When I’ve just pushed something to a repo in gitlab, I go to the front page of our GitLab installation, typically by clicking the icon in the upper left. Until recently I could then count on the repo I just pushed to being near the top of the list (colleagues pushing to other repos was probably the main cause it wasn’t always at the absolute top).
But lately (about when I upgraded from 11 to 12, but I haven’t paid close attention to this), that’s no longer the case. The button on the right showing sort order says “Last updated”, but that’s far from correct. If I then press that button and selects “Last updated” from the drop down (even though it has a check mark), GitLab then sorts the projects correctly (the repo I pushed to moves near the top at least, I haven’t checked if the other repos that appear near the top are ones my colleagues pushed to recently, but I suspect so). It also helps to de-select “Hide archived projects” from the drop down where you can select sort order, so it would seem GitLab just displays “Last updated” but don’t actually sort on it, when I just go to the front page.