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Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

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Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#11

Post by bdcravens »

geographomics wrote: post #10
dkopi wrote: post #8

I'm pretty sure this has worked for the author, and it will work for a lot of other people as well, but a lot the benefits raised can still be achieved when working more than 3 hours a day. A few points are raised in the post: 1. If you only work 3 hours, you're less tempted to go on twitter/facebook/hacker news. True - but that's really a question of discipline, work environment and how excited you are about what yo…

On the topic of work environment: in one job I worked at, we had the Internet machines completely separated from the work machines. If you needed to check something you had to physically walk over to the Internet desk. Great for focussing on the task at hand without distraction, and considering carefully what information you need.

But then how do you copy and paste from Stack Overflow?

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#12

Post by greendesk »

logicallee wrote: post #2

Historically, working 24 hours a day (I include sleep because after a certain number of hours you even dream of code or your business) for 1 year typically accomplishes more than working 3 hours per day for 8 years. Or 1.5 hours per day for 16 years. There is just some kind of economy of scale. --------- EDIT: I got downvoted. Come up with whatever standard of productivity you want (ANY standard that you want) and ad…

I feel that there were times when working 24 hours / day was effective and times when working such long hours was ineffective.

There are two issues that I know of when I worked for long hours: tunnel-vision, communication and burning out.

If one works long hours, one has to evaluate an idea all the way, to check if is correct or not. For me, his hampers evaluating competing ideas effectively. This might not be the case for everyone.

Working as a team requires feedback from other team members. If you get stuck or need feedback/communication with someone else, you can enter a feedback loop such that the additional time that you spent on it does not bring additional value. These type of loops are possible even if working less hours per day, so it can be a good idea for additional research.

And burning-out: there is only so many hours in a day. A worker can have interest outside the technical question at hand: if they have priorities outside of work, would you require that they forego their priorities for work?

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#13

Post by dkopi »

geographomics wrote: post #10
dkopi wrote: post #8

I'm pretty sure this has worked for the author, and it will work for a lot of other people as well, but a lot the benefits raised can still be achieved when working more than 3 hours a day. A few points are raised in the post: 1. If you only work 3 hours, you're less tempted to go on twitter/facebook/hacker news. True - but that's really a question of discipline, work environment and how excited you are about what yo…

On the topic of work environment: in one job I worked at, we had the Internet machines completely separated from the work machines. If you needed to check something you had to physically walk over to the Internet desk. Great for focussing on the task at hand without distraction, and considering carefully what information you need.

"Air gapping". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking)

It's common practice in classified environments, as a necessary security precaution. But it's a true productivity killer imho. Better to just install an extension that blocks twitter/facebook etc, than completely cripple your ability to search for technical information as you need it.

Also - good luck installing tools and plugins when you have to start copying things from the internet computer to the classified computer.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#14

Post by andretti1977 »

I agree with the author with some exceptions: when you are working as a contractor or freelancer for someone else's project maybe 3h/day is not acceptable. When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient.

But i agree that working less than 8h/day could be really more productive. I also liked the "less stuck for coding" topic as "...it is sometimes hard to go bed without solving some unknown issues, and you don’t want to stop coding in the middle of it..." so maybe forcing themselves to stop could be a solution.

Anyway, i would really like to work 4 or 5 hours a day but keeping holidays and weekends free from work and i think this can only be achieved if you can pay your living with products of your own such as your apps and not by freelancing (i am a freelance and i know it!).

But i enjoyed the idea behind the article and i will try to achieve it one day.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#15

Post by sleepychu »

rmsaksida wrote: post #9

I mostly agree with the author, but I don't see the point of stopping yourself when you're "in the zone". Why lose the flexibility? What works for me is having a baseline of 3 or 4 hours of daily work, and not imposing any hard limits when I want or need to do extra hours. This works out great, because I have no excuses not to do the boring routine work as it's just a few hours, but I also have the liberty of doing o…

The author thinks in the long run the 10h sessions hurt you. They acknowledge specifically that got a week long exercise more work will produce more results but that they feel their average productivity is much higher over months or years by never getting bogged down even when they're making progress.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#16

Post by wolfgke »

andretti1977 wrote: post #14

I agree with the author with some exceptions: when you are working as a contractor or freelancer for someone else's project maybe 3h/day is not acceptable. When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient. But i agree that working less than 8h/day could be really more productive. I also liked the "less stuck for coding" topic as "...it is sometimes hard to go bed without solving some unknown…

> When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient.

Lots of deadlines companies and thus their employees face are externally imposed (often from their customer(s)).

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#17

Post by sleepychu »

bdcravens wrote: post #11
geographomics wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the topic of work environment: in one job I worked at, we had the Internet machines completely separated from the work machines. If you needed to check something you had to physically walk over to the Internet desk. Great for focussing on the task at hand without distraction, and considering carefully what information you need.

But then how do you copy and paste from Stack Overflow?

On a serious note, this is a terrible habbit. SO code is questionably licenced.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#19

Post by dkopi »

sleepychu wrote: post #17
bdcravens wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then how do you copy and paste from Stack Overflow?

On a serious note, this is a terrible habbit. SO code is questionably licenced.

Any questions about the license not answered by this? http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/271080/the-mit-licen...

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#20

Post by IkmoIkmo »

logicallee wrote: post #2

Historically, working 24 hours a day (I include sleep because after a certain number of hours you even dream of code or your business) for 1 year typically accomplishes more than working 3 hours per day for 8 years. Or 1.5 hours per day for 16 years. There is just some kind of economy of scale. --------- EDIT: I got downvoted. Come up with whatever standard of productivity you want (ANY standard that you want) and ad…

Says who? I've not found this to be historically so at all in my own perception. Feel free to share some data.
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