It's highly unlikely anyone is producing for all X hours in their work-week, especially in a "thinky" field, there has to be some time for the mind to digest and breathe. For many people this usually happens in the midst of chatting with coworkers, clicking through HN, or staring off longingly into a space that isn't there, passively thinking about a side-project, etc. Why pretend like this digestion time doesn't exist/must happen in an office?
There's a difference between reading the news at work or chatting about nothing with coworkers for a half-hour a day and working part-time while passing it off as full-time.
There are plenty of developers who work 7+ hours a work day, plus a little more at nights or on weekends during crunch times. I'm one of these people and every place I've worked has had these people. It's not like all of our work requires intense concentration - sometimes it's just typing or testing.
Sure, there are people who put in very little "real work" by their own admission, and think they are doing just fine. But that's not a luxury afforded to the entire industry
That's normal across all industries. If there are people who are actually productive for 7 hours per day, they are extreme outliers.
I used to think that I worked 8-10 hours per day. That was until I measured my actual productivity.
I worked as a translator once. When I timed myself, I found that I can translate about 2,000 words in 1 hour. But in a day, I struggle to do more than 5,000 words, no matter how hard I push myself- even though that's just 2.5 hours of work! And if I do 5,000 words every day, I burn out within a week.
Exactly. I really like the empirical example.
I find that solutions to work problems come to me at most random circumstances, shower, sleep, etc. Also a 15 minute break can unblock something that I’ stuck on for hours.
I think it’s important to realise that there’s that limit to productivity, so don’t force it if it’s not working. take a break, come back tomorrow, you may find that you’re far more productive even though you’re spending less time “bums on seats”. Somewhat employer dependent
Machines have a concept of duty cycle! Welding machines are rated to a maximum percentage of time that you can run them before they overheat and shut off. This is helpful for thinking about the importance of rest.
In 1594 Philip the Prudent coined the 8 hour work day. It is quite hilarious that after all this time we still can't figure out how long a work day should be for different jobs.
I do pretty grueling manual labor at night. The shift is 8, I think about 4 hours is reasonable (under 55), we do about 5. We have to carefully hide the other 3 hours. The shift starts with 20-40 min of planning and organizing which is maybe 4 minutes of work, we glue 10 min in front and behind the lunch break, we rest out of sight, we "finish" early.
I often joke that a marathon is only 2 hours if you run really slowly. The culture is to expect us to do 5 marathons in 8 hours, every day! uhh.. i mean every night! Which is every bit as hilarious as it sounds.
I calculate for the MBA types that if they cut the shifts in half and raise the pay by 50% people will be well over 25% more productive. Sleeping at night is not overrated. Both the pay raise and the reduced work day are of course culturally unthinkable. Their eyes just glaze over. I further joke that they don't have to understand. They can just join us and run these 25 marathons for a week. Only one week?
When coding I prefer either ONE hour/day or 14 days straight 14 to 18 hours/day. That way everything fits in my head and I feel very productive. The endorphin milestones fly by. It's lovely. After that I don't want to see any code for two months. I don't want to even try to explain this to any employer. I probably wouldn't even want to understand it if I was hiring.
Philip limited mine workers work days to seven hours! That was 430 years ago.
I consider thinky time to still be on-the-clock, but I don't think that's what the parent had in mind at all when they said "get away with doing part time hours" and "just do less."
