Tracking
What do you do if you forgot to start the timer?
Fix it immediately, with a backdated start time rather than a guess made later. If the app can start a session at a time you choose, use that as soon as you notice; if the work is already finished, add the session by hand with the real start and end. The error to avoid is not forgetting — everyone forgets — it is letting the correction wait until the detail has gone.
Why
The accuracy of a correction decays fast. Ten minutes after the fact you know exactly when you sat down. A day later you know roughly. A week later you are reconstructing from your sent mail, and the number you produce will be conservative, because the small pieces are the ones memory loses first. Correct at the earliest moment you notice, and the log stays as good as one you never got wrong.
Do this
- Backdate the start the moment you notice, while the real time is still obvious.
- Add a finished session by hand with genuine start and end times rather than a duration alone.
- Anchor a correction to something you can check: a calendar entry, a commit, a message you sent.
- Switch on a visible reminder that a session is running, so the reverse mistake stays rare too.
Avoid this
- Leaving the gap and reconstructing the whole week on Friday.
- Entering a round number because you cannot remember the real one.
- Adding a session at a time you know was wrong so the day's total looks tidy.
- Correcting a forgotten stop by inventing an end time hours after the fact.
What it looks like in the log
The same advice, as the row a tracked session actually leaves behind.
Kestrel — content migration
- Noticed at
- 10:20
- Actually started
- 09:35
- Fixed with
- Punch Earlier
- Recovered
- 45m
All of this is easier when the hours were written down as they happened. Punch O'Clock is a free tracker that does it in one tap, works offline, and exports the range you are billing.
Free. No ads, and no account unless you want sync.
Related questions
Is it dishonest to backdate a session?
Not when the backdated time is the true one. Recording the actual start time is more accurate than recording the time you happened to remember, not less. It becomes dishonest only when the time entered is not the time the work began.
How do I stop forgetting?
Attach the punch to something you already do — sitting down, opening the file, joining the call — rather than to remembering. A live timer on the Lock Screen also helps in both directions: it reminds you a session is running, which is the error that costs the client rather than you.