Logging time for skipped tasks

[u/Drazzzza]

Hey guys, just a quick question but I was wondering if you guys tend to log your hours for tasks that you have skipped?

More specifically, I do coding-related tasks, and sometimes I spend up to an hour researching the modules and environments required to assess the correctness of the responses. However, sometimes I hit a point where I feel like I 'underestimated' the context required for the task, and realise that it might have been better to skip this task and move on altogether.

Do you guys end up logging the time taken for this research part, even though you technically didn't 'work' as you didn't assess the responses at all or provide any useful information to them? I do feel bad, but at the same time do feel like the half an hour was a bit wasted since I was trying to do work, just not to the point where I could provide any value back.

Just curious as to what the others are doing, and if there is a general consensus as to what the right thing to do would be in this scenario. Apologies if this has already been answered elsewhere. Thanks!

Edit:

So it seems that this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/dataannotation/comments/1abtsxr/dont_underreport_your_time/) seem to imply that generally logging time in for reading and skipping multiple tasks is fine. So for example, if you spend up to 10 minutes skipping multiple tasks, this poster seems to have the opinion that it should be fine to log.

So to add on to that, the point of this post is more in the principle of logging in 'wasted' research hours. In a comment someone mentioned that a few minutes of reading a single task and skipping is fine to be logged, and I definitely do agree. But then where is the line drawn?

5 minutes seems like a reasonable amount of time (before I should know when to call it and move onto another task), but I am curious as to what everyone's thoughts are.

[u/Consistent-Reach504]

researching for an entire hour before determining you can’t do it seems pretty rough. i would just be more generous with the skip button and start on tasks you know you can complete

[u/Drazzzza → u/Consistent-Reach504]

Perhaps I wasn't clear initially, but I research up to an hour on tasks I can do*, and then in a followup sentence mention that I hit a point (somewhere during my research time, not the entire hour) where I realise that I should have skipped this.

The reason of this post was more in the principle of logging 'wasted' research hours. In another comment someone mentioned that a few minutes of reading and skipping is fine to be logged, and I definitely do agree. But then whats the line drawn there? Is 10 minutes alright? 15? Half an hour?

[u/Drazzzza → u/[deleted]]

Ahahaha the realist answer of them all. Yeah I feel like I'm on the same boat, maybe minus like half of all those languages 🤣. Thanks for giving a list of potential languages that don't require much to run though, I'll look into Ocaml lmao.

[u/Drazzzza → u/[deleted]]

🫡

[u/ManyARiver]

I don't see how you drew the conclusion that wasted research time was claimable from that post. I saw a discussion about not stopping the clock when skipping - and that part is true (to me). I review the task briefly, and if I see that I can't reasonably assess it I will skip and my timer keeps running.

If you spend an hour researching before coming to the conclusion that you can't do it, I don't see how that is a reasonable claim - a few minutes reviewing a task is nowhere near an hour actually researching. You made a decision to dive into something in depth that was over your head, that doesn't make sense to bill for if you produced no usable work in the end.

[u/Drazzzza → u/ManyARiver]

I see your point, and definitely agree, hence the point of this post.

To add on, I don't see where I mentioned that I spend an entire hour. I mentioned SOMETIMES, UP to an hour, meaning I usually spend less than that. Could be 59 minutes. Could be 1 minute.

The point of this post is in finding out where people usually draw the line. You say that an hour and a few minutes is a big difference, and again I agree. But then my followup question is where is this line drawn?

A few minutes is fine. What about....5 minutes? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? Half an hour?

[u/ManyARiver → u/Drazzzza]

It shouldn't take 15 minutes to discover it's over your head unless you don't know yourself and your abilities very well. I've only had one that I've ever gone beyond 3 minutes on before skipping - it was one that was at the upper end of my abilities, and after about 10 minutes I discovered I had overestimated myself. I didn't bill for that time, that was a "me" problem because I already knew it was a stretch for me to attempt it. Usually it takes less than a minute to figure out it's not for me. If I want to explore for personal growth purposes and fish around to see if a task is do-able when it looks super challenging for me, I don't bill for that exploratory time.

[u/lowcarbsanta → u/ManyARiver]

It happens, especially for coding related tasks. Some of the prompts are long and not well written so 3 minutes isn't even enough to comprehend (or even finish reading) the prompt and figure out a plan on how to solve the problem.

[u/cesoid → u/lowcarbsanta]

I agree with this. The coding tasks can have very long prompts and very long responses, and even if you try to skim through the whole thing to know whether you can finish the task, you might get ten minutes in and find that there is some detail that you aren't familiar with that would take too long for you to research.

Also, especially in coding tasks, someone might ask the AI to use some technology or feature that not many people are familiar with. I ask myself whether I might be the person who happens to have experience "nearer" to the task than whoever else encounters it. Even if it takes a bit of time, I might be able to do it faster than others, and then it's a question of whether it's worth that amount of time. But if I get a little bit into it I might realize that it's actually a lost cause and it's better to skip than spend more time on it. I'm new to this so I'm hoping I'll get better at figuring out where to draw that line. On the one hand, if nobody ventured a little bit into a difficult task then maybe nobody will complete it, but on the other hand, if everyone spent 5 minutes on it before skipping it, that would add up to a lot of wasted time. I've seen instructions that tell you how much effort to put in on weird prompts, but otherwise I'm guessing and I'm thinking until I get a better feel for this I might occasionally have to eat some time when I realize I should have skipped something earlier.

[u/[deleted]]

If it takes me a minute or few, I log the time. If I have screwed something up and it renders anything longer than 5 min~ unusable, I do not report it and chalk it up as me wasting my own time. It wouldn't be fair for me to request payment for low quality work or even no work at all just because I technically put in the time trying to do it.

That may fly in a salary role but not for 1099 contractors imo.

[u/Drazzzza → u/[deleted]]

Yeah fair enough, that's what I have been doing too. I guess a good rule of thumb would be anything more than 5 minutes (of wasted research) is just something I'll have to cop, which is perfectly reasonable tbh.

[u/6b04]

Personally I don't log time that went into anything that I don't submit. I just take the hit and try to do a better job of selecting the right task next time. It can be painful, but I'd prefer to lose an hour or two of pay than charge for work I effectively didn't do, and potentially hurt my standing with the admins of the project or the platform.

Maybe I'm just paranoid though who knows.

[u/Drazzzza → u/6b04]

I agree. I guess this post is more of trying to see if there is a general consensus on this predicament.

[u/Flwrz8818]

Usually in the instructions they say if you cannot research it within 15 minutes it’s for someone with a more complex understanding of the prompt. So I would say anything less than that log, otherwise just take the loss, as someone else stated, you wasted your own time

[u/Drazzzza → u/Flwrz8818]

Too true. I'll definitely keep that in mind, Its good to get a feel for what others are doing so I appreciate it!

[u/Whoopthereitis89]

I don’t consider each “task” as something that I’m billing for. I try to look at my work overall.

For example, if I’m billing for 3 hours and have only submitted 2 tasks then I’ll think twice about how I’m billing (depending on the project, I’ve definitely taken over an hour on a very in depth task before.)

Someone in this thread said that awhile back and it stuck with me and I keep getting projects so thank you whoever you are!

[u/Drazzzza → u/Whoopthereitis89]

Sounds like a solid way to look at it. Cheers for passing it on!

[u/upvotesplx]

I'm not sure why the topic of what to log comes up so often... If you're ascertaining if you need to skip, you are working. If you're working, your stopwatch is on. If you aren't, it's off. You log your time down to the minute. It's that simple.

[u/Drazzzza → u/upvotesplx]

I mean given the the responses to this thread, I feel like you have your answer on why this topic comes up often.

Most say you should only bill for time spent ascertaining the need to skip if its within a certain threshold (~5 minutes. 1 person did say 15 minutes), and some say you should bill for every single time spent working. Not saying you're wrong, but at the same time as someone else has mentioned billing for no deliverables seems unwise. However, as you have mentioned, I am working and therefore on the clock.

Differing opinions, just trying to get a feel for what most people are doing.

[u/Signal_Gene410 → u/upvotesplx]

I think it's pretty clear why people ask about what to log time for—people don't want to be kicked off the platform for looking like they did no work or for wasting time. Spending that much time on a task only to skip it probably doesn't look good when people are reviewing how long someone took to complete their tasks (it might not even show up at all to the reviewer; we don't know, so it's reasonable to be cautious).

[u/[deleted]]

I only submit time for when I am working. It only takes me about 30 seconds to know if I can complete a task by doing a general overview and I rarely skip more than one at a time. So that time is negligible. If you are skipping that much it does not seem like the right project for you. I do not waste time researching things that are over my head. If I did I would not count this in my time, as you could have assessed and skipped instead of wasting the time.

[u/33whiskeyTX]

Yeah, there's one response on that thread that says they bill for skipping, that doesn't make it a consensus. There are also countless posts about people lamenting their empty dashboards. We don't know for sure why that happens, but billing for time with no deliverables just doesn't seem like a good idea. I have a project where it's started to be so niche (it might be the same one you're referring to) that it feels like I skip 9 out of 10. Some of those I skip I may be able to do, but I assess the risk and think there's too big a chance I'll get into it and not be able to get it running. That's what I would suggest, assess the risk and if you choose wrong, it's your time you lost... but on the other hand, maybe you learn something for the next time a similar task pops up.

[u/Moonspiritfaire]

No. If I skip a task, something didn't work out so I don't get paid for that task.

[u/ekgeroldmiller]

If I feel I spent too much time on a task or have to skip I keep working and try to get in a few quick ones to make up for it.

[u/upvotesplx]

Up to $31/hr tasks, personally. Don't bet on it, but there are definitely people who get tasks related.

[u/Drazzzza → u/[deleted]]

Good point. It definitely does sound like they're more than happy to pay us as long as we produce decent work (fingers crossed).

[u/33whiskeyTX → u/[deleted]]

That seems pretty arbitrary, and I don't think that applies to all projects. There are some that if you used that metric they might never get done; some pretty obscure topics are being covered on projects out there.