Tasks DB

Time Track Sheet

How does it work

This template provides an example of two databases (Tasks and Time tracker) that can be used to keep track of time when performing tasks. The difference between most other templates and this one is that it is designed to account for breaks and pauses. It can represent the time spent on tasks more accurately by having four buttons to ‘start’, ‘pause’, ‘resume’, and ‘end’ tasks. However, it could also be used in a less detailed way by only using the ‘start’ task button to keep a general overview of the tasks that have been done. These two ways of using this template account for the fact that:

• sometimes time management must be done more rigorously as productivity seems to be low or more insight is desired
• sometimes time management can be done more loosely as productivity seems high and it should not get in the way, or it is simply not a busy season

There is a template for a task in the Tasks DB that is set as the default with the buttons to ‘start’, ‘pause’, ‘resume’ and ‘end’ the task. This creates and closes individual sessions in time sheet. You can view all previous tasks in the timeline view of the Time tracker database to get a good overview of the time spent on tasks.

Limitations

This system is tailored to managing the time of an individual, and makes the assumption that one can only be busy with one action at a time (multi-tasking is not allowed).

A downside to systems like this can be that if tasks are not closed manually, they keep running for ever and clutter the system (making the timeline view full of long tasks).

With the first assumption in mind and trying to stop sessions from going on indefinitely, two measures are set in place:

1. The ‘pause’ and ‘end’ task button closes all sessions without an end date. Basically saying that after the pause or end button is clicked, there are no running sessions anymore.
2. Every time a new session is made (’start’ or ‘resume’ button is clicked), all open sessions (records without an end time) are closed. This achieves two things.
   1. If only the buttons are used, and no items are manually added to the time tracker sheet, it is not possible to have multiple sessions overlapping (complying with the aforementioned assumption).
   2. The system could be used without the ‘pause’ and ‘end’ buttons, and only the ‘start’ task session button when starting a new task. This would only be giving information on the general outline of ones time spending and not providing detailed insight into the exact time. It assumes you are always doing a task and reporting everything you do. Unless activities such as taking breaks or ending the day are put in as tasks, this time gets added to the latest session. This requires less interaction, making it a bit more user-friendly, but loses the function of detailed time management insight.

In summary, in some cases it might be a limitation that you can not do multiple tasks at the same time because this system works on the basis that only one session can be active/in-progress.

Possible improvements

A time out function could possibly be added to prevent the case of tasks seeming to be going on indefinitely if there is no interaction. This might be done by allowing the end time to be a maximum of 24 hours later than the start time, making the assumption that one cannot perform a task longer than that time period consecutively. However, this would clash with the functionality of the use described in limitations 2.b, therefore this is not implemented, but something that could be looked into in the future.