Starting Over Without Losing the Past

A clean start is occasionally correct: the structure no longer fits, the old data is unreliable, or your life changed enough that the categories describe somebody else.

To connect this idea with an actual work log, consult the platform summary. The useful test is whether the resulting entries remain consistent and understandable during a later review.

When it is the right call

The categories no longer map to what you do, and redefining them would leave the history incomparable anyway.

For another established perspective on timesheet records, Clockify provides a useful reference beyond any single tracking product.

A long period is untrusted and the analysis keeps having to exclude it.

A tool change where the import cannot preserve the structure.

Or a genuine change of purpose: the record was for billing and is now for health, or the reverse.

When it is not

Because the record feels untidy.

Because you lapsed. The recovery note covers that and starting over is disproportionate.

Because you found a better tool, which the migration note covers.

And because the data is embarrassing, which is not a reason to destroy it.

Doing it properly

Close the old record explicitly. A final line, the date, and a note about why it is ending.

Archive it as a verified export, stored permanently, in a plain format.

Record in the new one where the old one lives and what it contains.

Then start, with the structure changed for the reason that prompted this.

What never to do

Delete the old record.

It costs nothing to keep and it contains the only copy of several years of your life.

People who delete report regretting it and people who keep it report occasionally being glad, which is an asymmetry worth respecting.

Keeping them connected

A single line in each file pointing at the other.

And a mapping between old categories and new where one exists, so a determined future analysis can bridge them.

Even a rough mapping preserves the option. Without it the old years are readable and not comparable.

What carries across

comparison sets for estimating, if the work is similar.

Seasonality, which is about the calendar rather than about your categories.

And the notes, which are readable regardless of structure and are frequently the part you consult years later.

What does not carry: any total that depends on category definitions.

The honest expectation

The new record will take two years to become as useful as the old one was.

Which is an argument for repairing rather than restarting wherever repair is possible, and for making the decision deliberately rather than in a moment of frustration with a bad month.

What to check

Is the reason for starting over on the first list or the second?

Have you exported and verified the old record?

Is there a pointer between them?

And have you changed the structure for a stated reason, or reproduced the old one?

The point

Never delete the old record.

It costs nothing to keep and contains the only copy of several years of your life.

Worth adding

comparison sets, seasonality and the notes carry across a restart.

Any total depending on category definitions does not.

Additionally

Expect a new record to take two years to become as useful as the old one was.

That is an argument for repairing rather than restarting wherever repair is possible.

Finally

Close the old record explicitly with a final line and a reason, archive a verified export, and put a pointer in each file to the other..

In summary

Starting over is right when the categories no longer map, when a long period is untrusted, or when the purpose genuinely changed.

It is not right because you lapsed.

Last word

The practice this points at is unglamorous: a small daily act, a short weekly correction, an annual read, and a written page of conventions beside the data. None of it is difficult and all of it is easy to skip, which is why most records do not reach the point where they start paying.