HI Fred, <div><br></div><div>That sucks. I've been in that situation before. A few points: </div><div><br></div><div>0) Take a deep breath. Go punch a pillow. Blast some music - whatever you need to blow off the steam ad relax </div>
<div><br></div><div>1) It will take awhile, but its definitely recoverable. The first thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't have to be perfect - something close enough is just fine. Also, time sheets are not anything special - even if you use a timer to track your hours, there is nothing stopping you from just letting the time run while you do something else. So, ultimately someone makes a call that the hours you submit are reasonable for the job/task(s) completed - so you just have to create something that is reasonable. We're really only talking about 3 weeks, which is only 15 days or ~120 hrs.</div>
<div><br></div><div>2) I find it best to start by using various pieces of informations to put boundaries around things, and then slowing building up the timeline and filling in the gaps as you go along. So, for example start just listing which days you worked (probably m-f and not weekends). Use calendars for notes about meetings, commit logs, email trails, issue queues, etc to help jog your memory. </div>
<div><br></div><div>3) Once you get about 1/3 - 1/2 of it, you should be close enough to just fudge the it. Then add up all your "from memory" hours and just cross check it for sanity. Do the hours feel right? Do you have way more hrs or way less than you should? Would you feel comfortable supporting those numbers if someone questioned you? etc. </div>
<div><br></div><div>If the recreation process is taking more than 1-2hr max, then you're putting in too much detail and trying to make it too accurate. The time you'll loose getting it that accurate will cost you more than any dollars that might go missing from an invoice. </div>
<div><br></div><div>4) Let your clients double check you, but be honest about it - When you send out your invoices for jan, I'd say somethign to the effect, "Hi Client, here are the invoices for Jan. There was a small glitch in the time tracking software earlier this month, but the time was recovered. If you spot any errors, please let me know."</div>
<div><br></div><div>5) Go find a better time tracking system - there are tons and a good one is worth the money. Look at harvest, freshbooks, mite, freckle, <a href="http://paymo.biz">paymo.biz</a> or any of the others. I'm currently switching away from toggl. </div>
<div><br></div><div>6) Back to point 0 - relax, grab a beer and share your new war story with someone less wise as you now are. </div><div><br></div><div>-Ryan </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 12:19 AM, Fred Jones <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fredthejonester@gmail.com" target="_blank">fredthejonester@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I track my time with an app on my desktop and something happened (not<br>
entirely sure what but it's not really relevant now anyway) and I lost<br>
all my time worked from Jan 1st through the 19th.<br>
<br>
What should I do for my January bills? I charge my clients hourly. I<br>
don't even know 100% what I worked on and I don't think I can just<br>
take the details from the 19th through the 31st and multiply them by<br>
1.5 because who knows if that's correct? I do a lot of "one off" work<br>
these days so it's not as though I worked on Clients A, B and C every<br>
other day.<br>
<br>
Not sure what to do.<br>
<br>
I guess to multiply by 1.5 is the best I can think of. :(<br>
<br>
Any other ideas?<br>
<br>
Thanks.<br>
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