How to Log Time
Note: The video covers material not in the guide below — please watch in full.
Action Step
Complete this before moving on.
Open Teamwork and practice logging time using the waterfall Cam walks through: start with your calendar view, then log time from the My Work view, and then try logging directly at the task level. Check your timesheet on the homepage afterward to confirm everything landed correctly.
The Waterfall: Where to Start
Time logging in Teamwork follows a waterfall — a recommended order that keeps you efficient and accurate. The flow is: calendar view first, then My Work view, then task level. Each method has its place depending on what you're logging.
Step 1: Calendar View
Your Google Calendar syncs to Teamwork, so all your meetings show up directly on the Teamwork homepage. This is the best starting point because meetings are already blocked off with accurate times.
To log time on a meeting, click into the calendar event and hit Log Time. Select the project it belongs to, enter the hours spent, and choose whether the time is billable or non-billable. If a meeting runs over, update the entry to the closest five-minute rounding.
For internal meetings — one-on-ones, team syncs — log to the internal project. For customer meetings — sprint calls, ad hoc calls — log to that customer's project. Customer projects default to billable automatically.
Don't worry about matching exact start and end times. What matters is the total amount of time, not precisely when it happened.
Step 2: My Work View
The My Work view in Teamwork shows your assigned tasks with a log time column. If you've been working on a task, hit the log time button directly from this view, enter the time, and it updates on the task.
This is a fast way to capture execution time — the work you did between meetings on specific deliverables or action items.
Step 3: Task Level
When you're inside a specific task, you have additional options. At the top of the task you'll see a clock icon where you can log more time. You can also log time from the time logs section at the bottom of the task.
There's also a timer option. If you're dedicating focused time to one task, you can start a timer and let it run. The engineering team uses this frequently. On the architect side, it can be harder because things constantly interrupt — a Slack message from a customer, an ad hoc request. If you use the timer, you can pause it when you step away.
Logging Customer Communications
Slack messages, emails, and other written comms with customers add up throughout the day. The best way to capture this is through the My Timesheet view on the Teamwork homepage.
If you spent roughly 10 minutes in written comms with a customer across Slack and email, you can do a quick log directly from the timesheet — select the project, enter the time, confirm the date, and log it.
Why Task-Level Logging Matters
The priority when logging execution time is to log it at the task level whenever possible. Over time, this builds a picture of how long specific types of tasks and projects actually take. That historical data informs estimated time on future work — if similar tasks consistently take a certain number of hours, we can plan capacity around that.
Checking Your Time: Timesheet and Time Module
Two places to gut-check where you stand for the day.
My Timesheet on the homepage gives you a running total of every time entry you've made that day, summed at the bottom. Use this midday and end of day to see if you're missing anything.
The Time module in the left navigation gives a broader view. You can see your own logged time, filter by date, and also see where your peers and resources are at. Both views help you make sure nothing fell through.
Daily Accountability
LeanScale sends a daily Slack message in the team channel reporting on time logged the day before. This is a lightweight accountability check — not a surveillance tool. Time is the economic unit we use to reserve capacity and deliver on promises to customers, so accurate logging matters.
Log as accurately as you can without going overboard. Questions will come up — that's expected. Reach out as you go through your first weeks at LeanScale.
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