Re: Timeclock

[Tim X <timx@nospam.dev.null>]

"weber" <hugows@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi!
> I would like to use something like timeclock to control the time I
> spend working.
> One problem though is that timeclock "thinks" that, if I work extra
> hours today, that tomorrow I only need to work less... Hours start to
> add up...
> Is there a way for timeclock start from -8 every new day?
> Also if you have some suggestion of mode to keep track of time please
> tell me
> TIA
> weber
>

I've been using planner-mode to do this for the last 6 months or so and I'm
really happy with it. It took me a few goes to work out how to best use planner
mode, but after a few goes, I came up with a recipe which works really well for
me. 

Essentially, I have a few project pages for various projects. When I become
aware of a task which I need to do for one of those projects, I add it to the
page. Depending on the task, I may or may not schedule it for now or some time
in the future. 

Each day, the first thing I do is run 'plan' to create the day page for that
day. This page will have all my scheduled, but uncompleted tasks, a section for
scheduling my time, a diary section which shows what appointments I have in the
emacs diary, a notes section which tracks any project notes I make that day
(and adds them to the relevant project page) and finally, the timelog section,
which shows the amount of time spend on each task that day. It also shows the
total amount of time worked for the day and a percentage figure which is the
amount of time allocated to a task compared to the amount of time I've been at
work. 

When starting a task, I put the cursor on the task and hit C-c C-i. This clocks
me in with timclock. When I either complete the task or clock into another task
or clock out with C-c C-o, the information in the timelog section is updated. I
also have a time report section in each project page which shows a breakdown of
total time spent on each task and total time spent on the project. 

So, at any time, I can

- see where I've spent my time for the day
- see how much time in total has been spent on a task or project
- generate a list of tasks completed over a period
- generate a list of tasks which are in various states (started, in-progress,
  pending, delegated or completed
- generate a list of tasks which have not ben scheduled yet

In addition to all of this, planner mode integrates nicely with bbdb, various
mail readers, w3m, bookmarks, etc. This makes it really easy to keep all the
information related to a project all together as hyperlinks in the project
page. I can then jump to any of them with a simple keystroke or mouse click.
This is really handy for things like e-mail messages or contact information
etc. 

A couple of weeks ago, I got hassled by my boss because a task had not been
completed. I argued this was because I'm doing too many different tasks and
there just isn't enough hours in each day. My boss suggested it was because I
didn't know how to manage my time. I printed out a couple of the summary
reports and time worked. He swallowed his words very quickly, apologised for
not realising how many additional hours I was putting in and told me to take a
day off every fortnight for the next 6 months! 

this response was even more extreme than I expected. I had mentioned on many
occasions that I had too many projects to manage and was getting fed up with
not getting paid for the hours I actually worked. It all fell on deaf ears.
However, showing a long pattern of how time was used and how much of it I gave
made all the difference. My boss also became more aware of all those
jobs/projects you just sort of end up with which he didn't assign to me - this
was actually the main reason he thought I wasn't using my time effectively as
he really was only aware of 70% of the jobs I was responsible for. I very much
recommend planner-mode.

Tim
-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au