"As soon as you see that it is recording once, you shouldn't have to keep checking."
I prefer to use hotkeys to start and stop recording, but I can't tell if it's active(I might have hit the wrong key accidentally; fat fingers) without actually bringing up the main window. For me it's not really a "keep checking" thing, but a once each time I start and stop. I do lots of smaller clips, so this is a bit annoying.