Understanding your focus patterns requires two things: consistent data collection and the analysis layer to make sense of it. Beyond Time is designed to support both — the session logging is built into the daily planning workflow so it does not require a separate habit, and the weekly review surfaces AI-assisted analysis without requiring you to copy data into a separate tool.
This walkthrough covers how to get from a first session log to a meaningful weekly review.
Setting Up Your Session Types
The first thing to configure in Beyond Time is your personal session type list. The platform ships with generic categories (Writing, Analysis, Planning, Communication) but works best when you customize these to your actual work.
Open the Session Settings panel and edit the category list to reflect your three to five primary deep work modes. A product manager might use: Strategy, Writing, Data Analysis, Stakeholder Prep. A developer might use: New Code, Debugging, Architecture, Code Review.
This step takes five minutes and makes every subsequent log entry faster and more meaningful.
While you are in settings, set your target deep hours per day. Beyond Time uses this to calculate your session completion percentage against your daily goal. Start conservatively — if you have never tracked before, set 1.5 hours and adjust upward once you have two weeks of honest data.
Logging a Session: The 60-Second Routine
After each deep work session, the logging entry has four fields:
1. Session type. Select from your configured list.
2. Duration. Filled automatically if you used the built-in timer, or entered manually if you tracked time another way.
3. Quality rating. A three-point selector (Poor / Adequate / Excellent). This takes one second and is the most important field.
4. Distraction count. A number field. Enter the tally from your physical sticky note or your mental count. If you forgot to tally during the session, make your best honest estimate — even approximate data is useful for trend analysis.
There is also an optional notes field. Use it when something unusual happened — a long interruption, an unexpectedly productive session, a task that turned out to be much harder than planned. This context feeds into AI analysis later.
The whole entry takes under 60 seconds. The friction point most people encounter is remembering to log immediately after the session rather than waiting until end of day, when session-specific details are harder to recall accurately.
Reading Your Daily Summary
Beyond Time’s daily view shows three numbers at the top of each day card:
- Deep hours logged against your daily target
- Session completion rate for the day (sessions that reached their planned end time versus sessions started)
- Average distraction count per hour across all sessions
These three numbers are your Focus Dashboard metrics. They update as you log sessions throughout the day.
At first, resist the urge to interpret single-day numbers. A low Tuesday is not a trend. What matters is the pattern across a week, and then across weeks.
The Weekly Review: AI Pattern Analysis
At the end of each week, Beyond Time’s Weekly Review mode aggregates your seven days of session logs and presents them to the AI analysis interface. The platform pre-formats your data for analysis, so you do not need to copy and paste logs manually.
The default weekly review prompt asks the AI to:
- Calculate your average across all three Focus Dashboard metrics for the week
- Compare this week’s metrics to the previous two weeks if data is available
- Identify the two conditions most correlated with your highest-quality sessions
- Identify the two conditions most correlated with your lowest-quality sessions
- Suggest one specific, testable change for the coming week
You can edit this prompt before running the analysis. Users who have been logging for more than four weeks often add: “Identify any multi-week trend in my metrics, whether improving, stable, or declining.”
The AI analysis runs in two to three seconds. The output is a short structured report — not a paragraph of generic advice but a specific, data-grounded set of observations tied to your actual session log.
Interpreting the First Analysis
Your first weekly review analysis will likely surface at least one pattern that surprises you.
Common first-week findings:
- Sessions scheduled immediately after meetings average significantly lower quality ratings than sessions with at least 20 minutes of buffer
- Distraction counts are 40–60% higher in afternoon sessions than morning sessions for most users
- Sessions with a pre-written task scope in the notes field have higher completion rates than sessions with no defined scope
Whether any of these apply to your data is something only your log can tell you. The AI will tell you which ones are present in your specific dataset.
When you get your first analysis, look for the recommendation at the end. It should suggest one change — not a list, one change. Take that one change seriously. Design a week where you test it deliberately, continue logging at the same granularity, and run a second analysis the following week.
What Beyond Time Does Not Do
A clear-eyed walkthrough includes what the tool is not built for.
Beyond Time does not passively track your application usage. It does not run in the background recording what you are doing. All data entry is active and self-reported. This is a deliberate design choice — passive tracking produces different (and, for focus quality specifically, less accurate) data than intentional self-report.
If you want a complete picture of all your computer time, not just your deep work sessions, you will need to pair Beyond Time with a passive tracking tool. The two serve different purposes and the data does not conflict.
Beyond Time’s AI analysis also works best with at least two weeks of data. First-week analyses can surface patterns, but they may reflect atypical events rather than stable conditions. Give the system four to six weeks before drawing strong conclusions.
Getting the Most from the Weekly Review Habit
The weekly review is the highest-leverage interaction in the system. Ten minutes every Sunday or Monday morning running the AI analysis and deciding on one test for the coming week compounds over months into a genuinely clear picture of your focus patterns.
The users who get the most from focus metrics are not the ones who track most obsessively. They are the ones who log honestly and review consistently. Two to three sessions logged per day and a weekly review is more valuable than ten sessions logged per day with no review.
Set a recurring 15-minute block in your calendar for Sunday evening or Monday morning. Label it “Focus Review.” Protect it with the same discipline you give to deep work blocks.
Log your first session in Beyond Time before end of today — even if it is only a five-minute retroactive entry for a session you completed earlier.
Related: Complete Guide to Focus Metrics and AI · How to Measure Focus with AI · 5 AI Prompts to Analyze Focus
Tags: Beyond Time, focus tracking tool, AI weekly review, session logging, Focus Dashboard
Frequently Asked Questions
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What does Beyond Time track for focus metrics?
Beyond Time logs individual deep work sessions with task type, duration, quality rating, and distraction count. It surfaces weekly summaries of your three Focus Dashboard metrics and enables AI-assisted pattern review within the planning interface. -
How long does a focus session log entry take in Beyond Time?
A complete session log entry — task type, quality rating, and distraction count — takes under 60 seconds in Beyond Time. The interface is designed to minimize logging friction so the habit can be maintained alongside actual work. -
Can I export my Beyond Time focus data for external AI analysis?
Yes. Beyond Time allows export of session logs in CSV and plain text formats, which can be pasted into any AI conversation for analysis outside the platform.