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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?

#71

Post by codewithcheese »

dstick wrote: post #41
Terr_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my own experience, burnout is primarily emotional . Time spent is a side-effect. It's not how many hours you work, it's how much of your experience involves despair, frustration, and resentment. That might either be towards your employer ("stupid schedules, I'm not valued"), towards yourself ("this should be easy but I'm failing"), or towards the universe for simply not being the way it "should" be.

Amen. Working on my own products has never caused any kind of fatigue. It’s energizing :)

I find there is inevitably still tough days working for yourself on a project that takes more than a month. Overworking can lead to losing sight of your goals which can lead to burn out.

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

#72

Post by peterkelly »

murukesh_s wrote: post #53
peterkelly wrote: post #37

If I'm in the flow, I just keep going. My only hard-and-fast rule is that I'll stop if it gets to about 4am, because I find it very difficult to get to sleep if there's sunlight outside. I haven't always been this disciplined and sometimes used to go right through until I dropped from exhaustion, but discovered that was unhealthy. Having said that, I almost never get started before midday, and often it's only in the…

> and others where I really just can't get into the zone to do much of anything at all Have you checked your sleep pattern when this happens? I have noticed if I did not get enough sleep (Because I was in a flow or anything else), it will catch up with me the next day. Can't concentrate no matter what until I get some rest again.

Oh yeah, definitely. If I don't get enough sleep, the next day is completely fucked. I'd say a good night's sleep is the single most important factor in ensuring I'm productive. It's something I struggle a lot to get right, especially when I'm on a roll in a late night coding binge but know I'm going to pay for it the next day.

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

#74

Post by mirko22 »

I know this is not bery popular point of view on HN but:

Burn out? You are in your mid 20ies, if you can’t put in long hours and hard work now you won’t be able to do it later in life trust me.

It really comes down to how industrious and conscientious you are rather then how smart and happy you are.

If you’re a hard worker and know your job well you will make it on any job, even the ones with shitty management. If the managers are unbearable leave - you are lucky to be in the industry where if you’re any good you can land a job in a day. Most people don’t have this luxury, work very long hours in completely shitty jobs (think cleaning toilets) and never burn out and lead happy life.

It’s basically down to your personality and what you value in life, nobody else but you can really tell you what’s best for you.

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

#75

Post by Insanity »

dnautics wrote: post #23
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.

In my case, it was due to crunch time shortly before release, and then after the project was released falling into a void of not knowing how to fill my time.

Which caused stress and eventually a burnout that I am only just slowly getting out of, after about 5 months.

I suppose it is different for each person though.

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

#76

Post by yurishimo »

emp_ wrote: post #38
peterkelly wrote: post #37

If I'm in the flow, I just keep going. My only hard-and-fast rule is that I'll stop if it gets to about 4am, because I find it very difficult to get to sleep if there's sunlight outside. I haven't always been this disciplined and sometimes used to go right through until I dropped from exhaustion, but discovered that was unhealthy. Having said that, I almost never get started before midday, and often it's only in the…

Amazing how I wrote this post without typing anything in it, I bill by estimate so if something is estimated 40 hours and I do it in 2, I can get more work or just chill, I usually book my time around 200 "hours" a week and some good weeks I work 18 real hours and the bad ones around 70, pays extremely well but has very little margin for error so the bad weeks have to be rare. I had 18 straight months of good weeks a…

How do you handle deployments on those "40" hour projects? I understand that you provide that much value, but it the client thinks they are paying for hours, even if not directly, seeing a contractor push code in 2 hours and then bill me for 40 has to hurt a bit.

Obviously if your estimate is devoid of any hourly numbers, this conversation is moot.

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

#77

Post by Spooky23 »

Start at 8:30, end at 8:45. If you’re end of day meeting load or other demands make you stay late, come in later.

The challenge is to get your stuff done in that time period. IMO, if you’re working more than you are paid to work, you’re a sucker. Direct your passion elsewhere.

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

#78

Post by codingdave »

Most employers who are mature enough to support remote work are also mature enough to understand that you are paid for the value you deliver, not the hours you spend starting at a screen. I made my decisions accordingly when working remotely. I would spend the bulk of normal working hours on work... but if I had to think out a problem, I'd go for a walk or clean the house while thinking. I'd also lay out some goals for the days that felt reasonable, and if I got them done by lunch, I might relax in the afternoon... but if I was still working on them at dinner, I'd keep working til they were done. I also worked harder on the days when I was in the zone, and didn't waste my time forcing it on others days. Over time it all balances - even though no single day matched expectations from an office job, I delivered results.

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

#79

Post by tluyben2 »

When my concentration drifts too far. I can have breaks in concentration but when I really start to think about completely different things I call it a day. That is when doing dev work; for sales/investor/board meetings, it is just when they finish, which is usually when food and/or drink appears on the table and people start talking sports.

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

#80

Post by chrisweekly »

jypepin wrote: post #51
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 don't agree with that, because the number of hours you work are pretty irrelevant when not in a butts-in-seats setup. Also, burnout is not really directly related to the number of hours you work. Work should be focused on productivity, not hours spent. Employers, clients and managers have expectations of a quantity of work being accomplished for a specific budget, and it doesn't matter to them if its done in 2hrs o…

>"Employers, clients and managers have expectations of a quantity of work being accomplished for a specific budget, and it doesn't matter to them if its done in 2hrs or 200hrs."

You're assuming every project is fixed-scope, fixed-cost and variable-time. In my experience that matches a small minority of projects.

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