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Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

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Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#171

Post by elevaet »

dsr_ wrote: post #141

Can we agree that different people have different optimal working styles? Some people get everything done first thing in the morning and are useless in the afternoons. Some people can't get started until noon whatever their local time is. Some people can commit to 10 or 12 hour days, and if so, it's not fair to ask them to work 5 days a week at that rate. Some people work best in private offices, some at separated wo…

To further complicate matters, different fields of work have different optimal working styles/cycles as well.

I did some very physical seasonal work for about a decade where most of us would work about 3 months of the year, very intensely. After years of experimentation, the boss of the finest company in this industry figured out that a 3 day on, 1 day off cycle worked best for productivity and morale. This cycle gave everyone a chance to rest and recover from the athletic level of physical labour.

It was really interesting to step out of a 7 day week and into this 4 day cycle every year.

Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#172

Post by pineconewarrior »

iso1631 wrote: post #151
toqy wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you doing for the first 5 hours? I typically find that if I'm actually working and not in too many meetings I'm basically checked out after 5 straight hours if I haven't wandered off already.

Generally firefighting, dealing with emails and various minor requests that all take less than half an hour but involve a lot of task switching.

I do a lot of this too. The worst is when the company I work for tries to prevent this from happening. I seem to -need- that time to "gear up" as you say. I also find it very rewarding to help my colleagues with these types of quick issues, as it often prevents issues from ballooning, encourages collaboration and builds trust.

When they force me into "developer timeout" and effectively isolate me, I just sit there struggling for the first half of the day anyway.

Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#173

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

Here's an idea: "roller coaster week"

  Monday: 4 hours
  Tuesday: 6 hours
  Wednesday: 10 hours
  Thursday: 6 hours
  Friday: 4 hours
  
  total: 30 hours
How it works:

- Monday: The second half of your day is work. Your morning is open to sleep in, get chores done, run errands, eat brunch with friends. Second half of the day should be meetings to plan the work for the week, and catch up from the previous week.

- Tuesday: Very few meetings, planning and gathering items to work on for Wednesday.

- Wednesday: Heads-down work, no meetings allowed, period. Turn off all communcation; this is "productivity day". You've had 2 days to get your "mise en place", and now you have 10 hours uninterrupted to churn away.

- Thursday: Shorter day than wednesday, wrapping up what you didn't finish.

- Friday: The first half of the day is work. Meetings to recap the week, complete any last minute details, documentation. Second half of the day enables you to get more errands done or get an early start to your weekend.

The time you save allows you to rest your brain, ruminate, get more sleep, exercise, pursue a hobby. This rest time recharges your brain to enable it to do more work when you are working. The roller-coaster nature makes you think the week is pretty easy most of the time, but you know you've prepared for the hard part and can tackle it in one go. Because of the forced planning and dedicated work time, you'll be more productive than if you only got drips and drabs of interrupted work done for 5 days.

Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#174

Post by bluefirebrand »

joadha wrote: post #166
dsr_ wrote: post #141

Can we agree that different people have different optimal working styles? Some people get everything done first thing in the morning and are useless in the afternoons. Some people can't get started until noon whatever their local time is. Some people can commit to 10 or 12 hour days, and if so, it's not fair to ask them to work 5 days a week at that rate. Some people work best in private offices, some at separated wo…

How do you maximize opportunities for collaboration?

Maybe I trust people too much, but I feel people will find and make their own opportunities to collaborate if they feel like collaboration is required to complete their tasks.

If you're maximizing "opportunities to collaborate" you're probably taking their attention from their work unnecessarily.

Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#175

Post by FabHK »

orangepurple wrote: post #7

Meanwhile in China... Excerpts below taken from the website https://996.icu/#/en_US What is "996"? 996 working, ICU waiting. A "996" work schedule refers to an unofficial work schedule (9a.m. ~ 9p.m., 6 days a week) that has been gaining in popularity. Serving a company that encourages the "996" work schedule usually means working for at least 60 hours a week. In early September 2016, it was said that 58.com (58同城, a…

One of my all-time-favourite Onion stories, which is so stinging because of its kernel of truth:

Chinese Employers To Grant 15-Minute Maternity Break

https://www.theonion.com/chinese-employers-to-grant-15-minut...

Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#178

Post by CWuestefeld »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #49

I disagree. I have 6-7 hour workdays. That's nice but no nearly as nice as another free day. I still feel like I have no time for my own life/projects. I still feel exhausted after working even 6-7-hours (because I'm not a morning person naturally yet have to go work in the morning) and the evening time (nor even an evening nap) never actually feels nice if I worked that day. I go out on Saturday, sleep until evening…

My wife and I just started slowing down to ramp into retirement, so we're both working 4-day weeks.

We had the idea to stagger the days, alternating between Fridays and Mondays off. That works out so that weekends alternate between 2 days and 4 days. And a 4-day weekend is enough that you can really do something - an actual trip or something. Having that every other week is really nice.

Re: Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

#179

Post by teekert »

elevaet wrote: post #171
dsr_ wrote: post #141

Can we agree that different people have different optimal working styles? Some people get everything done first thing in the morning and are useless in the afternoons. Some people can't get started until noon whatever their local time is. Some people can commit to 10 or 12 hour days, and if so, it's not fair to ask them to work 5 days a week at that rate. Some people work best in private offices, some at separated wo…

To further complicate matters, different fields of work have different optimal working styles/cycles as well. I did some very physical seasonal work for about a decade where most of us would work about 3 months of the year, very intensely. After years of experimentation, the boss of the finest company in this industry figured out that a 3 day on, 1 day off cycle worked best for productivity and morale. This cycle gav…

This also depends on age, i.e., it sounds like I'd need 1 day on, 2 days off for this type of work ;)
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