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1366 points aleksi | 7 comments | 14 Oct 24 15:19 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source | bottom
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Buttons840 ◴[14 Oct 24 16:00 UTC] No.41838783[source]▶
I might buy this to use as follows.

I want a work-time tracker that lights a bright LED every 5 minutes or so, and as long as I'm there and working I smash a button and the light goes off for another 5 minutes. Some algorithm tracks the times I have hit the button and displays how long I have been working on said task.

I'm picturing something fairly cheap, like a stop watch or 3 button kitchen timer. A LED, a few buttons, a LCD display, a AAA battery slot, and an internal timing circuit is all that's needed (and a case to hold it together).

This would basically be a stop watch that stops on its own if neglected, and I can imagine a few uses for it.

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1. 0cf8612b2e1e ◴[14 Oct 24 16:14 UTC] No.41838941[source]▶
I assume lawyers have some mechanism like this already. Law firms can require staff to allocate every 6-8 minutes of their day. Which sounds terrible and likely to be wildly inaccurate as people cannot be bothered to invest that much overhead into their job.
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2. turblety ◴[14 Oct 24 16:22 UTC] No.41839018[source]▶
> likely to be wildly inaccurate

My gut reaction and prejudiced against all lawyers is it's probably in the law firms interest that these are inaccurate.

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3. 0cf8612b2e1e ◴[14 Oct 24 16:27 UTC] No.41839056[source]▶
For sure that seems the intention. Create an “audit trail” for billing while simultaneously making it so onerous that the employees have to fudge the numbers.
4. hobs ◴[14 Oct 24 16:28 UTC] No.41839063[source]▶
In my experience it just means a lawyer marks each hour via charging you 10 increments, and that in some cases some forms of comms are generally charged at a sub-hourly charge.

In most cases working with a lawyer is a fixed fee or going to be on a retainer basis where the hours pile up regardless, not so much about tracking every moment for every person.

5. joshvm ◴[14 Oct 24 16:53 UTC] No.41839343[source]▶
This is how Swiss medical appointments are billed. I forget exactly how granular, but it's pretty small - 5-10 minutes. As a result, you tend to be quite efficient when going to the GP, because it’s a few Francs a minute

If I retain a lawyer at $1k an hour, you bet I want 5 minute billing.

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6. mattkrause ◴[14 Oct 24 18:14 UTC] No.41840254[source]▶
Sadly for you, I think 6 minute increments (i.e., 0.1 of an hour) might be more common.
7. SoftTalker ◴[14 Oct 24 19:27 UTC] No.41840980[source]▶
If your pay depends on it, you magically become very good at it.

I hate time tracking and time sheets and all of that but at any job I had where I would not get paid without it, it got done.