13 Time planning

Simon Michael edited this page 2018-05-07 15:51:01 -07:00

Table of Contents

• Simon's hledger time dashboard 2018/05

Simon's hledger time dashboard 2018/05

Here's how I have been logging time for a few years, and showing budget reports for a few weeks.

I have four files:

1. time-2018.timedot is the current year's time log. It contains daily entries in timedot-ish format, like:

   2018/5/7
   adm.email             20m
   inc.client1.enh.1342  .... .
   inc.client1.enh.1188  .
   inc.client1.enh.1335  ..
   fos.hledger.support
   

2. time.journal is in journal format so it can include multiple timedot file(s) and provide an account alias allowing period instead of colon in account names:

   ; allow . as subaccount separator in timedot files
   alias /\./=:
   
   ;include time-2016.timedot
   ;include time-2017.timedot
   include time-2018.timedot
   

3. time-daily.budget defines some daily goals, optionally date-bounded, using periodic transaction(s):

   ~ daily  ; [from Y/M/D] [to Y/M/D]
       (adm)    1  ; your goals here
       (inc)    1
       (fos)    1
   

4. time-weekly.budget defines some weekly goals. I like to set these independently of the above, which in current hledger means they must be in a separate file:

   ~ weekly  ; [from Y/M/D] [to Y/M/D]
       (adm)    1
       (biz)    1
       (inc)    1
       (fos)    1
   

The monthly budget reuses the weekly goals.

I have an iTerm2 Hotkey Window (a terminal that drops down on ALT-space) with six panes:

1. a bash script showing latest laptop wake/sleep and timelog save times, as a memory aid for time logging:

   tlogwatch
   

   (Here's that script, useful only to mac users; please show me something better!):

    # record timelog update times
    export TIMELOG=$HOME/time-2018.timedot
    alias timelogsaved="ls -lT $TIMELOG | cut -d' ' -f8-11"
    alias timelogaccessed="ls -lTu $TIMELOG | cut -d' ' -f8-11"
    alias timelogcreated="ls -lTU $TIMELOG | cut -d' ' -f8-11"
   
    # show mac sleep/wake & display on/off  events
    alias wakelog="pmset -g log | egrep -E '((Sleep|Wake) +\t|Display is)' | sed -E \
          -e 's/(Notification|Sleep|Wake) *	//' \
          -e 's/is turned //' \
          -e 's/Entering Sleep state/Sleep/' \
          "
   
    # show recent wakeup/timelog save times to help with time logging, clipped to screen width
    # The width clipping is to help watch display this in dashboard.
    function tlog()
    {
      LINES=${1:-20}
      ( wakelog | tail -$LINES
        printf " \n"
        printf "$(timelogcreated) timelog created\n"
        printf "$(timelogsaved) timelog saved\n"
        printf "$(timelogaccessed) timelog accessed\n"
      ) | cut -c-$(expr $COLUMNS - 1)
    }
   
    # run a brief tlog report periodically, passing any args to watch
    function tlogwatch()
    {
      LINES=${1:-20}
      watch -t -n60 $@ "bash -ic 'tlog '$LINES"
    }
    # TODO why does "tlogwatch 10" give "sh: 10: command not found" ?
   

2. a text-mode emacs for updating the time log:

   emacs -nw time-2018.timedot
   

3. -5: updating (using entr) time budget reports for the current day/week/month, using hledger 1.9.1+:

   ls time.journal time-2018.timedot time-daily.budget  | entr sh -c 'clear; hledger -f time.journal -f time-daily.budget  bal --budget -1 -D date:today-tomorrow'
   

   ls time.journal time-2018.timedot time-weekly.budget | entr sh -c 'clear; hledger -f time.journal -f time-weekly.budget bal --budget -1 -W date:thisweek-nextweek'
   

   ls time.journal time-2018.timedot time-weekly.budget | entr sh -c 'clear; hledger -f time.journal -f time-weekly.budget bal --budget -1 -M date:thismonth-nextmonth'
   

4. an updating hledger-ui for exploring time usage (shift-up/down to resize period, shift-left/right to step through time, t to return to today):

   hledger-ui --watch --change date:today -f time.journal
   

This is the hledger Cookbook, part of the hledger website, managed in github. View in context at: hledger.org