Time Tracking in Notion (the 3 best methods)

in today's video we are doing three different ways that you can time track using notion so make sure you stick around to the end of the video so you can see which one suits you best okay the first one is going to be the most complicated so we are going to create a new database here so I've done for/ data and then I'm going to click on table view now if you already have a task list you can use that but for the sake of this video I am going to create a new database click on that and type task list now in order to make this we're going to be working with a few different properties so first I'm just going to delete this tags property so I'll just delete property so the first thing we're going to do is click on the plus and create a date property so this one here click on that so this will be the start time so I'm going to just write start time and then we will click on the cross I'll just make this smaller and now click on the plus and do the same thing but do an end date so again we're going to click on the date property and then I will call this end time so these are date properties but they will work with time as well now the next thing we will do do is create buttons and these buttons will say hey let's start this timer and hey let's end this timer so we don't actually need to see these properties they are just going to be working in the background of this database so what I can actually do is right click here and do hide in view same thing for this right click hide in view you do not want to delete because that is saying I don't want this property at all we just don't want to see this property so hide and view but if I click on open here for example you can see it's still here it still exists always saying is in this view here I don't want to see these properties now we are going to click on the plus and we are just going to start writing button and you can see here type button so this is a new function so if you've seen older videos with time tracking it's not going to be as simple as it is today which makes it really helpful so this button is going to be the start time so we're just going to write start so the rule we want here is when this button is clicked so when you click on start then we want it to do this so this action will be when you C click on that then the start time will start and we want it to start now so the rule here is when this is clicked then start the time now then we'll click on Cross here we can make this smaller now click on the plus and we're going to do the same thing here we'll write button but we are going to do the end time so I'll name this end so the rule here is when this button is clicked so when this is clicked then what we want to happen is the end time is activated so we'll click on end time and we will do now so click on that and then we can click on Cross so now we have a start and end now the last thing we want is a formula and this formula will show us the difference between the start and end time so we'll click on plus here and then write formula or you can scroll down and see formula here so we'll click on that now formulas can get very confusing in notion so I'm going to walk through it and hopefully it doesn't seem as daunting but I totally understand it can be confusing so so we're going to click on this space here and it's basically like writing code uh but just a bit more simple so the formula here will be date between so as you start writing that you can see here functions comes up so we'll click on that and we want to know the date between the end time so I'll click on that then I'll do a comma because we want to know the date between the end time and the start time so I'll click on that now we have to tell it how we want to see this information so we are going to do another comma and then do quotation mark and write minutes so the formula here is quite simple it is just show me the date between the end time and the start time and show it to me in minutes and then we can click on done so now we can rename this as well from formula to minutes and just make that smaller so now when you click on start and then click on end it's going to show up so I'll just start the timer here I'll do blah blah and then click on start and then wait a minute 1 minute later and then I will click on end time click on that and now as you can see it shows up it has been 1 minute now a few things to bear in mind with this formula I'm just going to copy this formula and paste it down here now a few rules with this if you have start time and end time mixed up so I'm actually just going to delete this if you do start time first and then end time and then click done it's actually going to show up minus one so all of your times will be in Min us you want to make sure that the end time is first and then start time is after that way it knows what is the difference between the end time and the start time not the difference between the start time and the end time it's a weird little rule but that is how that works also if you want this code is in my description so you can copy and paste that just bear in mind prop which means property so these here are properties if it's not called end time you have to name these to the exact name so as you can see here it is not the prop of the St start so not this property it is the name of the property of what we hid before what we did hide in view earlier so I'll just copy and paste this and put this back here so that is option one for time tracking in notion now the second one is even easier I'm just going to write data and then click on table View and do a new one so I'll click on new database and I will call this task list to so for this one we are going to do it manually so this one is doing it automatically in this one we are going to do it manually now you might think why would I want it to be manual when I can do it automatically well there's actually one big reason so I'm going to change this from tags type multi select to number so click on number here and we are going to rename this to minutes so let's say I have a task here called blah blah blah and I do this and let's say it takes 20 minutes well what happens here is I've written the time manually 20 minutes if I start this timer here and then forget to hit stop it might end up showing 400 100 minutes or whatever so it's relying on you to be very specific and ensure you actually click Start and click end so if you do end up missing either clicking start or end then you have ruined the time tracking for this so for this one here let's say you start at 12:25 and you end at 12:31 and you're like oh it was about 5 minutes it's not as accurate as this so it is manual but you're not running the same risk here of missing hitting start and end time another reason is it's going to count every single second at the timers is on very specifically so let's say you work for 1 hour but you got distracted for 10 minutes during that hour well if you manually writing it in you can just write in 50 minutes but the timer is going to be very specific in the other case and say no that was 60 minutes and you can't actually change it so even though doing it manually might sound more annoying it's actually more flexible and you probably will get more accurate answers then what we can do here is add a form for so right now we're seeing minutes let's say we want to see these tasks in hours well we're going to click on plus here and we're not going to fill this out manually so we're not going to do a number we are going to do a formula so I'll click on this and this formula here we will rename to ours and this one is also a bit tricky so I'm just going to paste this in and again this formula can be found in my description if you need it so basically what this formula is saying is it wants to round the minutes so we are seeing the minutes here 20 and we want to round it into hours so it is dividing the minutes by 60 and then timesing it by 100 and then dividing it by 100 it's a bit confusing so you can just copy and paste this because it works and then we will click on done so here we can see 20 minutes is 0.3 hours it is a third of an hour so here if I write 60 it will show up 1 if I write 120 it will show up two so this is super useful and it is my preferred method I just think this is too risky if you forget to hit start or end then you don't actually know how much time you've been spending then you have a task here with a completely wrong data and it can throw everything off whereas here you're not running that risk so I use this style of time tracking in headquarters which is my all-in-one system for your tasks it is made for productivity if you're subscribed you know my philosophy on notion is to be productive actually productive not to make a cute workspace that looks aesthetic but has very little functionality plus it actually breaks down your time tracking into the different life buck and projects you're working on so I've mentioned this a few times on my channel but I tracked every minute of my life for very many weeks and it genuinely changed my life I realized I was spending a lot of time on the wrong projects and was terribly unbalanced with my life buckets see time tracking didn't just help me know how long a task actually took but it made me reflect on my priorities because I had actual data of where my time is going into which projects and into which life buckets the link is in the description to my all-in-one notion system and it's the next video coming up after this so I've just opened up headquarters here which is my template that I was just talking about and I'll show you the Third Way of time tracking in notion so we are going to click here on opening calendar so this is basically just my task list like we were working with before as you can see it's got some other properties and functions which uh I won't get into this video again just check out the headquarters video if you want to see that but we are going to click on open in calendar here so whatever your task list is Click open in calendar so it will then open up notion calendar now if you haven't used this before it is an absolutely amazing tool for time blocking so time blocking is basically like time tracking but you do it preemptively so you're saying I want to work on uh creating a new resume for example from 8:00 a.m. to 11 a.m. and then we can drag it out and see the time like this so because we clicked on opening calendar here these tasks are showing up in my notion calendar they are connected so this way of tracking in notion has a very clear pro and con the pro is I can very clearly just see my week so if I can drag everything out like this I can see oh okay I'm doing this at this time I'm having coffee with Charlie at this time I can just see my entire week laid out which is really useful cuz then I know do I have too much on my plate and when am I actually doing everything so the downside is if you are planning your week like this then in headquarters here if we click on create new resume we can see here from time 8:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. but it is not tracking in these however if you do want to see the difference between this time and this time we can create a formula we will just click on add a property and click here on formula so we'll write formula and click on that now I'll just call this property minute and here we are going to paste this so this line of code is available in the description once again and basically it is just saying show me the date between so the time between the date end and the date start in minutes and then we can click on done so as you're seeing here the time from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. is in minutes minutes so if you're the type of person who religiously uses notion calendar then this is a really good way of doing it but because everyone isn't using notion calendar super religiously for every single task then here we just have this and it just makes it a bit easier but again if you are very strict with using notion calendar then that is how to do that using this code so there were the three different ways that we can do time tracking in notion if you found my headquarters template interesting and you want to learn more then click on this video here it is my all-in-one system for notion made for productiv ity first if you want to see the highest returns and Reflections based on time tracking you will love this template thank you so much for watching

Channel: Productive Setups

Views: 6,207

Keywords: notion, notion template, notion time tracker, notion time track, time track in Notion, time tracking with notion, notion time tracking, how to track time with notion, how to notion time tracker, notion time tracker walkthrough, notion time tracker template, notion time tracking template, notion track time, notion for productivity, notion buttons property, notion timing, notion record time, notion time tracking button, notion timer

Id: i-SZWJp4fQU

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024