faq

Short answers in two sections: the tool, and the meeting.

about temmet

What is temmet? A live cost meter for time. Set per-hour rates against participants, press start, and watch a running total climb. It runs entirely in your browser — no server, no accounts, no tracking. Originally built for meetings, but the same machine fits any per-hour-rate workflow. See the recipes for the full list.

Is temmet free? Yes. There is no paid tier, no trial, and no subscription. The full product is free.

Do I need to sign up? No. There's no signup, no login, no account. Open the app and use it.

Does temmet send my data anywhere? No. Everything is stored on your device in IndexedDB. The app loads no third-party scripts, sets no cookies, and runs no analytics. After the initial page load, no network requests carry your data. See data and privacy for the full picture.

Where is my data stored? In your browser's IndexedDB, under a database named temmet. Four keys hold everything: sessions, settings, templates, and activeSession.

How do I back up my data? Open the Data dialog from the history screen and choose JSON. The downloaded file contains every session, every template, and your settings. Re-import it later or on another device.

How do I move my data to another browser or device? Export JSON on the source, import JSON on the target. There's no account flow, so JSON export is the only path.

Can I show the running meter to the room without revealing individual salaries? Yes, by design. While a session is running, participant names and roles are hidden — the screen shows "Participant 1", "Participant 2", and so on. Rates remain visible; identities do not. You can share your screen or place your phone on the table without exposing what anyone earns. The setup screen shows real names; the running meter does not.

What happens if I close the tab during a session? temmet checkpoints the running session every five seconds, plus on pause, resume, and tab-hide. When you reopen within twelve hours, you'll see a resume prompt.

Can I use temmet on my phone? Yes. It's a web app — open it in any modern mobile browser. The wakelock setting keeps the screen on during a running session so the meter stays visible.

Does temmet work offline? After the first load, yes. The app and all its dependencies are cached, so subsequent visits work without a network.

What currencies does temmet support? Any currency code. The picker has presets (USD, EUR, GBP, etc.) but the field is a string — type your own. temmet does no currency conversion; the code is a label on the displayed numbers.

Can I bill clients with temmet? Yes. Set the hourly rate to your billing rate, the role to the client name, and use CSV export as your timesheet. See the freelance billing recipe.

Can I track income instead of cost? Yes — the meter doesn't know whether the rate is a cost or a revenue. Flip the framing in your head. The inverse earnings recipe covers it.

What are templates good for? Saving an Advanced-mode setup so you don't have to re-enter participants. Beyond meetings, templates work as client profiles, recurring rooms, subjects you tutor, or anything else where the same setup repeats.

Can I edit a session after it's saved? You can rename the label any time from the history view. Other fields (participants, duration, cost) are intentionally locked — they're a record of what actually happened.

How do I delete a session? From history, click the trash icon. The deletion is undoable for a few seconds via the toast that appears.

How do I delete all my data? Use "Reset local data and reload" on the error screen, or manually delete the temmet IndexedDB database in your browser's DevTools.

Are there keyboard shortcuts? Two, only during a running session. space pauses and resumes; esc ends. Both are surfaced on screen. See keyboard.

Can multiple people see the same meter? Not built in. temmet is a local app, not a synced one. Share your screen, or screencast to a TV, but there's no real-time co-editing.

What's the difference between Simple and Advanced mode? Simple mode generates participants from a count and an average rate — two sliders. Advanced mode lets you name each participant, assign a role, and set per-row rates. Use Simple for a quick room cost; use Advanced when you want a per-person breakdown afterwards.

How do I export to PDF? From the Data dialog on the history screen, click PDF. You'll get a printable A4 report.

Is temmet open source? No. temmet is closed source.

How do I report a bug or send feedback? Open the contact dialog from the app footer, or email the address listed there.

about meetings

What is a meeting? A synchronous coordination event where multiple people's time is consumed simultaneously. Unlike email, it cannot be read later. Unlike a document, it produces no artifact by default. Unlike a decision, it requires everybody's presence to be worth it.

The right tool when you need real-time negotiation, rapid back-and-forth, or a shared moment that requires everyone in the room at once. The wrong tool for information transfer, status updates, or anything whose value is in the content rather than the conversation.

When should I call a meeting? When three conditions are all true:

1. A decision needs to be made that requires input from multiple people.
2. That input cannot be gathered asynchronously in a reasonable timeframe.
3. You can name — before sending the invite — exactly what decision will be made and who owns it.

If condition three fails, you do not have a meeting agenda. You have a topic. A topic is not a meeting.

When should I not call a meeting?

• To share information that could be an email, a document, or a Slack message.
• To update people on progress. Progress updates are pull, not push — let people ask when they need them.
• To "align". Alignment is a symptom that a decision has not been made or communicated. Make the decision.
• To brainstorm, if what you mean is "talk at each other and call it ideation." Written brainstorming produces more ideas from more people, with less social pressure to converge prematurely.
• To decide something one person could and should decide alone.

How many people should be in a meeting? Fewer than you think. Each additional person raises the cost proportionally and reduces the probability that everyone strictly needs to be there.

A useful check: before sending the invite, add up the hourly rates of everyone on the list. If that number makes you uncomfortable for a 30-minute conversation, you've answered your own question. The person added to "keep them in the loop" can usually be kept in the loop with a summary afterwards.

What should every meeting have before the invite goes out? Three things:

1. A decision to be made. Not a topic. Not an agenda item. A specific decision that will be reached by the end of the meeting.
2. A decision owner. One person who makes the call if consensus doesn't emerge. Without this, meetings produce action items with no accountable owner and a follow-up meeting to discuss the action items.
3. A hard end time. Meetings expand to fill available time. A 30-minute slot with a hard stop produces more decisions than a 60-minute slot without one.

If you cannot write all three of these before clicking send, send an email instead.

What is a standup? Originally: a brief daily coordination ceremony — 15 minutes maximum — where every person answers three questions: what did I do yesterday, what am I doing today, what is blocking me. Designed to surface blockers before they compound into delays.

In practice: often a meeting that has been recurring long enough that its original purpose has blurred. People report status that their manager could read in a project tool. The blockers that were supposed to surface early surface 24 hours after they should have, because nobody wanted to "derail the standup."

A standup that consistently takes longer than 15 minutes is a planning meeting that has not admitted it is a planning meeting. Run it in temmet for a sprint. If the cost surprises you, you have data.

What is a "quick sync"? An informal meeting whose length was estimated before the content was known. "Quick" means "I have not thought carefully about how long this will actually take."

The words "quick sync" in a calendar invite are a signal, not a guarantee. If you need a quick answer, send a message and wait. If you genuinely need a synchronous conversation, call it a meeting, give it an agenda, and put an end time on it.

What is a good meeting cost? One proportionate to the decision being made.

A £50 decision warrants a £5 meeting — a two-minute conversation between the right two people. A £50,000 product decision warrants a £200 meeting — an hour with the right five people. Most meetings are £200 meetings having £20 conversations.

temmet makes the number visible. What you do with it is your call.

Is there a meeting I should cancel right now? Probably. Look at your recurring meetings. Pick the one that has been going longest without a decision anyone can name. Cancel it for one month as an experiment.

If nobody notices it is missing: cancel it permanently. The meeting nobody notices was already dead. It was just still on the calendar.

How do I use temmet to make meetings shorter? Start the meter. Share your screen. The running cost-per-minute figure is the most reliable meeting-shortener we have observed. It does not require anyone to say "this is taking too long." The number says it for you.