AutoTagging

Absorption

We all use tools or visit websites which can be attributed to different tags. For example, a visit to Google search can be almost anything. Similarly using a Windows explorer can also be applied to almost any tag. Whenever you are not certain where to put something, try to tag it in a general manner.
So for example a visit to Google, Yahoo, Bing could be 'General, Search engine'
Using Windows explorer, Task manager, Notepad could be 'General, Tools'.

Now the problem is that even though we tagged these apps and sites, we still used them for a reason, to accomplish some task. Maybe we visited Google search because we needed some help on the project we are working on, maybe we visited it to read more about the camera we want to buy.

The idea behind absorption is that when we work on something we stick to that for some time, we don't change focus every second. For example lets say you are working on Project 1, use Google for a minute, then again work on a Project 1. When this happens we could assume that the visit to google was most likely related to Project 1.

So when you set autotag to be absorbed, ManicTime will find the most used autotag around the time when we visited Google and apply it to that autotag. In the example below the blueish and yellow autotags are based on some rules, the purple highlighted one is Google search. Now I will set Google search to be absorbed by all other autotags. This is what it looks like after the absorption is applied.

Before

After

So now Google search was transformed into one or the other autotag. This might be a strange analogy for a computer application, but autotags set for abosorption are similar to a chameleon, they will change color (and value) to whatever is in their vicinity.

Please note that while autotags can be correct, they can also be wrong. That visit to Google between working on a project could easily be not related to the project.