How to track time spent on a project

How to track time spent on a project

[Geralt]

Hi,

I want to track the time that I'll spend on a new project. For this
I'm planning to use org-mode's clocking feature, so far my first tests
(I've never used org-agenda before) showed me that I can do this
easily from the agenda view, as long as I have a DATE: property in my
node. And that's a bit of a problem because I don't really have a
scheduled date when I'm going to work on a part of this project.
Is there a way in org-mode to just clock the time and have the agenda
view show me on the views for every day (or time interval) just the
clocked times for every tree item that fall into this time
interval/range?
And how can I start clocking items that do not show up in the agenda
view? I'm not sure if it's understandable what I want, so I here's a
small example org-file and a description of what I want to see and how
I want to work on it:
Basic layout of the org-file:
* Part 1
  :CLOCK:
  CLOCK: [2009-07-20 Mon 12:40]--[2009-07-20 Mon 14:43] =>  2:03
  CLOCK: [2009-07-23 Thu 22:28]--[2009-07-23 Thu 22:48] =>  0:20
  :END:
* Part 2
  :CLOCK:
  CLOCK: [2009-07-24 Fri 09:45]--[2009-07-24 Fri 11:15] =>  1:30
  :END:

What I want:
(Re-)start at any time the clocking of one of either Part 1 or Part 2
whenever I'm working on it and get summaries of the total working
times on a day, week, or whatever time interval I want and the total
working time I've spent on the project or single parts on it.


I assume that a lot of you are using org-mode exactly for this purpose
and probably you know how to do it better, so if you have any
suggestions how I could do it better please tell me :-)




Thanks,

Geralt.

Re: How to track time spent on a project

[Greg Newman]

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Take a look at this: http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#sec-7I use this
exact setup and it works perfectly


*Greg Newman*

http://20seven.org

twitter: 20seven

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:40 AM, Geralt <usr.gentoo@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I want to track the time that I'll spend on a new project. For this
> I'm planning to use org-mode's clocking feature, so far my first tests
> (I've never used org-agenda before) showed me that I can do this
> easily from the agenda view, as long as I have a DATE: property in my
> node. And that's a bit of a problem because I don't really have a
> scheduled date when I'm going to work on a part of this project.
> Is there a way in org-mode to just clock the time and have the agenda
> view show me on the views for every day (or time interval) just the
> clocked times for every tree item that fall into this time
> interval/range?
> And how can I start clocking items that do not show up in the agenda
> view? I'm not sure if it's understandable what I want, so I here's a
> small example org-file and a description of what I want to see and how
> I want to work on it:
> Basic layout of the org-file:
> * Part 1
>  :CLOCK:
>  CLOCK: [2009-07-20 Mon 12:40]--[2009-07-20 Mon 14:43] =>  2:03
>  CLOCK: [2009-07-23 Thu 22:28]--[2009-07-23 Thu 22:48] =>  0:20
>  :END:
> * Part 2
>  :CLOCK:
>  CLOCK: [2009-07-24 Fri 09:45]--[2009-07-24 Fri 11:15] =>  1:30
>  :END:
>
> What I want:
> (Re-)start at any time the clocking of one of either Part 1 or Part 2
> whenever I'm working on it and get summaries of the total working
> times on a day, week, or whatever time interval I want and the total
> working time I've spent on the project or single parts on it.
>
>
> I assume that a lot of you are using org-mode exactly for this purpose
> and probably you know how to do it better, so if you have any
> suggestions how I could do it better please tell me :-)
>
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Geralt.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Emacs-orgmode mailing list
> Remember: use `Reply All' to send replies to the list.
> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
>

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Re: How to track time spent on a project

[Bernt Hansen]

Geralt <usr.gentoo@googlemail.com> writes:

> I want to track the time that I'll spend on a new project. For this
> I'm planning to use org-mode's clocking feature, so far my first tests
> (I've never used org-agenda before) showed me that I can do this
> easily from the agenda view, as long as I have a DATE: property in my
> node. And that's a bit of a problem because I don't really have a
> scheduled date when I'm going to work on a part of this project.
> Is there a way in org-mode to just clock the time and have the agenda
> view show me on the views for every day (or time interval) just the
> clocked times for every tree item that fall into this time
> interval/range?
> And how can I start clocking items that do not show up in the agenda
> view?

Just visit the org file with the task you want to clock in and do C-c
C-x C-i to clock it in.  C-c C-x C-o stops the clock (or when you clock
in something else it stops).  You can only clock one thing at a time.
Play with it in a test task to see how it works.

You can clock in from the agenda directly (if it's visible there) with
just I (and O for clock out)

I've documented how I use clocking stuff here:

http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Clocking

>I'm not sure if it's understandable what I want, so I here's a
> small example org-file and a description of what I want to see and how
> I want to work on it:
> Basic layout of the org-file:
> * Part 1
>   :CLOCK:
>   CLOCK: [2009-07-20 Mon 12:40]--[2009-07-20 Mon 14:43] =>  2:03
>   CLOCK: [2009-07-23 Thu 22:28]--[2009-07-23 Thu 22:48] =>  0:20
>   :END:
> * Part 2
>   :CLOCK:
>   CLOCK: [2009-07-24 Fri 09:45]--[2009-07-24 Fri 11:15] =>  1:30
>   :END:
>
> What I want:
> (Re-)start at any time the clocking of one of either Part 1 or Part 2
> whenever I'm working on it and get summaries of the total working
> times on a day, week, or whatever time interval I want and the total
> working time I've spent on the project or single parts on it.
>
>
> I assume that a lot of you are using org-mode exactly for this purpose
> and probably you know how to do it better, so if you have any
> suggestions how I could do it better please tell me :-)

The agenda is not limited to date ranges.  You can find tasks to clock
in via the agenda in lots of ways such as:

  - tags searches  (C-c a m)
  - org-occur searches by regexp (C-c a /)
  - custom agenda view

etc.

I tend to clock in tasks that show up on my agenda for today, or from
STARTED or NEXT tag searches.

HTH,

Bernt

Re: How to track time spent on a project

[Geralt]

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Bernt Hansen<bernt@norang.ca> wrote:
> Just visit the org file with the task you want to clock in and do C-c
> C-x C-i to clock it in.  C-c C-x C-o stops the clock (or when you clock
> in something else it stops).  You can only clock one thing at a time.
> Play with it in a test task to see how it works.
>
> You can clock in from the agenda directly (if it's visible there) with
> just I (and O for clock out)
>
Hi,

thanks, that's working fine :-)


> I've documented how I use clocking stuff here:
>
> http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Clocking
>
I already looked into that, but I couldn't find how to track the time
of entries without a DATE property.

> The agenda is not limited to date ranges.  You can find tasks to clock
> in via the agenda in lots of ways such as:
>
>  - tags searches  (C-c a m)
>  - org-occur searches by regexp (C-c a /)
>  - custom agenda view
>
I tried that, but when searching for matching tasks I  can't see their
clocked time in this view (when pressing R org tells me that this
operation is not allowed in such a buffer).
What I just tried was to add a DATE property like this:
  :DATE:
  DATE: <2009-07-24 Fri>
  DATE: <2009-07-20 Thu>
  :END:
With this I can see the task in the agenda and see the clocked
time(s), but I have to add an entry every time I'm working on it (and
it's redundant because this information is already in the CLOCK
property).
I haven't used a custom agenda before, is there a way to create one
that shows tasks in a timeline by looking at the dates in the CLOCK
property?



Thanks for your replies, yours too Greg.


Geralt.

Re: How to track time spent on a project

[Bernt Hansen]

Geralt <usr.gentoo@googlemail.com> writes:

> On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Bernt Hansen<bernt@norang.ca> wrote:
>> Just visit the org file with the task you want to clock in and do C-c
>> C-x C-i to clock it in.  C-c C-x C-o stops the clock (or when you clock
>> in something else it stops).  You can only clock one thing at a time.
>> Play with it in a test task to see how it works.
>>
>> You can clock in from the agenda directly (if it's visible there) with
>> just I (and O for clock out)
>>
> Hi,
>
> thanks, that's working fine :-)
>
>
>> I've documented how I use clocking stuff here:
>>
>> http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html#Clocking
>>
> I already looked into that, but I couldn't find how to track the time
> of entries without a DATE property.

l (ell) in the agenda shows logged clock times.  You can also get a
clock summary report with (R) or insert a dynamic block in your org file
(see the manual).  C-c C-x C-d will summarize clocked time by task
(totals only) overlayed on the headlines.

> >
>> The agenda is not limited to date ranges.  You can find tasks to clock
>> in via the agenda in lots of ways such as:
>>
>>  - tags searches  (C-c a m)
>>  - org-occur searches by regexp (C-c a /)
>>  - custom agenda view
>>
> I tried that, but when searching for matching tasks I  can't see their
> clocked time in this view (when pressing R org tells me that this
> operation is not allowed in such a buffer).

This works for easily locating the task to clock in.  To get clock
reports you want R in a day/weekly/monthly agenda, or l (log mode), or L
for a single org-file.  You can also summarize clock times in a dynamic
clock table within an org file.

R in the agenda is only available in day/week/monthly agenda views.  You
can specify an explicit date range in a dynamic clock report in your org
file.  Check the manual for details.

-Bernt


>
> What I just tried was to add a DATE property like this:
>   :DATE:
>   DATE: <2009-07-24 Fri>
>   DATE: <2009-07-20 Thu>
>   :END:
> With this I can see the task in the agenda and see the clocked
> time(s), but I have to add an entry every time I'm working on it (and
> it's redundant because this information is already in the CLOCK
> property).
> I haven't used a custom agenda before, is there a way to create one
> that shows tasks in a timeline by looking at the dates in the CLOCK
> property?

No - I use custom agenda view to find _what_ to clock in quickly.
Reports are different (check the next section of my document)

-Bernt

Re: How to track time spent on a project

[Geralt]

Hi Bernt,

thanks, that helped me a lot! :-)






Geralt.