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I am actually salaried, however...
I have daily journal that I write notes in. Every day I write the date and what times I worked, as well as the things that I learned and accomplished that day. It acts as a natural time log if that information does become important.
Build a man a fire, and he will be warm for a day
Light a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life!
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I remember when I worked for the govt I had to fill in timesheets down to 15 mins. I was salaried, I did the same boring stuff day in and day out and we were not a customer focussed area so we could have worked 16 hrs one day and noe the rest for all it mattered, but still the powers that be insisted: in by 9am; lunch at least 30 mins between 12 and 2pm, out no earlier than 4:30, no later than 6:30; and every week had to add up to 40. Oh man...
cheers,
Chris Maunder
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I remember those days, especially the bit about increments (we used 10 minutes). And every week, magically, had to total 40 hrs, even if it took 80 to make it so
I Drowned Schroedinger's Stupid Cat!
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My wife's (lawyer) firm uses 6 minute intervals and as an accountant, way back when, I had to use 10 minutes intervals. Going for a pee: 1 unit (administrative expenses - non chargable!)
Alice thought that running very fast for a long time would get you to somewhere else. " A very slow kind of country!" said the queen. "Now, here , you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place".
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I'd rather get on and do the job at hand rather than muck around with accounting mechanisms.
When I have to invoice out, I take a guess at the time taken then multiply by 2 or 3 depending on my bank-balnce then multiply out my hourly or weekly rate.
Time tracking doesn't sound nearly as profitable.
Regardz
Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
More about me
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Yes, I agree with your method.
Time tracking is strictly for satisfying the management or the customers who want it, there is no other value in it. Suppose you can do a piece of work in 1/3 of time another (average) developer will need, it makes no sense to be strict on the actual amount of time you spent. Otherwise you will get paid only 1/3 of money for the same or better quality work.
Here is a story I heard a long long time ago:
An extremely complicated machine in a factory broke down. The engineers spent weeks trying to fix it but couldn't. They suspected that there was a loose wire inside but couldn't figure out exactly where to look for. So the manager asked a well-known expert in this field for help. The expert did some thinking and draw a mark outside the machine, then said "Open it from here, you will find the loose wire". They did and the machine was fixed. Later the manager received a bill of $10000 from the expert. He asked the expert "How do you justify the $10000 amount? All you did was drawing a simple mark on the machine". The expert said "Actually, it costs only $1 to draw that mark on the machine. But knowing where to draw that mark will cost you $9999".
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We use an accounting package that has time tracking, and in the three months since I got here, I've slowly stopped using it, because no-one else does.
Christian
I am completely intolerant of stupidity. Stupidity is, of course, anything that doesn't conform to my way of thinking. - Jamie Hale - 29/05/2002
Half the reason people switch away from VB is to find out what actually goes on.. and then like me they find out that they weren't quite as good as they thought - they've been nannied. - Alex, 13 June 2002
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I read something a while back that I have to agree with.
I a procedure isn't important enough to use during a time crunch, then why implement the procedure at all.
Why did they waste the money on that accounting package if they aren't going to use it. 
Tim Smith
I know what you're thinking punk, you're thinking did he spell check this document? Well, to tell you the truth I kinda forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this here's CodeProject, the most powerful forums in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question, Do I feel lucky? Well do ya punk?
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Tim Smith quoted from another source:
If a procedure isn't important enough to use during a time crunch, then why implement the procedure at all.
IMHO, That is one of the problems with Software Development today: Managers often use "Crunch Time" to correct for the mistakes they made in the planning/estimation of a project. In doing so, they often allow or encourage certain "shortcuts" like: reduced commenting, quick-n-dirty code, less buffer/parameter checking, less written documentation, etc.
All of which can contribute to reduced robustness and maintainability of the code/project in the long run. All in the name of "saving time" or "getting it done". Tragic.
All of those procedures are important, and should be used even in a "time crunch". But the knuckleheads in charge do not often see it that way.
Peace!
-=- James.
"Some People Know How To Drive, Others Just Know How To Operate A Car."
[Get Check Favorites 1.4 Now!]
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Perhaps priorities change.
Early in a project the priority is to have a good idea how much it's going to cost, and a good estimate of delivery times with miniumum risk. It's worth slowing down the project to get more accurate and dependable information. Most of the procedures are done to reduce risk on the project and to increase visibility of progress.
But when a project is "late", the business priorities chance. It's worth trading an increased risk, and less accurate cost and schedule information for faster delivery.
The tradeoff between schedule/resource/quality/scope is a classic management problem and you'd expect that as circumstances change that the tradeoff would change. I'd be more worried if priorities didn't shift under these circumstances.
Of course the tradeoff has to be done with understanding of what the costs of, for example reduced quality, really are, and that is where "management" often fails, but in principle there is nothing wrong with changing priorities on a project to meet changind conditions.
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Tim Smith wrote:
Why did they waste the money on that accounting package if they aren't going to use it.
I believe it came as part of the package they use generally, and officially we still use it, it's just that no-one bothers.
Haven't you ever bought software with the intention of getting good use out of it, but never quite got there ?
Christian
I am completely intolerant of stupidity. Stupidity is, of course, anything that doesn't conform to my way of thinking. - Jamie Hale - 29/05/2002
Half the reason people switch away from VB is to find out what actually goes on.. and then like me they find out that they weren't quite as good as they thought - they've been nannied. - Alex, 13 June 2002
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