Gap attribution

When TimeTrove can't be sure you were working, it doesn't guess. It asks.

A 47-minute gap. The duration colour shows how long it is.

When the prompt appears

The same prompt covers three situations:

• Idle. No keyboard or mouse input for longer than the idle threshold (10 minutes by default).
• Sleep. The computer slept or the lid was closed.
• Startup. TimeTrove was quit or crashed while a task was running, or the machine restarted.

Time up to the moment you went idle stays on the task you were on. The time from then until you answer is the gap.

Your three choices

Key	Choice	What happens
1	Assign to the previous task	The gap is added to the task you were on, and tracking continues on it
2	Assign to another task	Search for a task (or create one). The gap goes to it, and tracking continues on that task
3	Discard time	The gap is logged and dropped. Tracking resumes on the previous task from now

You have to pick one. Esc won't dismiss the prompt, and you can't start, stop or switch tasks until it's answered. That way no time is silently lost or invented.

After pressing 2: type to filter, Enter to pick. Esc goes back to the three choices.

Duration colours

The duration is large and colour-coded so you can judge it at a glance:

Length	Colour	Usually means
Under 20 minutes	Teal	A coffee or a call. Probably keep it
20 minutes to 2 hours	Amber	A meeting or lunch. Think about it
Over 2 hours	Red	Overnight or a long break. Probably discard

Checkpoints keep gaps small

While you're tracking, TimeTrove saves a checkpoint about once a minute. If the app is killed, the machine loses power, or it sleeps unexpectedly, work is closed at the last checkpoint rather than at the start of the slice. The gap prompt then only covers the minutes since that checkpoint.

Discarded time

Discarded gaps never count towards daily totals, timesheets or Insights. Their total for a period is shown on the Insights tab as Discarded, so you can see how much time you've thrown away.

Expecting to be away from the keyboard?

If you'll be in a workshop or pairing on someone else's machine, snooze the prompts so the time stays on your task.