Any plans on improving the time tracker app?

[#1]

Hey guys. So just to keep everything ethical, I tend to stop and restart the time tracker constantly when I receive an Upwork message, or to grab a cup of coffee so I never leave the tracker open for anything non-work-related. 

So the problem is, the time tracker usually takes a screenshot immediately after I restart the tracker even though it hasn't even been 60 seconds yet, this doesn't happen all the time so I'd say it happens 7 out of 10 times. So when I check my work diary my first screenshots are usually level 1 activity and the following ones are level 9 or 10.

I'm not happy about this not because Upwork Hourly Protection won't pay me for those hours as my clients never have any issues with the payments but I don't like the fact that it makes me look bad when my clients take a look at the work diary, especially if s/he's not a long-term client of mine. 

So I was wondering if Upwork has any plans to find a solution for that issue, thank you. 

[#2]

Can:
The problem you face is that the designers of the Upwork desktop time tracker designed it while envisioning that a freelancer would sit down and work for an hour or a few hours straight...

They didn't think about a freelancer who might want to use it to track "micro" time segments.

I totally understand where you are coming from.

But the straight-up honest truth is that even though your ideas are logical... I don't think you are going to see any changes along these lines any time soon.

[#3]

Thank you for the reply Preston, and you're right but I forgot to mention that I have ADHD so sometimes it's difficult to sit still you know. 

[#4 · Accepted solution]

I work in short bursts most of the time too, what seems to work is starting the tracker on a round 'ten' - at 11:10, 11:20 etc - and avoiding starting on the minutes in between. I think the little green activity markers mark each minute, so if you start the tracker at 11:08 it will show eight minutes of inactivity for that ten minute block.

[#5]

That sounds like a great method Liz, thank you. I will make sure to try that 

[#6]

Hope it helps 🙂

[#7]

I agree with Liz that starting at the 10 min. mark and stopping right after a screen capture is the way to do it.

I have my tablet handy if a message comes in.  I can take a few seconds to check it and see if it's something that can wait or do I need to stop the tracker to attend to it.