Giovanni, thanks so much for taking the time to respond.

I had learned about the idle time feature from the info docs when I first
started using org.  The reason this solution won't work for me though is
that, if I understand correctly, it would only apply in scenarios where
my emacs session detects inactivity for the configured amount of time, like
when I leave my desk.  If so, this doesn't cover the scenarios where I
begin working on a new task at my computer but forget to clock-in to the
new task in org (about 60% of the cases where I forget).

However, I reviewed your other suggestions.  I did download the latest
snapshot of org from git, but as I need to maintain my todo.in NT emacs at
work, I don't have make and so just hacked my config by replacing the emacs
23.4.1 distribution org .el files with the current ones.   I needed to
comment out the org-version.el warning, but otherwise everything seems to
work fine.  The new "v c" agenda view is great!  Very useful.

It appears for those like myself that what will work best under the latest
functionality is the following use case, which I tested a little while ago:
 In my forget-to-clock-in-to-new-task scenario,
1. I use org-resolve-clocks, with the "K" option.
2. I then specify the number of minutes that passed since I forgot.
3. Clock in to the new task.
4. Org kindly asks me if I would like to clock-in but adjusting for the
same amount of minutes.

This solution best best allows me to keep accurate clocks without
disrupting focus on my current activity, and will already make a big
difference going forward.  If, in the future though, you implemented S-up
and S-down functionality so that it adjusted current and previous clocks
simultaneously (or at least the ability to turn this on as an option), I
would be your biggest fan :)

Regards,
Joe

On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Giovanni Ridolfi <giovanni.ridolfi@yahoo.it
> wrote:

>
>
> Hi, Joseph,
> (I cc'ed also Bernt Hansen, aka "the king of clocking" ;-)
> maybe he has better ideas; he's more experience than me, for sure ;)
>
>
> Da: Joseph Thomas <six50joe@gmail.com>
> Inviato: Marted́ 17 Luglio 2012 23:15
>
> > there's no easy way I can see to make quick adjustments to clocked time
> between activities.
>
> > Every day I will forget to clock to a new activity at some point.
>
> > By the time I remember, time has passed.  For example, I come back from
> a meeting and begin to work on a project.
>
> >  20 minutes into it, I clock in.
>
> >  But I must then manually adjust both the previous activity and the
> current one so that they are accurate and don't overlap in the agenda view.
>
>
> When you can back from a meeting you can resolve idel time
>     [[info:org#Resolving%20idle%20time][info:org#Resolving idle time]]
>
>
> If you changed your task but you forgot to clock outyou should check:
>
> [[info:org#Clocking%20commands][info:org#Clocking commands]]
>
>  (`org-clock-in-last')'
>      Reclock the last clocked task.  With one `C-u' prefix argument,
>      select the task from the clock history.  With two `C-u' prefixes,
>      force continuous clocking by starting the clock when the last clock
>      stopped.
>
>
> Be careful to have a recent git version since this is a new feature, but
> it had bugs and
> the bugs have been fixed.
>
>
> Other thoughts:
>
> You can change the time from the agenda (never tried) but:
>
> [[info:org#Agenda%20commands][info:org#Agenda commands]]
> `v c'
>      Show overlapping clock entries, clocking gaps, and other clocking
>      problems in the current agenda range.  You can then visit clocking
>      lines and fix them manually.  See the variable
>      `org-agenda-clock-consistency-checks' for information on how to
>      customize the definition of what constituted a clocking problem.
>      To return to normal agenda display, press `l' to exit Logbook mode.
>
>
> Finally you can also use the brute force method:
> clock in the new task
>
> then run
>
> M-x org-resolve-clocks
>
>
> so that you can "restart" your current task by, say, 20 minutes
> then you can set
>
>
> (defcustom org-clock-out-remove-zero-time-clocks t
>   "Non-nil means remove the clock line when the resulting time is zero."
>   :group 'org-clock
>   :type 'boolean)
>
> However the last clocked-out task (the meeting) has been clocked out 20
> minutes later.
>
> cheers,
> Giovanni
>
>