> I guess what I meant to say, is lowering my rate by around 25%, but also being less picky on what I should bill before so that I can earn the same amount, acceptable?
Yes, it's fine, you should pad one of them. Either rate or time. Even if you just log in to a 1 hour meeting they host, bill them for 1.25-1.50 hours for context switching/ "prep work" is pretty acceptable. It is going to be client specific, if you find your clients are being overly sensitive to either - you probably want to find another client as it's just going to be a rough relationship when they're counting every minute/dime. Of course, the best practice is to put all of this in a contract but there's a million edge cases. Some general clause may work.
Well, typically people like to see billing for hours used... so...
If you work today: 8 hours billed.
If you work part of the day: part hours billed
If you work overtime: 8 hours + OT hours.
I agree with conductr that this is creative work. If you talk to someone to gather requirements, do meetings, help teammates out, etc, it is all part of the process. If you need to look up stuff that is part of the process.
Just like any engineer, you can't be "on" 24/7 so it is expected that some slack time is cooked into your hours. If your productivity doesn't make sense compared to the hours put in, that's the problem. If you're producing more than enough for your hours, where's the problem?
Anyone nickle-and-diming you on checking that every 15 minutes is accurate is going to be a bad person to work for anyways, or just needs to negotiate less hours.
Yes, it's fine, you should pad one of them. Either rate or time. Even if you just log in to a 1 hour meeting they host, bill them for 1.25-1.50 hours for context switching/ "prep work" is pretty acceptable. It is going to be client specific, if you find your clients are being overly sensitive to either - you probably want to find another client as it's just going to be a rough relationship when they're counting every minute/dime. Of course, the best practice is to put all of this in a contract but there's a million edge cases. Some general clause may work.