Ask HN: Hourly billers, do you bill for only focused work?

However, I sometimes notice other contractors billing a full 40-hour work week and clients not batting an eye.

Am I being too honest, and should I continue billing for the fifteen minutes I go off reading HN, having lunch, or any other short break?

Edit: I guess what I meant to say, is lowering my rate by around 25%, but also being less picky on what I should bill so that I can earn the same amount, acceptable?

In the future, try to be more diligent, both for your customers and for you. In the future you'll be able to fit more clients in, and your customers will get a better price.

But ideally you set things up ahead of time by finding a client with a decent sized budget and then charging by the week. The billing increment is one week.

Then just make sure to have regular delivery or discussions as often as possible with the client. They should see the deliverables progressing, even if it's just the architectural details being worked out at first. They should be judging based on useful things obviously happening and being explained or being able to use the next version rather than just looking at hours to try to guess whether they are getting a good deal or something.

For me, we will see how it goes. Right now I have a weekly billing client who I am a bit worried I will have to replace because things in this niche are so dead right now. But there were a few other projects I may be able to pick up. I am definitely going to try to find one that can afford a week or two though because realistically all of the projects have gone on for more than two weeks so far, generally speaking more like 2-8 weeks each.

When it's going to almost certainly take a month to complete a project, trying to get out of an extra hour every day or something is a questionable strategy because it's a significant investment anyway, and the biggest risk really is most projects just not delivering usable software at all, which means all of that money gets wasted.

Some of this depends on your role and the specific contract/agreement but a couple of general thoughts:

* If you're having short breaks midday where your attention drifts to non-work, do you also have short moments at home where your thoughts drift to work?

* Remember that there is value in you "being available". Even if you have a slow day or less than 100% focused day, you're still working and available if something urgent comes up.

* How is your output and impact? Are you contributing on par with others?

* If you catch yourself thinking "Wow, I haven't done anything for the past hour" maybe that time shouldn't be billed but that's different from a quick HN skim or stretching and grabbing coffee.