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It sounds like you’re doing it very right (assuming your billing is accurate). When I was in private practice I often worked late to hit my billables, but I probably had many days with much more than 8 hours billed which impacted things. I figure if you hit 8 billables in 9-10 hours actually worked you’re doing well at being efficient.
If everyone’s happy with the pace you’re finishing work at then you’re fine. There will come times when you need to do more than 8-hours in a day to get stuff done in time.
Bill 8 hours a day or account for 8 hours a day? We're expected to enter and release 8 hours a day (at minimum) at my firm (and others I've been at), but it's definitely not all expected to be billable. There are other admin tasks, professional development activities, etc. you do in any given day that can't be billed, and usually the time entry policy accounts for that.
Eat at your desk and bill through lunch. There are nonbillable tasks to do during the day so if you’re actually working 8 hours, you won’t bill 8 hours. You need to work more like 9-10 hours to bill 8 hours depending on the day
It got harder as time went on for me. The type of work I was assigned changed. I went from very discreet tasks that were easy to track to messy tasks that blend together, having to stop and address a fire before I can get to the timer, walking out of one meeting and getting cornered on something else before I can write down what I just did, etc. Also, all of my partners have very different billing preferences, so I have to do different tracking for different people.
In my first couple yrs it was easier to have high-density billable days. As you rise, your tasks and responsibilities change and you’re expected to do things quicker (self cut) and that’s when your days become diluted and you work more and bill less.
That said, sounds like you’re being disciplined and conscientious of the importance of good time keeping habits, which will serve you well in the long run, even as things get tougher.
Go forth and bill, young biller! We are all rooting for you
Once things get busy, it gets harder to keep track of everything you’re doing because it feels like you’re doing multiple things at once.
What do you mean you have timers for each matter? Like physical timers or an app?
I wouldn't have the attention span to sit there and open a timer every time I started something new. But if I knew the six matters I was going to work on for the day and I opened up those timers at the beginning of the day and just start and stop throughout the day as I hopped between them, maybe I could make that work. But then putting out fires would probably not get a timer.
I think maybe you just don’t have the same simple software most firms have. The buttons take >5 seconds to make and label, I can’t imagine what I would do with them.