Workflows: Perfecting Your Log: Ensuring Accurate Time Tracking

Welcome back! In our previous modules, we've focused on real-time tracking and managing your activities. But, let's face it, we're all human. Sometimes, we forget to start or stop an activity, get distracted, or need to add activities in retrospect. That's why editing your activities is such an important feature. In this module, we'll cover how to easily edit your activity logs in SkedPal, ensuring your records are accurate and your schedule remains optimized.

The most common challenge when starting to use the Status Tracker is remembering to start and stop the tracker. The first thing you need to consider is why you're adding this extra step to your already busy day. Remember, the more up-to-date SkedPal is on what you're doing and for how long, the better it can help you manage your schedule for the rest of your day. Accurate tracking leads to optimized scheduling and ultimately, increased productivity.

Once you have the motivation, the next step is to establish the habit of starting and stopping activities. Like any new habit, it takes time and effort. It's important to expect imperfections and occasional lapses in the early days. It's perfectly natural, and you shouldn't feel frustrated. The process of updating the tracker to reflect that you started or stopped an activity a while ago, even days ago, is easy. The following sections will explain how to quickly bring the tracker up to date.

Let's start by learning how to edit what the Status Tracker shows as your current activity. You'll always see the current activity displayed in the footer of the tracker.

To view more details, just expand it to full size, and you'll see an 'Edit' button. This button lets you adjust the start or end times for your current activity.

Now, let's look at a specific scenario. Imagine you've been distracted or interrupted for the past 20 minutes, and now you want to get back to focusing on your task—but you also want your tracker to reflect what actually happened. So, why is this important? Well, first—you want your timeline to show a true picture of your day. If you notice a pattern of frequent distractions, that's a valuable insight. You might decide to change your environment or tweak your notification settings. Second—you want to track the actual time spent on your tasks. That way, you can make better estimates in the future and plan more effectively.

Now in this specific situation—where you were interrupted or off-task for a while, but you're still planning to continue the original task—the best option is to add a new activity for the past 20 minutes, while keeping your current one active. Here's how:

Step one: Go to the Activity tab.

Step two: Click "Add Activity."

Now, pick the type of activity you want to log: If it wasn't related to anything in your Outline, choose Ad-hoc. If it's something you use often, you might find it under Favorites. If it was tied to a specific task, just search or browse your Outline. Or if you were just in a Zone, without a specific task, select that.

Next—click the Date/Time range. You can either manually enter the start and end time, or just type in the duration, like "20 minutes," and it'll calculate the rest.

Now, a quick note: You might've seen that there are other options in the Edit menu—like "Never Started", "Lost Focus / Switched Tasks", or "I was focused on..." Here's how they work:

Never Started: This will replace your entire current time log with either an Ad-hoc or Away entry. Lost Focus / Switched Tasks: This sets the end time of your current activity in the past and fills the gap with Away. I was focused on...: This replaces the whole time block with a different task altogether.

Each of those has their own use case. But in this scenario—where you were interrupted but now want to resume your current task—adding a separate activity for the gap is the most accurate and least disruptive option. It keeps your day clean, realistic, and honest—and that's what good time tracking is all about.

Let's look at another example. You've started a meeting 25 minutes ago, but you forgot to start the tracker. Why is it important to update the tracker? There are many reasons to track your time in meetings. First, meetings may start or end differently from the scheduled time. This helps you track the actual time spent in meetings. Secondly, if you've linked your meeting to a parent line in the Outline with a time budget, the time tracked in the Status Tracker will count towards that budget. In this scenario, you'll first need to start the activity, which is the meeting.

Then, edit the start time to reflect the actual time you started the meeting.

So, what if you want to add an activity that's related to the past, and you're not doing it right now? For example, you did the activity hours ago, or even yesterday or days ago, but forgot to log it. To do this, go to the activity tab and add a new activity as we discussed earlier, making sure to set the correct date and time range for when the activity occurred.

So far, we've learned how to edit our current activity and add missing activities. Now, let's see how to view and edit existing past activities. There are two distinct views to see past activities. The first is the standard view when you click on the activity tab. This view is designed for a quick glimpse at recent activities. You can perform two actions for each activity: click to edit the activity, or start it over again.

The other, more detailed view is the Timeline.

Unlike the list view of activities, the Timeline view focuses on the spatial dimension of time, similar to a calendar view. You can see shorter activities as shorter time blocks and longer ones as longer blocks. In addition, you can directly adjust the start and end times of activities within the Timeline view, giving you precise control over your activity logs.

A note about deleting an activity. If you want to remove an activity, you'll need to edit it and set its status to 'Away'. Remember, we can't leave gaps in the timeline. You're either actively tracking something, or you're 'Away'. The 'Away' times represent the periods you're not actively tracking your activities. By setting an unwanted activity to 'Away', you effectively remove it from your tracked activity log while maintaining a continuous timeline.

And that wraps up this module on keeping your Status Tracker accurate—even when life throws curveballs. Remember, the goal isn't perfection—it's awareness. When your timeline reflects reality, you're in control of your time, not the other way around. Up next: we'll shift gears and explore how SkedPal turns your tracking data into powerful insights. In Reports and Metrics, we'll show you how to measure your productivity in ways that actually matter—and how to use those insights to level up your planning. See you there!