Time tracking

Estimate, plan and track time spent on your tasks

With dypt, you can estimate the time subtasks will take and let dypt roll up the estimates throughout your hierarchy of tasks. When you complete a task, you can log the actual time spent and get an understanding of how accurate your estimates are.

Better still, you can use dypt's powerful AI to create initial estimates for you and give you a feel for how long tasks will take.

Using time tracking

You set estimates and actuals for a task in the time tracking dialog. You can open this dialog in several ways:

In the add/edit task menu, select "Time"
In the subtask menu, select "Time"
Press the "t" key when you have a task selected

The time tracking dialog

In the time tracking dialog, you can set time estimates and actuals.

By default when you open the dialog on an incomplete task, it will open on the estimates tab. When you open the dialog on a completed task, it will open on the actuals tab.

You can freely switch between the tabs at anytime, but you can only set an actual time once you've checked a task as complete.

Initially, when you open the dialog on a task that doesn't have a time set, it will open in edit mode. This allows you to set a time estimate or actual.

You can either use one of the quick-set options (e.g., "5 minutes") or enter a time manually.

Once you've set a time, press the "Save" button to save the time to the task.

If you'd like to remove a time, you can press the "Clear" button to remove just an estimate or an actual, or the red "Remove times" button to remove both.

AI time estimates

You can use dypt's powerful AI to make a initial rough estimate for how long your tasks will take.

This is a great way to get the ball rolling and build up a picture for how long a set of tasks will take you. Very useful for planning your day or week.

Good to know

Please note that AI estimates are just that, estimates. They are based on the data you've entered into dypt and the AI's understanding of how long tasks typically take. They are not a guarantee of how long a task will take you but hopefully serve as a helpful starting point.

Using AI estimates

You can use AI time estimates in several ways:

On an individual task, in the time dialog by pressing the "Estimate with AI" button on the "Estimate" tab
On all of a tasks subtasks by clicking through to the task, pressing the AI action button and selecting "Estimate time"
On multiple tasks that you select by entering multi mode, selecting the tasks you wish to estimate, and pressing the Time action button

Existing estimates

Please note if you use the AI estimate function on a task that already has an estimate, the AI will overwrite the existing estimate.

How estimates and actuals flow up the hierarchy

When you set estimates and actuals on a task, these values will flow up the hierarchy of tasks.

For example, if you have a task which has two subtasks, and you set estimates on each of the subtasks (5m and 10m), the estimate on the parent task will be the sum of the estimates on the subtasks (15m).

When you complete one of the subtasks, the parents estimates will change to an orange pill showing the remaining estimated time. Again, this will flow up the hierarchy allowing you to get a feel for how long collective tasks will take.

As you mark subtasks as complete and set actuals, you'll see the time on those subtasks turn green. Parents will continue to show the remaining time, until all subtasks are complete, at which point the parent will show the aggregated actual time spent on the subtasks.

Filtering on estimates

You can filter your tasks based on their estimates. This is a great way to see what tasks you can get completed in the amount of time you have available. See filtering and sorting for more information.

Time estimates on the dashboard

You can see a summary of your time estimates on the dashboard broken down into boxes showing how many tasks can be completed in different periods of time. E.g. how many tasks could I complete in 15 minutes.

Click on one of the boxes to preset a filter and see the relevant tasks.