How to Track Breaks and See Your Real Working Hours

Quick question that trips up most new time trackers: you worked from 9:00 to 17:00 with a one-hour lunch. How many hours did you work?

Both answers are correct, depending on who's asking. Eight hours, if you're billing for presence or counting time on site. Seven hours, if you're billing for actual work or checking against labor law minimums. The trick is having both numbers without doing the math by hand.

Timesheet records both, calls them Total and Relative Duration, and shows them everywhere you'd want them. The break is the bridge between the two.

#Total Duration vs. Relative Duration

The single most important concept to get right:

#Total Duration

The full span from start to finish, breaks included.

• Example: 9:00 to 17:00 is 8 hours
• Use for: time on site, presence-based billing, availability windows

#Relative Duration

Working time only. Breaks are subtracted.

• Example: 9:00 to 17:00 with a 1-hour lunch is 7 hours
• Use for: actual work billing, productivity reports, labor-law working-time records

#Switching the Default View

1. Open Settings
2. Find Duration Display
3. Set the default to Total or Relative
4. The choice flows through the app: task list, summaries, exports

Both values are always available in task details and reports, regardless of the default.

#Manual Breaks: Pause and Resume

The easiest way to log a break is to pause the running task.

#While the Task Is Running

1. Tap PAUSE on the running task
2. The break starts; the task holds its project context
3. When you're back, tap PLAY (or RESUME)
4. The break is logged automatically, the task continues

The same task ends up with both the work blocks and the break blocks recorded. Relative duration excludes the breaks; Total duration includes everything.

#Forgot to Pause? Add It Later

1. Open the task
2. Find the Breaks section
3. Tap Add Break
4. Enter start and end time
5. Save

Useful for reconstructing the day at 18:00 when you remember you took a long lunch.

#Multiple Breaks per Task

One task can carry many breaks: coffee at 10:30, lunch at 12:30, a walk at 15:00. Each is logged separately. The Relative duration subtracts them all.

#Automatic Pauses

For predictable break patterns, you can set rules that add breaks automatically. Useful when the work runs in long stretches and you want consistent records without thinking about them.

#How the Rule Works

A typical rule: "After 4 hours of work, add a 30-minute break."

When a task runs past 4 hours, Timesheet inserts a 30-minute break automatically. Common use cases:

• Meeting labor-law minimums (see below)
• Standardizing documentation across long sessions
• Field work where pauses happen but logging them in real time isn't practical

#Setup

1. Open Settings
2. Find Automatic Pauses (or Break Rules)
3. Configure:
   • Work interval: how long before a break triggers (e.g. every 4 hours)
   • Break duration: how long the automatic break should be (e.g. 30 minutes)
4. Save

#A Few Things to Know

• Automatic pauses are scheduled, not detected from device sensors
• You can override or delete them on individual tasks
• They work alongside manual pauses, you don't have to pick one or the other

#What the Reports Show

#Task Detail

Open any entry to see Total duration, Relative duration, and a list of individual breaks with timestamps.

#Statistics

Per-day, per-week and per-month rollups show:

• Average break time per day
• Break time as a percentage of total time
• Trends across weeks and months

#Exports

Excel and CSV exports (every plan, including Basic) can include:

• Total and Relative duration as separate columns
• Individual break entries with start and end times
• Break time totals per task and per day

#Legal Minimums You Might Be Working Around

Working-time laws vary; the short summary:

Germany. 30 minutes after 6 hours of work, 45 minutes after 9 hours.

United Kingdom. 20 minutes for any working day longer than 6 hours.

European Union. At least one break on workdays longer than 6 hours; member states set specifics.

United States. Federal law does not require breaks for adults. States vary; check your state's rules.

Accurate break tracking is the evidence layer if a working-time question ever comes up. Consult local rules for the specifics.

#Things That Make Break Tracking Stick

Use breaks for breaks. A bathroom trip doesn't need to be logged. Reserve the break entry for actual rest periods of, say, 10 minutes or more.

Be consistent. Same way every day. Inconsistent break logging makes the report harder to read than no break logging.

Set a midday reminder. Phone alarm at 12:30 to take and log lunch. After a week, it becomes muscle memory.

Review weekly. Friday afternoon, look at break time as a percentage of total. If it's near zero, that's not pride, it's a warning sign.

Know what the client is paying for. Some bill total time on site; some bill relative work time. Set the project default accordingly.

#Common Questions

What if I forget to resume after a break? Open the task, find the break entry, adjust its end time. The Relative duration recalculates.

Can I delete a break? Yes. Open the task, find the break, remove it. Relative duration increases by the deleted amount.

Do breaks change my earnings? Earnings are calculated on Relative duration by default, so breaks reduce the billable amount. The Total and Relative numbers are both visible everywhere.

Can automatic pauses be different per project? No. The automatic pause rule is set once in Settings and applies to all tasks. Per-task overrides are still possible: open any task and adjust or delete the inserted break manually.

#Summary

The core mental model:

• Total Duration: time span including breaks
• Relative Duration: actual working time without breaks
• Manual pause/resume: real-time break logging on the running task
• Add breaks later: retroactive editing for the days you forgot
• Automatic pauses: scheduled breaks at fixed intervals

The point isn't to be obsessive about every minute. It's to have both numbers when someone asks, and to know the answer without a spreadsheet.

#Where to Go Next

• Set per-project rates and billable defaults so breaks affect the right invoices
• Export the data with Total and Relative columns side by side
• Read the statistics report to see actual vs. desk time over the month