July 27, 2017

Mr. C’s Hourly Conundrum

Longtime reader Mr. C wrote in to share his hourly conundrum:

Hi Jonathan,

Thought you might like this one ...

I have recently started meditating for 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon. It really helps me re-focus and re-energises my mind at a time in the day when I start to feel drained and my productivity takes a nosedive.

Generally I don’t bill time, so this isn’t a problem, however occasionally I work on a day rate, this give me the following conundrum:

Option A meditate as usual

This creates the weird situation where the client is paying me quite a high hourly rate to meditate - it feels wrong and that I am cheating them somehow.

Option B don’t meditate

I am not cheating my client now. However for the last two hours of the day my brain has almost stopped working and they’re not really getting much for my time. I’m almost just staring at the screen until the clock says I can stop.

Option A is better for everyone as I am more productive, healthier, happier, less likely to burn out and the client gets more, better quality work done. However it feels wrong when billing for time.

Anyway thought you might be interested.

Cheers :)

Thanks for sharing, Mr. C!

Have you ever found yourself in a similar conundrum? If so and you’d be willing to share with the group, please hit reply and let me know.

Yours,

—J

P.S. Still can’t quite make the mental shift from hourly billing to value pricing? Check out my book -> http://hourlybillingisnuts.com