I understand where you're coming from. Archiving all that work history was pretty useful since so many projects involved repeating the same process but on new data. It was important to make sure that everything happened in the same order and the notes added to the screenshots as I worked or at the end of each day helped me avoid lost time and prevented repeating mistakes made the first time through.

I was reluctant to use any tracking software until I had to get paid the first time. Since I came on board during a flurry of activity I bounced between several projects every day for weeks. Each project had a different owner who had their own budget and project code. My handwritten notes and memory were a sorry rendering of the day's work compared to the one minute screenshots which could give me near exact start and stop times for time spent on each task. I could review handwritten notes and picture what I was doing and make an educated guess about how long I worked on some things but the software allowed me to nail down exactly how long I spent on each task and made it simple to invoice payment for all my time without guessing.

I am a consultant in a one-person company so I get to do all the work and all the background stuff too. This software made the drudgery bearable and efficient and allowed me to get paid for all the time I spent on someone else's projects (I billed to the minute since I could document to the minute).

There were no real red flags with the clients. Good people in a high-speed environment.

I didn’t mean to imply that your clients had red flags. What I meant is that the only reason I would want that level of precision is if I was covering my ass legally, and I wouldn’t want a contract where I needed that level of granularity.

It is better to charge by the day anyway. If you’re needed even an hour on a day, they get the daily rate. An interruption in your day for even an hour has context shifting and sucks away a lot more time than that implicitly. Alternatively, weekly prepaid hours work as well. As long as the client is getting value delivered and all their requirements are met or exceeded, and the time is spent to make sure that is always the case, contracting can be a vehicle to escape mundanities like exact timekeeping and enable better use of time.

I would also argue in general for prepaid hours, as this is much more palatable for a business anyway. It gives them a predictable budget with no guesswork, and you a predictable income. That stability is better for both parties as long as you’re delivering.

But everyone’s got their method of operating. Screenshotting a day like that is impressive legally but does make my skin crawl as a dev & creative. I like to just zone out and enter the universe of my work.

I agree with most of your points here. I added unnecessary complexity to the problem of tracking time and getting paid. I decided to bill for every documented minute. There was no requirement from the clients. Totally my decision.

Looking back, if I had to do it again I would bill a day rate and/or set a monthly minimum billable rate to compensate for the constant availability. The job did introduce lots of stress at times and interfered with a normal life. The only saving thing here is that I set my own rate, controlled my own hours to a large extent, and tried to capture payment for every bit of time spent working with them. I also had the opportunity to work with the latest generation hardware, debug the latest software to run it, and troubleshoot problems in real time when it was deployed and time critical to understand failure modes and quantify success. The job had its benefits outside of the money.