21–29 of 29 posts
A hyper-focus on productivity metrics (like hours spent coding) plus no regular, scheduled breaks seems like a recipe for burnout to me.
The big thing that jumps out at me from these graphs is that, apart from a couple break days (April 1st and April 8th, when they say they took the ferry), these guys seem to be working 7 days a week, not taking weekends off at all. A hyper-focus on productivity metrics (like hours spent coding) plus no regular, scheduled breaks seems like a recipe for burnout to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I missed it as well then realised NoScript was blocking it.
Thank you! It is blocked by uBlock Origin as well. So if you are seeing the article but without any visualizations check your ad blocker. Definitely not a good sign for a startup. Edit: Also, they claim insights about what influences productivity. However the visualizations shown (after you disable adblocking) do not reflect the claimed insights. Edit2: Downvote this all you want. I assume you have a personal stake,…
RescueTime is a very powerful tool if you want to understand better how you spend the time on your computer and smartphone. Unfortunately, they do not offer in-depth analysis of the data. I build my own tool to print customized charts and I would appreciate hearing your opinion on this.. Here is the repo: https://github.com/ilbonte/rescuetime-again and this is an output example: http://i.imgur.com/PptwdMU.png
The big thing that jumps out at me from these graphs is that, apart from a couple break days (April 1st and April 8th, when they say they took the ferry), these guys seem to be working 7 days a week, not taking weekends off at all. A hyper-focus on productivity metrics (like hours spent coding) plus no regular, scheduled breaks seems like a recipe for burnout to me.
This is a really great point. I think it would have been useful to point out that we're currently going through an accelerator (Techstars), so all this data is somewhat atypical. Additionally, I wouldn't say we're "hyper focused" on these metrics. Rather, it's something I check periodically in order to help think about shaping my habits. Does that make sense?
Still, it's something to be aware of. The accelerator's going to do your company little good if you're all so exhausted that you can't work efficiently afterwards.
(Note that I'm not necessarily saying you're going that direction; only you know the answer to that question.)
Years and years ago, I worked as a blackjack dealer. We had 20 minute breaks every hour. It seemed ludicrous to me at first, but the job has essentially two main components - solving a lot of very simple math problems quickly and without errors, and customer service. By keeping all of the dealers fresh, the casino was able to ensure that problems were minimized. Adding cards up to 21 isn't exactly mental gymnastics, but do that at a rate of up to 280 times in an hour and it's actually kind of surprising that more mistakes aren't made.
I've often wondered about how that kind of schedule would play in software development. I find that my own code is better when well rested, but even after all these years I've never been able to force myself to take breaks that frequently.
The side effect of frequent and scheduled breaks was social interaction that was usually work-focused.
You can go so much further with these RescueTime data. I recently created a simple vis showing how day was spent: https://medium.com/@vojto/fixing-rescuetime-charts-458edd86a... tldr: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*_IbFy8gq6Fqmu1ZZX... And also keep in mind that hours spent being distracted isn't the only metric. Another important thing is how often you interrupted your work for something unimportant. For…
RescueTime is a very powerful tool if you want to understand better how you spend the time on your computer and smartphone. Unfortunately, they do not offer in-depth analysis of the data. I build my own tool to print customized charts and I would appreciate hearing your opinion on this.. Here is the repo: https://github.com/ilbonte/rescuetime-again and this is an output example: http://i.imgur.com/PptwdMU.png
Thank you for sharing this! Very useful.
I find the part about taking breaks actually increasing productivity interesting. Years and years ago, I worked as a blackjack dealer. We had 20 minute breaks every hour. It seemed ludicrous to me at first, but the job has essentially two main components - solving a lot of very simple math problems quickly and without errors, and customer service. By keeping all of the dealers fresh, the casino was able to ensure tha…
my best productivity comes from dividing efforts piecemeal and then allotting an hour for each task
the relatable bit is that if the task takes me 15 or 40 or however many minutes to finish the rest of the hour is mine to do with whatever i want
i could go for a walk, make some tea, pick up a book
if the task is unfinished at the end of the hour, i move onto the next task and return to it at the next hour block
even though it creates my most productive circumstances, like you said, i still find i rarely 'force' myself to follow it