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Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?

#21

Post by TallGuyShort »

I'm remote and have been prone to workaholism in the past. Here are my techniques:

- I do track my progress on key long term objectives. If I'm getting behind I need to know, and burn the candle at both ends until I catch up. This should be rare.

- I try to set a daily goal or two of stuff to get done to make sure I stay focused on something productive and don't get distracted with yak-shaving or non-work.

- I stop hourly-ish and assess what I've achieved in the last hour. Sometimes I'm just not getting anything done and I'm better off calling it a day to get some real rest and diversion.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?

#22

Post by thrower123 »

userbinator wrote: post #14

When the end of the day approaches, start finishing up whatever you were working on, and mentally prepare for what you'll be doing the next day. Then forget everything until tomorrow morning. There's a huge amount of variability between developers, so don't think that the "workaholics" doing 50+ hour weeks are necessarily being more productive than you; unless you actually compare, they could really be struggling and…

> When the end of the day approaches, start finishing up whatever you were working on, and mentally prepare for what you'll be doing the next day. Then forget everything until tomorrow morning.

Be prepared to either let go of whatever plans you have made, or to stash them in actionable form in longer-term storage for a rainy day, in the event that you start work the next morning and are thrust into reactive triage mode. It can be immensely frustrating if you are anticipating and have expended mental energy planning tasks A, B and C, and attempt to juggle completing them with surprise Sev 1 priority tasks X, Y and Z.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?

#23

Post by dnautics »

cimmanom wrote: post #7

How strict is your employer about butt-in-seat schedule? If you have full flexibility, I’d suggest aiming to hit 40 hours on a weekly basis rather than 8 on a daily basis. That gives you the flexibility to work, say, 10 hours one day because you’re really on a roll, and to stop at 6 hours the next afternoon when you’re tired and distracted without feeling guilty. Don’t go over 40 hours on a regular basis. That’s a re…

I'm not convinced burnout comes from merely working hard, it comes from when you work hard and expectation of reward is missed.

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?

#27

Post by edoceo »

The night before I make the list of the three MUST-DO items, always three. Once those are done, I can bail whenever and feel good about my work product.

I have a similar expecting from my employees.

These items are the detail, the standing orders still remain (answer phones, do meetings, email, etc)

Re: Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?

#30

Post by exabrial »

You need to plan. Merely having sprints will not make your days shorter!

Think what's your 1 day, 3day, 5 day, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, and 5 year goals for yourself, team, product and company. What unknowns may influence decisions or are strategies? What assumptions need to be confirmed? How often are we checking ourselves on our progress? When do we get to change our mind?Do these things and how much should you with in a day becomes very clear.

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