I'm curious for HN's ideas on doing this with WFH, for fine-grain billable time, since I wasn't entirely happy with how I did it, as an independent consultant.
On-site billing was much easier and more lucrative than WFH -- just bill any time on-site, except for lunch breaks.
When WFH, I was very serious about billing focused work only. Work included lots of heavy coding, heavy architecture, advising, and the occasional quick technical question. I logged time in 15-minute increments (at least not 6-minute), and only when I was in front of the workstation and actively ready to start working (but if I got up to pace while thinking about the work, and then went back to type, all that was billable). At one point, I even had client-dedicated laptops and email accounts, for focus and for data handling.
I'd also (unless sometimes in a rare marathon or very urgent situation) be all awake and alert, showered, dressed in biz casual Dockers, etc., before I started the clock.
One time, an exec at a client said something like "if you go for a walk to think about an algorithm, you should bill it", but that seemed too fuzzy or slippery-slope for me.
With my favorite client, I got WFH flexibility (before that was commonplace), further developed skills all over the stack and lifecycle, and made key contributions to very important projects/programs that I'm proud to have been a part of.
However, TC was a small fraction of what it would've been performing similarly at Google. So today I still have to hustle, long after doing similar work at a dotcom would've let me "retire" (i.e., do angel investment, while self-funding my own work in whatever catches my interest, or fundraise for a startup when I don't personally need the money). Being a little less stringent with the WFH clock would've helped, though I don't know where to draw the line.
(When non-consulting employed and WFH, I just make sure I put in a solid day. It's often, say, 8 "billable" hours spread across 12 clock hours, not counting meals, errands, chores, exercise, HN breaks, etc.)
On-site billing was much easier and more lucrative than WFH -- just bill any time on-site, except for lunch breaks.
When WFH, I was very serious about billing focused work only. Work included lots of heavy coding, heavy architecture, advising, and the occasional quick technical question. I logged time in 15-minute increments (at least not 6-minute), and only when I was in front of the workstation and actively ready to start working (but if I got up to pace while thinking about the work, and then went back to type, all that was billable). At one point, I even had client-dedicated laptops and email accounts, for focus and for data handling.
I'd also (unless sometimes in a rare marathon or very urgent situation) be all awake and alert, showered, dressed in biz casual Dockers, etc., before I started the clock.
One time, an exec at a client said something like "if you go for a walk to think about an algorithm, you should bill it", but that seemed too fuzzy or slippery-slope for me.
With my favorite client, I got WFH flexibility (before that was commonplace), further developed skills all over the stack and lifecycle, and made key contributions to very important projects/programs that I'm proud to have been a part of.
However, TC was a small fraction of what it would've been performing similarly at Google. So today I still have to hustle, long after doing similar work at a dotcom would've let me "retire" (i.e., do angel investment, while self-funding my own work in whatever catches my interest, or fundraise for a startup when I don't personally need the money). Being a little less stringent with the WFH clock would've helped, though I don't know where to draw the line.
(When non-consulting employed and WFH, I just make sure I put in a solid day. It's often, say, 8 "billable" hours spread across 12 clock hours, not counting meals, errands, chores, exercise, HN breaks, etc.)