is there any way of making a clear distinction between total time for a task and actual working time

Hi Ian

Thank you for your question. There are two fields in the database that you might find helpful: Work and Duration.

When you create a task you estimate its duration. When you assign a resource Project calculates the total Work associated with that task.

You can add the Work field to your table by right clicking on a column header and choosing insert column - from the field list choose Work.

I hope this is helpful - do let us know if you have any further questions.

Kind regards,

Andrew