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Had 2 hours of billable work today 💀
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To-do lists and blocking off time on your calendar to focus uninterrupted on things helps me. Taking 15 minutes at the beginning of each day to plan what you need to accomplish really helps you stay on track. And charging your time accurately as you do things because anytime I try to remember what I did a day or more ago I know that I underestimate and forget things.
I like the time blocking idea! Thanks
welcome to the adhd life
^the true answer here, I’m just not going to be nearly as efficient at home as I am at work
Rising Star
Just bill 10.5 anyway
I work on lots of smaller projects and I actually love it! Lots of variety in the clients and I learn lots from seeing different business and tax strategies! I also get to work with a variety of teams. There are good and bad things about both large and small projects. In the end, if you like what you are doing, you are more likely to be successful at it and continue to grow in the position.
Anything client related is billable. Any explanation from a manager/senior is billable. Unfortunately if it’s small projects that have small budgets, it’s time for the manager and partners to realize their budgets are actually unrealistic. Profit margins don’t have to be so large at the expense of the staffs mental health. Normalize this!!!
In all seriousness this is the real answer. A lot of people let themselves be intimidated into eating time. With exceptions, I get paid to think and if I’m thinking about work I bill for it.
Are you eating your time? How did you come up with thise numbers?
Thank y’all for the helpful responses! Appreciate it
I have a small lined notebook out all day and jot down my time as the day goes by. Line one will be 8-8:15 responded to x client. Line two 8:15-9:30 reviewed xyz, 9:30-10 meeting with abc, etc.
5.5x3.5 in or 5x7 in is perfect size
Or just input these time details into excel, especially when the time log applications can change, or do not print out reports properly. Since we’re almost always on our computers, it makes more sense to keep it in a digital format.
Pro
According to my calculation you’ll have to work 18.375 hours or increase your level of focus.
Inflate your hours bro. Otherwise always gonna be a problem.
Oof. You may need to track your time better, or fill it with more billable work. Not sure what’s really going on to give a better opinion.
Yea I would do what you referenced in another comment and have a conversation as to what is billable vs non-billable. Not fun that you’ve potentially missed out on a lot of hours, but hopefully you’ll be good moving forward with decent work days. Best of luck!
Remember that coaching on your work for the client, status meetings, etc are all billable
I used to have the same problem basically. I would bounce back and forth between so many different things that it was hard for me to recall exactly what I did throughout the day. Since the new year I’ve been trying to be better about updating my (personal) time log that I keep and once I finish doing something I just note down how long that took me and a little description of what I did. Doesn’t take more than a few seconds and I’ve found it’s helped me a lot. Hope this helps you too!
What are you doing the other 4.5 hours of the day?
Just book what you have scheduled and they will get over it
I work on a lot of smaller projects too. Sometimes I’ll put time down to 15+ clients. I have your problem too but to help I start every timer I work on at .05 and I round up to nearest .05 when I get done. Helps with some of the lost time picking up and putting down the jobs.
I work 8.5 today and only 2.5 chargeable hours. Idk where tf the rest of that time went. 🤷🏻♀️
I worked in pas at Ey and tracking billable hours is horrible especially when you have small clients. I would sit there and work 10-11 hours and only have 7 hours chargeable. Once I got big engagements life got better. Maybe talk to your counselor about these challenges but as a rule of thumb if you’re speaking to your manager about specific projects, charge your time to the code for that client, it’ll add a few more hours to your chargeable hours
I use an excel template to track the client and what specifically I did for them. When I switch tasks (significantly -not just flip back to something for a quick 10 minutes), I mark my end time for working on that task. I can email it to you if you’d like to try it
Very similar to what I used to do. Easy to creat & format, and keeps you accountable & on track.
Work 20 get 12 hours chargeable
Has an time tracker app call grindstone (Microsoft) installed. You can set up projects (I use [client name] - [activity code]). At the end of week, there is a reporting function output in timesheet format which sums by project and by day.
tell people you cant do non billable work...ur a staff, everythign you do should be billable unless you are taking lunch orders and running out to get them.