It actually does not matter what work looks like the important part are the results. I think that's generaly one of the worst problem at job. People being "busy" without any results and people that seems to calmly delivere. Usually management favors the first kind as it feels like no struggle no work is being done.
What “work” looks like
101–110 of 236 posts
Re: What “work” looks like
#102I've had more ideas come to me after hiding in my office to take a nap than sitting at my desk. It got to be such a gold mine of solutions that I still to this day allocate 30 minutes of my day to a nap. Non-negotiable. So many hard problems that have been brought to me, or complicated needs for architecture, etc were solved by simply turning my active brain off. When I was in graduate school I'd regularly get stuck…
Churchill also saw the value of the nap: “Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces… Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to acc…
More to the point, there is evidence that a 10-20 minute nap at the middle of the day, such that you don't go into deep sleep, improves cognitive function and subjective alertness.
Re: What “work” looks like
#103“reduced creativity due to the tendency to incrementally modify known successful designs rather than explore radically different and potentially superior ones.”
This rings _so true_ to me. You go into a meeting, one person says some idea. You spend three quarters of the meeting discussing that idea, discovering its pitfalls and warts, and then you come up with answers to those.
And then that's it.
Nobody likes the written word, write up a proposal discussing a bunch of options for the problem at hand, let me read it, and _then_ let's all go into a meeting together.
But most times when I write out a few paragraphs on any medium people skim it or ignore it, and then ask questions that were already covered, or don't read it at all and need to be brought up to speed during the meeting wasting everyone's time whose already spent a few minutes alone with some ideas first.
It's just... so ineffective, and yet _so hard to change_.
Re: What “work” looks like
#104For the past 3 years I’ve worked in an almost 100% pair programming environment. It works wonders for a lot of problems, especially around “code ownership”. It’s much harder to get precious with your code, or point fingers at someone else’s code, when the responsibility for every line is shared by at least two people. But I found that the pressure of pairing shuts down a lot of thought. Long silences are forbidden in…
I've read a sentence somewhere that comes to mind: "You need the possibility of silence to say something unheard-of."
Re: What “work” looks like
#105Back when I started as a freelancer, I initially copied the 9-to-5 rhythm of „working“. That, despite having viewed this forced window of work as one of the biggest annoyances that come with a job. Over time, I could overcome this „weird“ feeling of not sitting at my desk while working. It went quite a bit like the author describes: - Load up on context and information. - Start outlining the problem. - When stuck, tr…
> that’s a huge, separate discussion.
I don't think so. It's basically just the tragedy of the commons. Most workers are responsible and a 20-30 minute nap/walk break would make them more productive. 20% will abuse it endlessly.
Re: What “work” looks like
#106I strongly agree: "The mantra of sharing your work and involving everyone in decisions naturally leads to inviting and copying people into things that add no value to them, or you." Fred Brooks, in his book The Design Of Design, includes a section on "The Magic Power of Teams Of Two". In his opinion, large teams cannot get anything done, and most innovation comes from individuals, but Brooks feels that teams of two p…
It often feels like “teams” of 1.5 work really well. Basically this is one person doing the work, with one other person who is very much in the loop but not actually on the hook. The worker is getting the job done, and the consultant is offering ideas, questioning some decisions, reviewing WIP, and generally supporting the worker. Having been on both sides of this, I think that the little bit of distance that the con…
I think you're onto something - I have a friend with whom I collaborate a lot where it feels like that. We're always working on our own thing, rarely on a truly shared project, so we're basically two "1.5 sized" teams. It's amazing
Re: What “work” looks like
#107Software development can be viewed as creative work. Bad things happen when creative workers and assembly line managers clash.
But, sure, there’s a lot of boilerplate and routine work to be done - that’s the low-effort stuff.
Re: What “work” looks like
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
The three fundamental ideas of my PhD came to while: 1.) Sitting in a park sketching solutions on a notebook. 2.) Laying at the beach on vacation. 3.) Playing Legos with my daughter. Without these ideas, I doubt there would've even been a PhD, or even a paper publication. (There was a period of 2 years in my life where I did not have any significant ideas, at all. During that time, I was employed at a company which o…
I know the castration of ideas in the "Everything-is-an-Emergency" company culture. If you're not careful, it will condition you to delay work because the next "emergency" and shift in priority is imminent.
This is also happening in government, IMO.
Govts get caught up in the latest emergency in the social/media and completely forget about innovation and long term planning. It's particularly acute in the UK at the moment.
Re: What “work” looks like
#109Back when I started as a freelancer, I initially copied the 9-to-5 rhythm of „working“. That, despite having viewed this forced window of work as one of the biggest annoyances that come with a job. Over time, I could overcome this „weird“ feeling of not sitting at my desk while working. It went quite a bit like the author describes: - Load up on context and information. - Start outlining the problem. - When stuck, tr…
> However, while employed, have you tried to go out for an extended walk or do something else away from your computer, outside of the building you are required to work in? I'm 2 decades into my career amongst multiple different employers in different industries (including traditional stuffy ones), and I've never had anyone even raise an eyebrow at people wandering off for a few hours unannounced if you're billing the…
The company I worked for complained I was away for two hours during lunch. That's including, you know, driving somewhere to sit in a restaurant and wait for food. I quit after a month.
Re: What “work” looks like
#110I've had more ideas come to me after hiding in my office to take a nap than sitting at my desk. It got to be such a gold mine of solutions that I still to this day allocate 30 minutes of my day to a nap. Non-negotiable. So many hard problems that have been brought to me, or complicated needs for architecture, etc were solved by simply turning my active brain off. When I was in graduate school I'd regularly get stuck…
Churchill also saw the value of the nap: “Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces… Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to acc…
If I was drinking whiskey for breakfast I'd probably need to take a nap in the afternoon as well.