Is full-time work bad for our brains? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#161

Post by Moshe_Silnorin » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #160

reedlaw wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot more extracurricular activity and exercise than average Chinese students get. And forget about computer games. Many students are not allowed to use a cellphone on weekdays. Once they go off to college, however, they experience the first taste of freedom and some become addicted to computer games as attested by the abundance of internet cafes near college campuses.

Yes, exercise was a means to an end. College adcoms want well-rounded students, not narrowly-focused math drones. Applying to top colleges with good academic AND athletic credentials is very important. I did not have a cellphone in high school. iPhone 1 was released during my senior year. A few of my classmates who were much more well-off than I was had Razr phones, LG keyboard phones, and the like -- all paid for by…

>College adcoms want well-rounded students, not narrowly-focused math drones.

I find this incredibly misguided.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#162

Post by justacat » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:08 PM UTC

sp527 wrote: post #85

I worked three years full time and now on a startup. I've come to realize that most of the performance improvement for me with the latter is attributable to a difference in sleep duration and quality. I'm someone who needs variability (+/- 2-3 hrs) in when I go to sleep and little to none in total duration. This is especially important when you're exercising consistently (and doubly so for HIIT). Work life normally d…

Kind of off-topic, but what has your experience with HIIT and sleep been? I am just starting, and being somewhat obsessive about sleep would be interested to hear your experience.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#163

Post by biot » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:16 PM UTC

quantumhobbit wrote: post #5

Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

What would you change? If you were a manager, would you expect people to put in only 2 hours of actual work per day, regardless of when their butt is in the seat?

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#164

Post by beachstartup » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #159

jwatte wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to sell and leave. And if that is really the equity structure, make sure you re-negotiate that with the board before talking about leaving, as part of being a C officer.

Can't sell except for the aforementioned £60. Not £60k, £60 - the nominal value of the shares. The only way I can leave and keep my equity is if I die. If I attempt to have that conversation in a board meeting they'll know what's up and will probably fire me - in which case no severance, not even the £60. There's a third party hnw investor who came in a few years ago who's gone from arms length to "where the fuck are…

oh, don't worry. you won't have to make any tough decisions. if you don't have vested equity that you keep when you leave, they're just going to fire you as soon as some real money shows up.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#165

Post by DaniFong » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

This is a paper on the work that the article cited: https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s...

There is a critical mathematical mistake with their use of statistical analysis which basically, as an artifact, bakes in this "conclusion" into the "results".

It comes about because they manually add "Working hours-squared/100" into the factor analysis, and then, low and behold, there is a parabola correlated with the data. It's a downward facing one, because an upward facing one, or no correlation will not match as well. But the model is not reality.

There are numerous other conceptual problems with the study, like "what is work?" and a lack of real data on the nature of work beyond what is correlated with socioeconomic indicators, like University education, however, it is remarkable that even at the level of statistic analysis, the work is critically flawed.

I am also disappointed that nobody else on hacker news seems to have pointed this out.

Hopefully, this can serve as yet another example, of how to interpret and understand data the new, be it hacker news or otherwise, presents us with. Statistical data analysis is both hard, and often times misleading.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#166

Post by maxxxxx » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:27 PM UTC

ktRolster wrote: post #96

BjoernKW wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today. It's almost as if everybody wakes up, reads Dilbert every morning thinking "Wow, that PHB guy certainly is a role model to aspire to." It's not as if these patterns can't be changed: The required technology has been available for more than a decade now. There are tried and tested approaches for organizing…

As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today. Because managers up a level have no other way of knowing if you're being productive or not. So they look and see if people are ferociously typing. This is not a joke.

that's why I am sometimes envious of sales guys or traders. Their work is easily measurable.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#167

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:40 PM UTC

beachstartup wrote: post #164

madaxe_again wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't sell except for the aforementioned £60. Not £60k, £60 - the nominal value of the shares. The only way I can leave and keep my equity is if I die. If I attempt to have that conversation in a board meeting they'll know what's up and will probably fire me - in which case no severance, not even the £60. There's a third party hnw investor who came in a few years ago who's gone from arms length to "where the fuck are…

oh, don't worry. you won't have to make any tough decisions. if you don't have vested equity that you keep when you leave, they're just going to fire you as soon as some real money shows up.

[deleted]

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#168

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

Ductapemaster wrote: post #147

madaxe_again wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our case it's more like newtonian mechanics - for every force there is an equal and opposing force. I've always pushed for growth, for hiring, for bigger clients, for new avenues, for risk - and he has always challenged and pushed for the status quo, and to not spend, not invest, not grow, make sure every month is profitable. When we were small, my view was dominant, as I worked within and with the team, and we di…

Thanks for sharing your story and your experience so others can learn from it. Please don't stop commenting!

[deleted]

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#169

Post by cmdrfred » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 10:56 PM UTC

superuser2 wrote: post #55

jrcii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder what percentage of corporate America's time is spent looking busy or alt-tabbing between a spreadsheet and solitaire when the boss walks by. If you could quantify it I bet the amount of waste is staggering.

Except employers can't capture the value of eliminating that waste, because people who can actually do 40 hours of head-down intellectual work in a 40-hour workday are unicorns. It's employees who get screwed by this - if their managers are too concerned about waste, they can't do anything like read a book or go for a walk, so they're on Facebook and Reddit, which are much less effective as breaks from focused work.

The "10X" developer might just be a reasonably competent guy who can focus for 8 hours straight.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#170

Post by deagle50 » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

stevenwiles wrote: post #155

deagle50 wrote: post #83

This is why I work from home. I can work in sprints and take breaks to make food, exercise, run errands and play video games. You will have to drag me back to an office 9-5 at gunpoint.

What is the easiest way to transition to 100% work from home?

I had to transition to consulting which meant my productivity was now measured by billable hours and project deadlines vs "butt in chair". It took me over a year to find this type of job. Since then I moved into pre-sales which gives me even more flexibility.