One timer, and the prompts that keep it right

Only one timer runs at a time, across everything. Start a timer somewhere else while one is already running and you will be blocked. That can feel restrictive for about a day, and then it starts saving you.

Why the single-timer rule exists

Two timers running at once means the same hour is claimed twice, and every total built on it is wrong. Worse, nobody notices for weeks. One timer forces the honest question you were dodging: which of these two things am I actually doing right now?

It also cures the commonest time-tracking failure, which is a timer left running overnight on a task you stopped thinking about at four o’clock.

The stage-change prompts

Moving a task between stages raises a question rather than acting silently. You will see Start Timer?, Stop Timer? or Restart Timer?, each explaining what the stage change would do — that it would stop the running timer, or restart the timer for the new stage.

These are worth reading rather than dismissing. Restarting for the new stage is what gives you time split by stage instead of one undifferentiated lump, which is the difference between knowing a task took six hours and knowing that five of them were review.

Completing and reopening

Completing a task stops its timer automatically, so finishing your work is also finishing your tracking. Timer controls then disappear from a completed task — there is nothing left to time.

If work turns out not to be finished, reopening the task moves it back to the first open stage and the controls come back. Reopen rather than creating a duplicate task: the history, the time already recorded and anything linked to it stay together.

Where a timer serves several people

Where it is offered you can Start for me only or Start for everyone, and likewise Stop mine only or Stop for everyone. Stopping for everyone is a decision about other people’s records, so use it when the whole group has genuinely stopped, not when you personally have.