Timing your work

Timing is how Grindstone records your work as it happens. This topic covers starting, switching and stopping, what Grindstone does with what you choose, and what the app bar shows while you time.

One thing at a time

You time one thing at a time. Starting something new stops whatever you were timing at that same moment.

When you start timing, Grindstone creates a new time slice that begins at that moment. While you time, the slice’s end keeps up with the clock. When you stop or start something else, the slice ends there.

You can time work items, assignments and time slices. Whichever you pick, the time always goes to one of your own assignments:

• A work item: Grindstone times your assignment to it that comes first in the Active Assignments view (see Views). If that view shows none, Grindstone creates a new assignment to the work item for you.
• One of your assignments: Grindstone times that assignment.
• A time slice: Grindstone times the assignment the slice belongs to, in a new slice. The slice you picked isn’t changed.
• Someone else’s assignment, or a time slice of theirs: Grindstone times your own assignment to the same work item, creating one if you don’t have one.

For what assignments and time slices are, see How Grindstone thinks.

The app bar while you time

The right end of the app bar shows what’s going on:

• When nothing is being timed, it says Not timing.
• While you time, it shows a moving timing indicator, the readout and the label, and a Stop Timing button.
• The Switch button is there either way.

The readout and the label are formulas worked out from the time slice you’re timing. In the built-in presets, the readout is Hours, the length of that time slice so far, and the label is Work Item Name. A readout that looks like a number or a time is drawn in digital-clock digits. Click the readout or the label to choose another; see Timing readout and label.

Switching with Ctrl+K

Press Ctrl+K, or choose Switch in the app bar, to pick what to time without leaving what you’re doing. Ctrl+K works anywhere in Grindstone’s window except while a dialog is open.

The Switch picker lists the rows of a view. Type in Search to narrow the list: it keeps the rows that contain every word you type, in any order. The list shows each row as the view’s first column shows it, and marks what you’re timing now with a timer icon.

Then:

• Start starts timing the selected row. Pressing Enter or double-clicking a row does the same.
• Change moves what you’re timing to the selected row (see Changing what you’re timing). It’s available only while you’re timing something other than the selected row.
• Create Work Item creates a work item and starts timing it (see Creating a work item to time).

Use the up and down arrow keys to move through the list without leaving the search box. Press Escape, or click outside the picker, to close it. For every key the picker answers to, see Keyboard shortcuts.

Choosing the view to switch from

The button beside Search names the view the picker is listing. Choose it to pick another view; it offers the views of work items, assignments and time slices, including Active Assignments. Grindstone remembers your choice in the workspace. Many presets choose a view for you when the workspace is set up. If no view is chosen, or the chosen one is deleted, the picker lists the Selection view for work items (see Views).

Because the picker searches the view’s first column, you can make a view just for switching, with the rows you time most and the column you want to search by first. See Views.

Creating a work item to time

Create Work Item opens a new work item for you to fill in. If the view lists work items and its first column shows one of their fields, what you typed in Search goes into that field, as long as it’s a text field. If the view lists something else, Grindstone uses the first column of the Selection view for work items instead. When you save the work item, Grindstone starts timing it. If you cancel, nothing is created and timing doesn’t change.

When nothing in the list matches what you typed, pressing Enter does the same as Create Work Item.

Timing from a view

In a view of work items, assignments or time slices, including Active Assignments, select a row and use the timing buttons on the view’s toolbar, or right-click the row for the same commands:

• Start Timing starts timing the selected row.
• Change Timing moves what you’re timing to the selected row. It appears only while you’re timing something.
• Stop Timing replaces both when the selected row is what you’re timing.

Changing what you’re timing

Sometimes you start timing one thing and realize partway through it’s really another. Change (in the Switch picker) and Change Timing (in a view) fix that without stopping: the time slice you’re timing, from its start, moves to what you chose, and timing carries on.

This is different from Start, which ends the current slice and begins a new one. Use Change when the time already recorded belongs to the new choice, and Start when it doesn’t.

To move time that’s already been recorded, see Editing recorded time.

Stopping

Choose Stop Timing in the app bar, on a view’s toolbar or row menu, or on the stopwatch (see The stopwatch). The time slice you were timing ends at that moment.

Deleting the time slice you’re timing also stops timing; Grindstone warns you about this before it deletes.

Closing the workspace while timing

Closing a workspace doesn’t stop timing. When you open the workspace again, timing carries on, and the time it was closed counts toward what you were timing. Grindstone then asks what happened while it was closed, the same way it asks when you step away, unless you’ve turned that off. See When you step away.

If something goes wrong

If Grindstone can’t start, change or stop timing, it says why: in the Switch picker, the message appears above the buttons; elsewhere, an error dialog explains what happened.

If the picker says There is no view to switch from., neither the view you chose nor the Selection view for work items is there to list. If it says This view is empty., choose another view with the view button.