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Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

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Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#51

Post by [deleted] »

austenallred wrote: post #38
decasia wrote: post #17

Arguably, time spent reading HN is a legitimate part of becoming/remaining a good developer. Certainly, spending time socializing with coworkers is a required part of work, many places. Spending some amount of time unwinding at the office is arguably required for mental health and therefore a functional component of remaining a worker -- does that count as working? "Working" is an ambiguous category, it seems to me.…

I'll be honest; I don't think using HN is anything close to what I would consider "working." At best it's marginally optimized random browsing.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#52

Post by 1_player »

triangleman wrote: post #46
1_player wrote: post #44

99% of my 5 hour day. Because I discovered I can't usually stay in flow mode for more than 5 hours, so I get in the office around 12pm and leave around 5.30pm

So that's your working time?

Yes. When I sit at the desk I start working and time tracking and I don't slack off till I leave, except maybe to browse some music on Spotify to keep me concentrated.

When I was spending 9 hours/day as an employee, I'd be slacking off a cumulative 2/3 hours every day.

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#53

Post by robind2 »

lazythrowawayd wrote: post #26

I probably spend half my time not working. I'm burnt out though. After a few years at my current position, I just don't care. Why is this? I've had a few promising projects languish because my manager is slow or hesitant to allocate resources. That's a bit demoralizing. When I'm on a path to production for a functioning system I get caught up in the devops meeting vortex. That's a waste of time and it takes several w…

Work for a startup, preferably one that is already somewhat profitable. I have worked for this type company my whole career and this "devops vortex" you speak of is a foreign concept. I run a small IT dept and we have one 30 min staff per week plus a one-on-one for each dev. And they code and solve other problems all day, and of course surf the web or socialize to break up the day too.

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#55

Post by ThrustVectoring »

swah wrote: post #48

60% or more :( But there are SOME DAYS that I work 150%! ("in the flow") So how to achieve flow consistently? One of the few things that works for me is to get started working first thing in the morning: no news, no HN, until 10am, etc. When I can do this, I know I'll have a productive day.

Does this cause a productive mental state, or is it merely a symptom of it? I suspect it's causal (based off what I know of brain chemistry), but I could definitely be wrong on that part. Like, "get assigned bullshit work, can't focus on it because it's bullshit, end up on HN" is definitely also a plausible story to me.

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#56

Post by natoliniak »

iLoch wrote: post #15

I'd like to see where people are from if they're replying to this thread. I wonder how cultural norms affect effectiveness (do Americans work less at work because of the work-oriented culture which requires them to stay at work longer for no reason?)

I work in the USA and i would say I'm about 30-40% productive, maybe less. My productivity is strongly related to the density of meetings throughout the day: My productivity killers are relatively short gaps between meetings (<45m) during which i am completely unable to focus because of the anticipation that i will soon be completely distracted. So if I have three 1hr meetings with 45minutes gaps between them, my daily productivity plummets to nearly 0. Open office plan also doesn't help with staying focused.

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#57

Post by jrs235 »

rl3 wrote: post #47
austenallred wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest; I don't think using HN is anything close to what I would consider "working." At best it's marginally optimized random browsing.

While it isn't work, reading technical articles regularly on HN can be very beneficial. In fact, the first thing I tell aspiring developers is to start reading HN on a regular basis if they already aren't. It confers a sort of broad awareness of various stacks and ecosystems over time that's hard to obtain otherwise.

Depending on what articles one is reading, this activity could fall within "sharpening the ax" (which is also beneficial for the company).

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#58

Post by ThrustVectoring »

1_player wrote: post #42
9erdelta wrote: post #9

Some days almost the entire day. I'll read, watch videos, do some tutorials. But its offset because usually when I do this it's because I'm hung up on something and it just isn't going to get solved unless the ole brain has time to do its subconscious thing.

Letting the subconscious work through a hard problem while doing something else is a truly underrated trick. Taking a shower or going for a walk also works wonderfully.

I've solved a bug while eating a cup of yogurt while walking around outside the office. Definitely worthwhile.

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#59

Post by snowpanda »

barsonme wrote: post #31
throw832649 wrote: post #10

Throwaway for maximum honesty: I am pretty sure I spend at least 75% of my time "at work" not working. HN, Reddit, messing around with side projects or learning a new language or framework. This has been the case for my entire working life. I seem to get as much done as other people (sometimes better) so part of me wonders if I'm not as unusual as I feel. Part of me wonders if I should get evaluated for ADHD, since I…

The best way to describe ADHD is: The TV is always on, but you don't get to choose the channel . Some things are easy to focus on—I can sit down to program for a bit and lose track of time for 5 hours. On the other hand, if something is boring, it's mind-numbingly boring . It was the worst while I was in school, since teachers and professors just thought, "oh, he's unmotivated" when in reality it was more along the l…

> "I'd rather cut my toenails with a rusty butter knife than write the paper."

> Okay, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration.

I have ADHD, this is not an exaggeration. I actually really like your example.

It's literally how it feels like.

I remember being in school and doing things like lining up my pencil with the rays of light coming from outside, and then trying to outline the shadow of my pencil with a different pen. I would spend an entire class on that instead of listening to a single word the professor said.

The worst part about it is that part of you knows the professor is sharing interesting stuff, it just that your brain tells you its boring.

Re: Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

#60

Post by ivrrimum »

0%. I work as a upwork freelancer. More precisely by hourly rate and upwork desktop app takes screenshots at random times, so i can't really browse HN and other sites. But I will tell you honestly, i don't want to go back to normal work. I get shit done( there is also that "gambler" feeling, when you see how much money you earn each week ) and in good quality( I get reviews from my clients, so i can't code bad either ).

So yeah, a hour paid is a hour worked.

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