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Timelines vs. tags

Use timelines when you track more than one context — clients, courses, employers, or areas of life — so each gets its own total. Use tags to describe what you did.

What is a timeline?

A timeline groups time for one context: an employer, a client, a project, a course, or an area of your life. You only need them when those contexts would otherwise share one total.

Each stopwatch can have one timeline. You can keep your timelines as a simple list, or group a project under a client or employer when you want totals for both. That extra level is optional.

Timelines are optional. Skip them if everything shares one pile. Start using them when contexts would muddle each other — for example personal (Health and Education), student (several courses), employee (your job plus side projects), or freelancer (more than one client). Stopwatches without one stay under No timeline.

What is a tag?

A tag is a label such as Writing, Meetings, Reading, or Deep work. An entry can have several tags. The point of tags is that the same one works in any timeline — so a freelancer can total all Writing across every client, and a student can total Exam prep across several courses.

Which one should you choose?

Ask what you want to know later:

  • If you want a separate total for an employer, client, project, course, or area of life, use a timeline.
  • If you want to find and compare a type of activity wherever it happened, use a tag.

You may only need tags, or a few timelines that stand on their own. Add another level only when separate totals for a bigger group and something within it would help.

Examples

Here’s some examples of how timelines and tags work in different scenarios.

Freelancer

  • Timelines: Start with a timeline for each client, such as Lumen & Loom. If you want separate project totals, add project timelines under it, such as Lumen & Loom › Patio launch.
  • Tags: Describe the work done for a client with tags such as Writing, SEO, or Review.

Employee

  • Timelines: Create a timeline for each employer, such as Northstar Labs. If you want more detail, add a project or work area under it, such as Northstar Labs › Product delivery.
  • Tags: Describe activities with tags such as Meetings, Deep work, or Daily standup.

Student

  • Timelines: Give each course its own timeline, such as Algorithms. If you’re enrolled in more than one program, such as Computer Science and Philosophy, group courses under each program, such as Computer Science › Algorithms.
  • Tags: Describe the class or study activity with tags such as Lecture, Exam prep, or Assignments.

Personal

  • Timelines: Give each area of life its own timeline, such as Health. If you want more detail, add a project or goal under it, such as Health › Marathon training.
  • Tags: Describe the activity with tags such as Fitness, Cooking, Reading, or Music practice.

When should you bill a timeline separately?

Only relevant if you are tracking earnings. You can turn earnings tracking on/off in Preferences.

“Bill this timeline separately” is a toggle that shows when editing a timeline. To understand it, first a look at how TimeRetain handles overlapping entries.

What happens when entries overlap?

TimeRetain never bills the same stretch of time twice within one billing group. If two entries cover the same moment — general work for Lumen & Loom from 9:00 to 17:00 and a specific Lumen & Loom › Patio launch entry from 11:00 to 14:00 — the more specific entry wins that stretch, and you bill it once.

Sometimes overlap is real work for different clients: a retainer call for Lumen & Loom while a job runs for Hartwell. Then both should be billed — that’s what separate billing is for.

What does this mean for timelines?

Every top-level timeline is automatically its own billing group. “Bill this timeline separately” turns a nested timeline into its own group as well.

It’s off by default, and most people should leave it off — especially with the recommended setup of one timeline per client, projects underneath (e.g., Lumen & Loom › Patio launch).

If you instead group all clients under one timeline, like Clients › Lumen & Loom, you should turn it on for each client. Otherwise they share one billing group, and overlapping work between two clients is billed only once. With it on, a top-level Clients timeline reports all billable work accurately, including overlaps.