Logging time is one of those tasks that sounds simple in theory: document your workday, do it daily, and you’re all set. Yet, for many Jira users, it doesn’t become second nature so easily. Instead, time logging often becomes a task that people easily fall behind on. As our team faced these struggles too, we decided to take a closer look at the problem. But.. we didn’t stop there. We went a step further and created a solution to make logging time faster, simpler, and far less inconvenient.
Time tracking challenges did not spare our team. Many members admitted that their timesheets were empty for most of the month and they often filled them at the very last minute. Trying to do that retrospectively wasn’t easy though - quite the contrary, the process was filled with nerves and frustration.
After some more discussions on the topic, we agreed that we faced several significant blockers when approaching consistent time logging.
Let’s start with the classic scenario: getting carried away with work. When you’re immersed in your tasks, deeply focused on solving problems, stopping to log your time isn’t exactly at the top of your mind. So, time tracking gets postponed to the next day, then, the next day turns into a week, and a week turns into a month.
Even when you do remember to log your time, there’s another challenge waiting: tracking down the tasks you’ve worked on. Identifying all the tickets or issues you contributed to during the day can feel like detective work. Jogging your memory, scrolling through notifications, or digging into old emails to piece together your day is far from anyone's definition of a productive activity.
And what about the smaller, seemingly insignificant contributions? Leaving comments, reviewing others’ work, or lending a quick hand on a minor issue - these often go unnoticed. By the end of the month, those moments can add up to hours of unlogged work, but retracing them later can become a proper ordeal.
Then, when you finally manage to find the tasks to log time for, opening each one just to do that feels like a chore you just don’t feel like doing. With that frustration, maintaining consistency becomes even more of a struggle.
Eventually, logging time at the end of the workday is an additional effort when all you think about is clocking off. After a long day packed with meetings, emails, and deadlines, the thought of spending even five more minutes logging time can feel overwhelming. All you want to do is shut down your computer and unwind.
These struggles didn’t spare our team either - we faced them firsthand. That’s when our Product Owner decided to dive deeper into the issue. To do so, he conducted an experiment where he intentionally stopped logging his time regularly. For three weeks, he didn’t open Worklogs - the time-tracking tool our company uses - even once. He also didn’t take any notes on what he worked on and how long he spent on each task.
The goal of the experiment was to determine what would make retrospective time logging easier by:
Identifying which aspects of time logging are most time-consuming and why.
Finding out what information is needed to log time and where to find it.
Measuring how long it takes to log time after an extended break.
Finally, two days before the end of the month, Paweł got a reminder to fill out his timesheet.
Retrospective time logging turned out to be quite a challenge. Paweł’s first step was to look through sprint reports from the relevant month. “This helped me identify tickets I worked on and could remember as mine,” he explained.
Next, he browsed Jira notifications for additional clues. “I searched for tasks where someone tagged me in a comment or mentioned me in the description. This allowed me to uncover extra work I had participated in.” However, Paweł admits that those solutions still had drawbacks - he struggled to estimate how much time he spent on tasks. He also failed to find every task he had worked on but wasn’t assigned to anymore.
Another step for recreating his workdays was turning to his calendar. “That gave me a list of meetings I attended, but logging those hours was more complicated than I’d expected. I had to go back to my meeting notes to figure out where that time should be logged,” Paweł shared. Finally, he turned to Slack’s message history to jog his memory about smaller, informal contributions that hadn’t been noticed elsewhere.
After dedicating significant time and effort, Paweł managed to finally log all his hours and complete his experiment. Through this process, he uncovered several insights about retrospective time logging:
It’s extremely time-consuming - it took nearly three hours and drained a significant amount of energy and patience.
Key information was missing and the most fundamental detail - how much time was spent on specific tasks - was impossible to recall accurately.
Without extracting data from Jira using a script or complex JQL queries, he struggled to find tasks he had contributed to but was no longer assigned to.
As after three weeks he couldn’t remember how long he had spent on certain tasks, the logged time data was often less accurate. He either heavily rounded the numbers, or adjusted them to fit the standard working hours in a day. As a result, his time report didn't reflect how his workload actually distributed among tasks.
We quickly realized that the experiment’s findings aligned with the information we had been getting from various other sources. During product demos, users often mentioned the challenges of regular time logging. To dive deeper, we conducted UX sessions with selected clients to identify their biggest blockers. Additionally, we spoke with several managers, project managers, and everyday Jira users. All these conversations confirmed a common pattern - time logging was often postponed until the end of the month, making the whole process difficult and inaccurate. These findings not only gave us a broader perspective but also revealed a pressing problem - one we knew exactly how to solve.
At SolDevelo, we’re always looking for ways to optimize our processes. That’s what led to the creation of Worklogs, our time-tracking app in the past. When we identified the challenges Jira users faced with logging time, our product team decided to address these issues by developing Time Assistant - Time Tracking and Workload Dashboard.
The app puts an end to endless browsing of Jira notifications, Slack, and calendar in the search for tasks you had worked on. How? It will not only show you a list of all issues you’ve contributed to, but will also make it easy to find them and log time into them quickly.
The app’s dashboard is thoughtfully structured to give you everything you need to log time quickly and effectively. It’s divided into three key sections: My Workload, Time Logged, and Favorite Issues.
Each section was designed to make time logging quick and convenient - it simplifies tracking your tasks and reviewing your logged hours.
One of the biggest challenges is remembering what you worked on, especially after some time has passed. Time Assistant eliminates this guessing game by consolidating all your contributions into one view.
Here’s how My Workload works:
It displays five gadgets that present issues you’ve:
Been assigned to.
Been mentioned in.
Commented on.
Edited.
Opened.
The gadgets’ display is customizable. Depending on your needs, you can, for example, display only issues you’ve been assigned to or mentioned in. This way you’ll never be overwhelmed with too much irrelevant data.
You can choose to display issues from all projects and issue types, or, you can filter to see only tasks from specific projects and display particular issue types.
You can adjust the “My Workload” display to match the time period you’re logging work for, such as Today, This Week, or This Month. So, if, let’s say, you’re logging time for a specific week, you’ll only see tasks from that week, without unnecessary distractions from other time periods.
To keep things even more efficient, each gadget initially shows 10 issues. However, you can expand the list as needed, and if irrelevant issues obstruct your view, the Ignore Issue feature lets you hide them (with the option to restore them later).
This structure puts an end to the common struggle of tracking down tasks, as it gives you everything you need to log time conveniently, presented in an intuitive and organized layout.
There are tasks we work on repetitively and they can get lost in the pool of many smaller, one-time tasks. With the Favorite Issues gadget, you can pin important tasks that require frequent attention or are essential to your workflow, and log time for them easily and quickly.
Another challenge awaiting for Jira users is losing track of how much time they’ve logged. The Time Logged section provides a clear summary of your logged hours for Today, This Week, and This Month. It gives you a quick and accurate overview, so you don’t have to worry about any forgotten or missing entries.This section helps you stay organized and keep up with your time logging easily.
We’ve experienced firsthand how tedious opening tasks just to log time can feel. That’s why Time Assistant offers convenient ways to log your hours directly from the dashboard:
Click the clock button next to any issue in your My Workload or Favorite Issues list to log time instantly.
Alternatively, you can use the Log Time button on the main dashboard to select a proper issue and log your time with just a few clicks.
One of the most tedious aspects of time logging is manually tracking how long you’ve worked on a task. With Time Assistant’s Active Timers, that’s no longer an issue.
Here’s how it works:
Start a timer when you begin working on an issue, and stop it when you’re done. Time Assistant calculates the duration and lets you log it immediately.
Active Timers are available next to each issue displayed in your gadgets and on your Favorite Issues list.
With Time Assistant installed, every Jira issue includes the Active Timer feature, enabling you to log your work time easily. You can find it in the issue details as an additional section.
Using this feature, you no longer have to worry about remembering when you started a task or calculating how much time you've spent on it. Active Timers do the work for you, automatically tracking the duration when you’re working.
Time Assistant doesn’t just simplify time logging - it changes it profoundly. By addressing the root causes of frustration, it allows users to focus on their work without the repetitive hassle of tracking it. No more frustration of piecing together your days at the end of the month. Time Assistant makes logging time intuitive, efficient, and stress-free.
Our research and Paweł’s experiment highlighted the urgent need for a tool that simplifies and supports time logging. These insights directly led to the creation of Time Assistant, a solution designed specifically to address time logging challenges. In the first month, the speed of new installations outpaced all other products we've ever created! Today, the app is continuously evolving and has become an essential part of our daily workflow. It makes time tracking much easier, more accurate, and significantly less time-consuming, ensuring that systematic time logging is no longer a burden.
Kinga -SolDevelo-
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