Logseq Time Tracking: Basics and Examples

[@FluidTechnology]

Thanks for the video! You inspired me to add a new TODO on my summer list... (time) logbook manager for LogSeq allowing you to easily manage entries after the fact, in case we got distracted ;) I'll try to update this comment when it launches this summer! 🚀

[@toolsontech]

That sounds awesome, do reach out when you got a beta as I would love to test it.

[@qqlife]

Thanks for another good videos!

[@AntoniusMomac]

Time tracking is so import and useful when it's easy todo. So Logseq, besides being very cool, fun and useful with the bocks and linking, the time tracking is killer. I'm currently on a porject where we're doing grooming of stories in JIRA. A few weeks ago it was reported that our paces was bad, so we added more hours, although that didn't fix everything. So just last we, we were told that there were too many inturuptions and going back changing stores that were decided already. It sounded like we were taking half the time in the meetings doing this rework. So, I timed it with logseq. Example, while grooming a 3 point story, which took a total of 28 min, 5 of those minutes when to updating a previous (linked) task. Which is 20% in this case, and anohter 8pts. story64 min and linked story 17m, 26% time. However, the total time spent in the session was 154min, and actually 15% of that time was used making necessary upates. Maybe not idea, but it's clear when you can quantify. Great stuff Bas!!! I really appreciate your work and approach. 😍

[@toolsontech]

Having a good idea on how much time things really take helps a lot on making decisions. Don't think any time tracking is ideal, as it's always a balance on what you measure as part of the job. Joel wrote an excellent piece on it back in 2007 - www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/10/26/evidence-based-scheduling/

[@AntoniusMomac]

@@toolsontech / Bas, my Hyrule brother. Thanks a good article. EBS, there's something to that in combination with Monte Carlo Simulations. And I hear what you're saying, QA and Bug fixes are never ever part of any estimate that I've ever seen. So there's that as well. Anyway, please keep up the good work. love your stuff and the purple, OH the PURPLE. 😍😍😍

[@farciss]

Thanks for the video, i have a little question, i see that you can add quicly current time in logseq,how do you do that? There is a plugin or shortcut?

[@toolsontech]

On of my favorite plugins, interstitiual journal . Ctrl t to add time Use it all the time

[@VigilanceTech]

I'd really like to see a proper indexing where one can quickly switch between tasks for different customers and make comments in detail about what one did during each time segment. Also it would be best if one could drop a time stamp AFTER the work was done because one doesn't always know what one is about to do but they ALWAYS know what they just did (so the whole concept of "clocking in" to a task is basically flawed. One should only "clock-out" of what one just did (and at the start of the day one could clock out of the universal task "personal time," along with maybe some notes about what one did during that time to keep a diaryor some such).

[@toolsontech]

I always forget to clock-out, but ideally my workflow should be to always journal when I stop something since that would give me the time done, a good estimate on how much work was done and what was done. But if we are going into so much detail one might consider a dedicated tracking app like toggl

[@RainbowPyramid]

Thank you for this. I am new to logseq. How do you set your "default app" please? You say click the 3 dots then click "open in default app". When I do this, it is defaulting to an obsolete app. Obviously a problem in my set up, but I don't know where or how to fix this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[@toolsontech]

Logseq takes the default app for markdown files from your operating system. Not sure what system you are using but will assume Windows, there you can right click any .md file in explorer, click properties and then the 3rd line should say open with. Hit the change button and pick the application you want to use.

[@zainoferd7852]

Thanks for the video. You're query is still visible after rendering. Can you tell me how did you achieve this ?

[@toolsontech]

Should be in all current versions of Logseq, they added the pen on the end to allow for easy edit afterwards. If not I would double check your theme to see if that might be hiding it.

[@Vinceroni0706]

Can you do math operation on page properties? For example I have both a start and of the day property, and I want to have those both as columns in a table plus a third column that computes the difference between both times (thus giving the amount of hours worked).

[@toolsontech]

From what I know it's possible in advanced queries by making an extra variable, but to get that resolved your best bet is to go to the logseq forum or discord since that has a few people that are absolute magic with advanced queries.

[@gedankenbalance]

I don't see me tracking my time because i mostly do short projects where the workflow you have just shown would be way too much work in itself. But i guess for bigger projects this meta-data could be quite usefull. Thanks!

[@toolsontech]

Yeah, I don't use it very often. Unless it's something I really need exact timing for or if I'm making things bigger in my head than it should be

[@jpshipherd7810]

Thanks for this (and all your videos). I know this is an old one, but do you still use that query to get a list of tasks with time? When I use it I sometimes can see the total in the header for the clock-time column, but I never see the times for the individual tasks in the table rows. Sometimes the displayed table doesn't even have the clock-time column at all and I can't figure out why that is. Curious if this still works for you.

[@toolsontech]

I currently don't use the time tracking because I'm really bad at stopping timers on time. I'll give this another go once the DB version drops as that will keep my markdown clean. If you're on the discord then just @ me and we could run a quick experiment to figure out how it currently performs.

[@LocdnessMomster]

how were you adding in the (presumably current) time for 3:49 is there a shortcut or did you just cut and paste?

[@toolsontech]

I'm using a small plugin called Logseq Interstitial journaling allowing me to insert the current time with CTRL+T

[@MrTangoTech]

just thinking, would it be possible to query the logged time and show it directly as csv, maybe with transform or a view function?

[@toolsontech]

It would be possible, probably even easier once the database version is done (since that logs the time at each row). Would recommend throwing it up as en example on the discord or forum, some people breathe the query language at a level I can only dream of.

[@nhrlyn]

how are you inserting current time?

[@toolsontech]

I use a plugin called interstitial journalling, once installed I can insert the current time with ctrl+t

[@voldefox]

It sucks that the logbook is always cut off to the right.

[@toolsontech]

For sure, I really hope the UX designer will look at it at some point to make it more useful.

[@toolsontech]

Sorry for the spike in audio at scene switches, I'm experimenting with it and didn't prewatch this video like I normally do on Sunday before release. Adding a checkbox to my template for new videos so should be much better in my simple query explained video that I'm building now. That and the new microphone I got.

[@kotgc7987]

Audio is too quiet.

[@toolsontech]

Yeah, I'm aware. KZbin unfortunately doesn't allow me to upload a patched version but it's part of pre-release checklist so other videos should be good.