My policy on billing is, "Would I be doing this if I wasn't on this project?" If no, I bill, if yes, I don't. So, would I be sitting in a client's office, potentially (usually) (relatively) far away from my home, dressed in nice clothes, unavailable to other clients for that time, if the client hadn't put me on the project, even if I drift on to Hacker News for a few minutes? All office hours are billable.
That said, since I spend such a small proportion of my time in a client's office, I do try to stay focused. I typically don't look at Hacker News or anything like that. I got sick of setting everything to use SOCKS proxy so I set up a VPN, but I didn't bill the client for this (30 min or so) despite my normal policy. My real billing policy is "bill fairly".
That said, since I spend such a small proportion of my time in a client's office, I do try to stay focused. I typically don't look at Hacker News or anything like that. I got sick of setting everything to use SOCKS proxy so I set up a VPN, but I didn't bill the client for this (30 min or so) despite my normal policy. My real billing policy is "bill fairly".