no, you are saying that next week I will work on the deliverables we agreed for the week. And I will deliver them. And they will bring you this much benefit.
If I need to go and hire two guys and work nights to do it, I lose. But I only lose a limited amount.
SO, I guess I really am saying work fixed bids of one week projects.
So if you finish them in one day - you don't send them to the client until Friday?
I imagine if you did them in a day or two the client would be asking why they paid for a week of work and if they can use the rest of the time somewhere else
Generally 'standard weeks' are done under the assumption that you will work at least 40 hours on the project (often more, I average 44). The concept is that the project is significantly more than 40 hours, and accounting for every moment is overhead that doesn't serve anyone. Client doesn't care and it simply wastes your time to do it.
Its not lying and cheating nor illegal to say "I will build you a purple widget for your website, you can have it by Friday. The widget will cost you 1000 bucks"
Get away from selling your time please. Sell something else, sell a feature, sell a widget, sell a service. As a "bum on seat" I have charged by the hour, the day, the week or even a month. And each an every time I was expected to, contracted to do 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
I was an employee.
I could not supply them a simple single product, custom built for them because I had to wade through meetings and politics and inertia and everything else we all know and love. They were too disorganised, too chaotic, too out of control to know what they wanted at a level below "months of work from dozens of people", and so the ride continued.
This is where the Internet is opening up new opportunities - because now it is dismantling (read automating) traditional marketing and even management. One guy can reach a global audience with good SEO, and one group of people can do away with 80% of industrial world management (including geo-co-location). And all that will dismantle the chaotic crazy world of contractors selling their time inside corporations who need software but are not able to deal with the implications.
The contracting world will look very different in ten years. It will look a lot like what patio11 is selling.
So, stop selling your time - instead sell a packet of something, for about the price of a week of your time, to do something that will take about a week of your time.
It looks a lot like selling a week of your time, except
that
* it does not say so in the contract
* it is something you can and will automate.
Selling a product is 80%+ automated and 20% custom.
Selling a productised-consult is 20% automated and 80% custom.
The more that 80% dives down, the more profit you make in your "week". However the more it looks like a product, the less you can charge :-)
Do I care that my accountant only spends an hour looking over an annual return he got by pressing a button, yet charges a grand? No, because I make up for it on chats over coffee and the knowledge that he would catch the horror of a mistake and fix it. No horror, good for him. However that week he did tackle a horror for someone. Next time it will be me.
If I need to go and hire two guys and work nights to do it, I lose. But I only lose a limited amount.
SO, I guess I really am saying work fixed bids of one week projects.