How to Easily Find and Organize Your Jira Work Items

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Have you ever wondered how much time you spend searching for the same Jira work items  you work on every day? Do you ever lose track of which tasks you touched yesterday or last week, and end up wasting time trying to retrace your steps? With multiple projects, and deadlines, it’s easy to lose track of what you’ve been working on or forget to log time. In this article we’d like to show you how tools like Time Assistant can make organizing and accessing your Jira work items effortless.

How to see all Jira work items you’ve been working on

Ever thought of an easy way to see everything you’ve been working on in Jira? Time Assistant’s main dashboard gives you a clear overview of your work and how you’re spending your time. In the ‘My Workload’ section, you can switch between three timeline views: Today, Week, and Month, and the scope that you currently need.

This section is split into five gadgets:

• Issues you opened – gives you a quick look at tasks or discussions you’ve started.
• Issues assigned to you – shows you work items assigned to you in a particular period.  
• Issues you were mentioned in – lets you see updates or conversations where you’ve been mentioned, so nothing slips through the cracks.
• Issues you commented on – makes it easy to jump back into ongoing discussions.
• Issues you edited – highlights tasks you’ve changed, like updates to descriptions or fields, so you can follow up without hunting around.

 

Each gadget also shows the time you’ve logged for the selected period. Additionally, you can adjust your dashboard and filter the view to focus on what matters most. Everything is organized by the most recent activity, so the newest tasks always appear at the top. And don’t worry about duplicates: if you update an issue, it will appear just once, in the position that reflects its latest activity. 

How to create a list of your most frequently used Jira work items

We often spend days or weeks working on the same tasks - and let’s not forget the recurring ones, like regular meetings or weekly updates. Yet, every time it comes to logging time, we end up scrolling, searching, and switching between boards to find the right one. All those little interruptions add up and eat into your time. 

Using Favorite Issues is a small trick that will save you precious time and help you keep your Jira workspace neat. Here’s how you can set it up:

Mark a work item as a favorite

There are two easy ways to add a work item to your favorites:

1. From the gadget list

• Find the work item you want.
  
  
• Click the star icon next to it.
  
  
• When the star changes color, you’ll know it’s saved as a favorite.
  
  

2. From the Favorite Issues gadget

• Open your Favorite Issues gadget.
  
  
• Click the “+” icon in the top right corner.
  
  
• Search for the work item and add it.
  
  

Viewing your favorite issues

Everything you’ve marked with a star will show up in your Favorite Issues gadget.
This becomes your personal shortcut list - perfect for whenever you need quick access to important tasks.

A cool thing about this feature? Favorites are consistent across gadgets. This means, if you mark a work item as a favorite in one gadget, it’ll also be marked as a favorite anywhere else it appears. No extra clicks, no double work. 

Removing a favorite

Finished with a work item or don’t need it anymore? Just click the star icon again.
The star will turn back to normal, and the work item will disappear from your favorites list.

How to list Jira work items that need time logging

You can easily log time directly from a gadget by clicking the small clock icon or starting a timer right next to the work item. For tasks that already have active or unlogged timers, the ‘Unlogged timers’ section is your go-to place. It automatically unfolds above the ‘Time logged’ section and shows all ongoing or unlogged timers in your current workload. This way you get a clear view of everything that still needs attention.

From here, you can manage your active timers with a few simple actions:

• Log time – stop the timer and log the time spent on a specific issue. You can also make corrections to your worklog directly through the time log modal.
  
  
• Cancel timer – click the ‘X’ next to a timer to stop it and remove the logged time from your workload.
  
  
• Cancel all timers – use the ‘Cancel all timers’ button to stop and cancel all unlogged timers at once. After this, the section will automatically fold.
  
  

With this setup, you can quickly see what still needs attention and log your time without any extra hunting around.

Conclusion

Hunting for the right tasks, switching between boards, trying to remember which items still need time logged - logging time in Jira can quickly eat up more of your day than you’d think. You can solve these challenges with the help of the Time Assistant app. It gives you a clear overview of all the tasks you’ve been working on, shows exactly which items need time logging, and lets you create a personal list of your most frequently used work items. This way, you can log time faster, as everything is just a click away, and focus on the work that really matters.