org-retroclock

Log the hour you already spent. Two commands that write a finished Org CLOCK: line — start, end and total — for work you did without clocking it.

Org clocks the present tense: clock in, work, clock out. Work you finished without clocking has no command at all. C-u C-u C-u M-x org-clock-in only resumes the last clock-out, and org-clock-convenience corrects CLOCK: lines that already exist. org-retroclock writes the line that was never there.

You can get there without it, and I did for a while. Clocking in starts a live clock: it clocks out whatever is running, and you still have to fix the start time and clock out at the right moment. Typing the line by hand works too, since C-c C-c on a CLOCK: line fills in the total, but you open the drawer yourself, type two timestamps in exactly Org's format, and put them where Org expects. Here I say how long it took, and the line goes where Org would have put it.

Install

Not on MELPA yet. With use-package and Emacs 30's :vc:

(use-package org-retroclock
  :vc (:url "https://github.com/Jotham-LEC/org-retroclock" :rev :newest))

On Emacs 29, install it once with package-vc-install:

(package-vc-install "https://github.com/Jotham-LEC/org-retroclock")

Or with straight.el:

(straight-use-package
 '(org-retroclock :type git :host github :repo "Jotham-LEC/org-retroclock"))

Or Doom, in packages.el:

(package! org-retroclock
  :recipe (:host github :repo "Jotham-LEC/org-retroclock"))

Emacs 29.1 or newer. Nothing beyond Org, which you already have.

Use

M-x org-retroclock logs against the Org entry at point. M-x org-retroclock-recent asks first which task, using the same picker org-clock-in offers for recently clocked tasks, so the entry need not be on screen or even in an open buffer. That picker reads org-clock-history, which Org forgets when Emacs exits. To keep it across sessions:

(setq org-clock-persist 'history)
(org-clock-persistence-insinuate)

Both then ask a duration — 90, 90m, 1h30m or 1:30 — and log the span ending now. Org on its own reads m as months, so 90m would be seven and a half years; here it means minutes. With a prefix argument they ask which end of the span to pin instead, read that time through org-read-date, and measure the duration from there: s for an hour you started at nine this morning, e for a meeting that ended at six. Less than a minute, or a span that ends in the future, is refused. More than a day asks first.

Nothing is bound out of the box, because where these belong depends on where your other Org clock keys are:

(keymap-set org-mode-map "C-c C-x h" #'org-retroclock)
(keymap-global-set "C-c o p" #'org-retroclock-recent)

In Doom, alongside the stock clock leader:

(map! :leader :prefix ("n" . "notes")
      :desc "Retro clock (recent)" "p" #'org-retroclock-recent)
(map! :after org :map org-mode-map :localleader
      :desc "Retro clock (log past)" "c p" #'org-retroclock)

One setting, org-retroclock-push-history, on by default: a task you clock retroactively becomes a recent task like any other, so the pickers offer it afterwards. Set it to nil to keep org-clock-history to tasks you really clocked.

How it works

The entry goes exactly where a real one would. org-clock-find-position picks the spot — creating the :LOGBOOK: drawer if org-clock-into-drawer says so — and the line is written with org-clock-string and org-time-stamp-format, so org-clock-sum, org-clock-report and the agenda's clock views read it like any other. No live clock is started and no running clock is disturbed.

Contributing

It is a small package and a personal one. Bug reports and pull requests are welcome.

make deps                # package-lint, into ./.deps
make compile lint test   # byte-compile clean, checkdoc, package-lint, ERT

CI runs the same three on Emacs 29 and 30, and melpazoid on top.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later.