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Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

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Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#21

Post by lazerwalker »

DougN7 wrote: post #14
aetherson wrote: post #11

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual data. Some kind of scientific study, anything. I don't say this because I'm a proponent of work-at-any-cost culture -- I'm not. I work about 45 hours a week, no weekends or nights outside of rare emergencies. That's certainly good for my mood and my relationship with my family and so forth. But I see all these articles in which they suggest that after 40 hours a week, your productivi…

Completely agree. And the fact that the breaking point is a nice round 40, which just happens to correspond with our culture's 5-day work week and typical 8 hour day is a little too convenient to believe.

The apocryphal story I've heard is that the 5-day / 8-hour workweek came from Henry Ford doing rigorous research on productivity in his factories (and that 40 hours/week was less than the norm at the time).

I'd believe that's true, but I'd also believe there's reason to suggest that what holds for factory workers doesn't hold for information economy workers. (Although anecdotally, I find that I'm WAY more productive when working closer to 6-hour work days than 8-hour days.)

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#22

Post by Pfhreak »

overcast wrote: post #9

I certainly do not work on my off hours for the company I work for. However I WILL work on my own projects on off hours for my own personal ventures/amusement. Often times, this is how I learn most of my new technologies.

These aren't, in my view, necessarily orthogonal. I recently had a big, ambiguous project on my plate where I had to learn some new technologies. I had a good time making toy prototypes of the system I would eventually end up building.

It was my off hours, it furthered my work, and it was fun and fulfilling for me. The best is when your work gives you ambiguous problems that feel like side projects you'd normally want to do anyways.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#23

Post by dahart »

mi100hael wrote: post #2

How many people out there really keep working on the weekends voluntarily as the author seems to suggest? I'm pretty clear with my coworkers/boss that the only time I'm going to work after-hours or weekends is in case of rare, extreme emergency. There's no expectation that I work weekends, so I'm definitely not going to do it voluntarily. I like programming and like learning new things so I often do work on a side-pr…

I don't know how many other people do, but I do, since I'm in a startup and I'm my boss. I'm worried that I might get fired any day now by myself for not working hard enough. ;)

Seriously though, it's harder to avoid in startups, and this forum is more or less dedicated to startups, so I'd expect quiet a few people here do land in this boat. I'd also guess side projects that involve programming probably count as work, as far as what the author intended, and everyone here has side projects going.

Keep in mind that there are plenty of managers that subconsciously reward extra time, and plenty of workers that will put in a little extra to get ahead. It's not fair or good for work/life balance, but it happens. Drawing your own hard line is a good thing, and nobody should be expected to put in unpaid time, but sadly it doesn't work the same for everyone everywhere, and being too vocal about extra work can have unintended consequences.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#24

Post by barrkel »

aetherson wrote: post #11

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual data. Some kind of scientific study, anything. I don't say this because I'm a proponent of work-at-any-cost culture -- I'm not. I work about 45 hours a week, no weekends or nights outside of rare emergencies. That's certainly good for my mood and my relationship with my family and so forth. But I see all these articles in which they suggest that after 40 hours a week, your productivi…

The article actually talks about using that time to work on things other than what your day job is about.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#25

Post by muzster »

dpark wrote: post #15
aetherson wrote: post #11

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual data. Some kind of scientific study, anything. I don't say this because I'm a proponent of work-at-any-cost culture -- I'm not. I work about 45 hours a week, no weekends or nights outside of rare emergencies. That's certainly good for my mood and my relationship with my family and so forth. But I see all these articles in which they suggest that after 40 hours a week, your productivi…

It's anecdotally untrue. The most successful people I know work a lot of hours. I don't advocate it because I don't think it's healthy on a personal level but it's certainly an effective strategy to gain an advantage in the workplace and generally just get more stuff done.

>> The most successful people I know work a lot of hours.

That's also anecdotally untrue.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#27

Post by orangutango »

creatine_lizard wrote: post #18
DougN7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. And the fact that the breaking point is a nice round 40, which just happens to correspond with our culture's 5-day work week and typical 8 hour day is a little too convenient to believe.

The standard argument is that it is the other way around -- we've settled on a 8x5 scheme _because_ our breaking point is around 40 hours. However, like others in this thread, I'm not sure I agree.

Whose standard argument?

I always thought: we work 40 hours a week because we work 8 hours a day; and we work 8 hours a day because Robert Owen's mantra "Eight hours' labour, Eight hours' recreation, Eight hours' rest" caught on.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#28

Post by [deleted] »

sotojuan wrote: post #5
liquidise wrote: post #3

> You need a hammock to solve hard problems Tangentially related to this point (less so the section itself) is the benefit of a comfortable working environment. Personally, i have found that a curved chaise is the absolute peak of laptop coding comfort, especially for late night sessions. If you have space and are in the market for some new furniture, i would urge people to give them a try.

I don't even want a hammock or chair—just a quiet room would be a good start.

[deleted]

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#29

Post by dahart »

aetherson wrote: post #11

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual data. Some kind of scientific study, anything. I don't say this because I'm a proponent of work-at-any-cost culture -- I'm not. I work about 45 hours a week, no weekends or nights outside of rare emergencies. That's certainly good for my mood and my relationship with my family and so forth. But I see all these articles in which they suggest that after 40 hours a week, your productivi…

Here's some data & has a bunch of references to more data. http://lunar.lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf

The claim is not that 40 is some kind of hard threshold, and if you work any more than that you'll be instantly less productive. The claim is that a steady-state of, say, 60 hours per week is less productive long term. It's actually more productive for a little while, like a month, but then people get tired and less productive than rested 40-hour workers after that.

I have experience doing long periods of 80 hour weeks, when I was working in game development. I think it's hard to say definitively that productivity goes negative, that's not what it felt like when we were crunching. OTOH, I did watch as tired crews would make bad decisions during crunch that ended up costing time in the long run, and I can definitely say that 80 hour weeks are not twice as productive as 40 hour weeks.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#30

Post by ThrustVectoring »

aetherson wrote: post #11

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual data. Some kind of scientific study, anything. I don't say this because I'm a proponent of work-at-any-cost culture -- I'm not. I work about 45 hours a week, no weekends or nights outside of rare emergencies. That's certainly good for my mood and my relationship with my family and so forth. But I see all these articles in which they suggest that after 40 hours a week, your productivi…

It's comments like this that really make me sad about the state of labor solidarity among tech professionals. Like, please, stop torpedoing our negotiation position, especially on a public forum that many technical employers and managers read.

On the object level, I have a suspicion that being productive past 40 hr/wk or so has reverse causation for me. It's bad for me to work over 40 hours a week, so that magically translates into being bad at it. Social negotiation is one of those things that your non-verbal and emotional parts is really good at, and Thomas Schelling style "don't have the ability to do things you don't want others to pressure you into doing" strategies work.

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