Tracking time in Productive can be done in two primary ways: manual tracking and using the timer. Manual tracking enables you to enter time worked against a budget and service freely, while the timer allows you to track time as you work.

This article will focus on manual time entries. For guidance on using the timer feature, please refer to this link, and for more information on the desktop timer, click here.

To access manual time tracking, simply go to the Time tab and select My time.

In the My time section, you will find weekdays at the top of the user interface. You can pick any day from the list and start adding time entries for that day.

You can track time in three views: Day, Timesheet, and Calendar view.

Use arrows to navigate between weeks. Click the dot in the middle to return to the current week.

You can also choose a date from the calendar.

Time is tracked against a specific budget and service within that budget or a sales deal. It’s important to select the correct budget and service to ensure accurate time tracking.

​1) Select the Client, Project, Budget, and Service

Ensure you’ve selected a service from the right project and budget from the service dropdown.

You can view budget service sections in the service picker. For example, if you select "The Ads Campaign" project, navigate to the "Ads Campaign: Social" budget, then to the "Helix: Phase 1" service section, and finally select the desired service.
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2) Enter Duration

Specify how long you worked.

3) Add a Note

Put a brief description of what you’ve been working on in the Note field before selecting Save.
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​4) After saving, the time entry will appear to the right (if you're in the day view; the timesheet and calendar views will get updated automatically as you add the entries in the desired slots).

Selecting the three-dot menu to the right of a time entry allows you to edit the entry, pin the service for easier navigation, duplicate the entry, view timer logs (if you used the timer), or delete the entry.

You can also directly edit the entry details by typing in the available fields.

To assign the time entry to a specific project task, click on the "Assign to task" option. Find out more about tracking time on tasks here.

Productive helps you track time with time-tracking suggestions, showing pinned services, services scheduled in Resourcing, and recently tracked services.

Clicking these suggestions will create an editable time entry with the budget and service information, allowing you to add a note or change the duration. This feature is available in the Day and Timesheet views.

You can manually pin any services for easier navigation and time-tracking flow.

Hover over the service name until a pin 📌 appears, then click on it. This moves the service to your Pinned section for quick access.

If you’re scheduled to work on a project in Resourcing, you will get automatic time-tracking suggestions under the "You are scheduled on" tab.
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The Recently tracked section contains all services you have recently tracked time against, helping you quickly find and log time for ongoing tasks.

By enabling the "Include time off" setting, all time-off bookings will be added to that day's total hours.

For example, having a time-off booking for 8 hours and tracking 5 hours of work, the total will be 13 hours. With the setting turned off, the total will be 5 hours.

You can easily switch between manual and timer modes by clicking the clock icon in the top right corner. Just don't forget to stop the timer when finished!

Dates in the header section might appear greyed out for the following reasons:

If you encounter issues tracking time, it may be due to one of the following reasons:

For more details, refer to our article on Can't Track Time Against a Budget.