you activate dashboard development mode, then you will be able to drag widgets on and off of the dashboard, to and from the desktop. (The widget will always float on top.)

It’s a little tricky to get the hang of at first, but just practice and you’ll get the hang of it:

Click and drag a widget on your dashboard, then de-activate the dashboard by pressing F12. (I use SideTrack to use a mouse-pad corner tap “hotkey”) Keep dragging the mouse and place the widget wherever you would like.

To reattach the widget back to the dashboard, just do the reverse: click and drag the widget on your desktop, then activate the dashboard and place the widget where you want it on the dashboard layer.

BTW People claim you can do this without activating devmode, simply by dragging widgets directly from the “widget shelf” to create a new one, and then hitting F12. I found the behaviour was slightly different, as the widget then came back to the dashboard when you press F12 again, while with the devmode method, the detached widgets are visible but darkened and unmodifiable via the dashboard layer, because they are actually behind the transparent background layer of the dashboard.

Enjoy, and feel free to let me know about other useful widgets for development.