My grandfather was a carpenter. He carried a notebook in the front pocket of his overalls, three half-sharpened pencils, and a method that fit on one line per job: Bernier — porch — 2.5 d.
No start time. No stop time. Two and a half days. His notebook weighed forty grams.
The software mistake
Most time-tracking tools I've installed start from one idea: we can capture every second if we add enough fields. Project, task, subtask, tag, context, description. More fields, more precision, more usefulness.
Except no. More fields means I fill in whatever it takes at the end of the day to get out of the form.
Three trades, three rhythms
Carpentry is logged in half-days. A guy in the workshop knows whether he spent the morning on the jigsaw or the afternoon sanding. He doesn't need 2:03 p.m.
Development is logged in sessions. Two hours on a bug, interrupted by a call, picked up the next morning. The block matters more than the exact minute.
Writing is logged in days. A copywriter I know, Marie-Hélène, bills half-day of writing because when it flows, it flows in three hours; when it stalls, it stalls across six.
What we tried
Sablio doesn't have a magic answer that reconciles the three. We just tried to stop imposing a single rhythm. You can start a timer. You can enter a block after the fact, to the nearest half-hour. You can bill a grain of five minutes or a full day.
The tool goes quiet and lets the craft talk.
What my grandfather taught me
When he handed over an invoice, he put it on the table, said the amount, and waited. No justification, no annex, no chart. The client had seen the work. Time was there to set a price, not to prove he had worked.
That's roughly where Sablio sits. Time is a craftsman's tool: useful, unobtrusive, worn by use. Not a dashboard.
— Patrick