> Do you really invoice clients for "11 hours, 3 minutes"?
I would certainly hope not. I personally tend to round to the half day (including down to zero), and sometimes to the next hour depending on the client, the frequency of work, how much we've worked on together over time, etc.
I think you might be skipping over the personal benefit of time tracking. Sure after a few years of freelance development, Most estimates get easier, but only because you know how long things have taken in the past.
If I didn't track all my hours in the past, I'd have no idea how to estimate tasks, much less entire projects. The hardest part when I was first starting out was estimation. After a couple years of getting it wrong - and eating hours instead of food - I was finally able to get my estimates within a couple days.
Of course when projects get more innovative, it gets difficult to judge how long things will take, but I can still count on the parts I already know to build a groundwork for how long most of the project should take.
Otherwise, I've found charging down to the hour can be a good practice for new clients with small intro projects to make it immediately clear that they will pay my high hourly rate for the work they request. It's a filter. Over time, I'll probably eat plenty of hours for one-offs and whatnot. But I certainly don't want a new client to think so until a relationship has been developed.
I would certainly hope not. I personally tend to round to the half day (including down to zero), and sometimes to the next hour depending on the client, the frequency of work, how much we've worked on together over time, etc.
I think you might be skipping over the personal benefit of time tracking. Sure after a few years of freelance development, Most estimates get easier, but only because you know how long things have taken in the past.
If I didn't track all my hours in the past, I'd have no idea how to estimate tasks, much less entire projects. The hardest part when I was first starting out was estimation. After a couple years of getting it wrong - and eating hours instead of food - I was finally able to get my estimates within a couple days.
Of course when projects get more innovative, it gets difficult to judge how long things will take, but I can still count on the parts I already know to build a groundwork for how long most of the project should take.
Otherwise, I've found charging down to the hour can be a good practice for new clients with small intro projects to make it immediately clear that they will pay my high hourly rate for the work they request. It's a filter. Over time, I'll probably eat plenty of hours for one-offs and whatnot. But I certainly don't want a new client to think so until a relationship has been developed.