First stop the timer that is still running
If you forgot to stop the work timer, stop the running record before correcting its duration. Then separate three figures: what you planned, what was recorded and the time you can actually account for. Do not change the estimate simply to match a mistaken record.
Ora documents actual time through a timer and manual adjustments. Planned-versus-actual comparison is a Pro feature; the example below explains how to prepare the data you compare, without attributing automatic reconstruction of your breaks to the product.
An invented example: thirty recorded, twenty worked
You reserved twenty-five minutes to review a list. The timer accumulated thirty, but you know it includes a ten-minute break because you noted when you left and returned. In this example, the work you want to record is twenty minutes: thirty minus ten.
That correction does not change the original twenty-five-minute allocation or establish that you finished the list. Twenty minutes of work can coexist with an unfinished task. Nor should you add another twenty-minute entry while leaving the earlier thirty as if they were separate work.
- Plan: twenty-five minutes allocated.
- Record before review: thirty minutes.
- Known break included by mistake: ten minutes.
- Work duration chosen for the corrected record: twenty minutes.
- Task status: review separately; elapsed time does not certify delivery.
Correct the right activity on the right day
Open the plan containing the time and find the activity by name and date. With the timer stopped, review its actual time and use the manual adjustment to enter the duration you could reconstruct. Check the saved value before starting the timer again.
Also check that you are not modifying planned duration by confusing the two fields. If you want to change a future estimate, make that decision afterwards for its own reason. Ora’s public facts keep estimates separate from recorded work.
If you also ran a focus session, check which record you are correcting. Fixing one total does not require pretending another timer measured exactly the same activity.
If you cannot reconstruct the break, keep the uncertainty
Perhaps you know you left the desk but not when. In that case, the record alone cannot tell you the break lasted ten minutes. Do not copy our example’s figure or present an estimate as an exact measurement.
You can leave a note explaining that the timer included an interval you cannot reconstruct and decide how to treat the record before using it to assess your next plan. When using Pro reports, keep that limitation in mind; a chart does not know the time you did not note.
Try the workflow before relying on the comparison
In a test plan, locate planned duration and actual time separately, make a manual adjustment and check which figure changed. You do not need to connect a calendar or treat Ora’s external integrations as validated to understand this distinction.
The useful goal is not to make both numbers equal: it is to keep a plan and a record that honestly describe different things.