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Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

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Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#101

Post by theprotocol »

brixon wrote: post #86
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the attitude that causes anxiety. You are done with the thing you were working on, now go "help" one of your teammates somehow regardless of whether that will actually increase the amount of value the team is delivering. Baseball is a team sport, but that doesn't mean you have two people swinging one bat.

Examples are: The tester is always backed up (1 tester for 4 developers), so a developer can help test a user story they did not write. A developer can take on a user story that was originally assigned to someone else.

This is kind of a Kafkaesque way to destroy the developers' pysches.

I feel like you've misunderstood the critical replies you've received above. You may think you are profiting by trying to allocate every millisecond of the developers' time, but it comes at a great cost that is hard to see upfront, but is very very real.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#102

Post by daliusd »

Expez wrote: post #60

I work 60% now. Instead of having two days off each week I've opted to work 4.5h each day. I can only focus intensely for about 4h each day on coding, so this works out well. It's always been this way for me and to get to 8 hours I'd go through the logs each day (important, but not taxing at all and something better left to an intern most of the time) and attend much more meetings (low intensity but 90% of them were…

I work 80%. Maybe I will lower it to 60% eventually as well :)

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#103

Post by realshowbiz »

commandlinefan wrote: post #99
dustinmoris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software to me is extremely mentally demanding and draining, it requires short burts of extreme concentration, but what is more draining is making up the remaining 4-5 hours looking busy. Well said! I haven't met a single software engineer who hasn't described something similar to me. I'm the same, I like to wake up early, enjoy my first coffee and then I feel the most productive for the first 4 hours of the day. I…

> I feel the most productive for the first 4 hours of the day The same time that the product managers, project managers, portfolio owners, program managers, and stakeholders fill with hour-long "standup" meetings?

Meetings often destroy my productivity for the day.

I’ll be in the flow all morning, but once I have an hour long standup meeting (or similar scattered topic based meeting) I struggle to regain focus for the rest of the day.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#104

Post by mkane848 »

UglyToad wrote: post #21

I'd be interested to know if other software developers feel their current working hours are good/positive? From feedback I've had I'm generally regarded as pretty good at my job and highly productive but my current working hours leave me completely drained, to the point I go home and collapse on the sofa, make dinner and go to bed. And that's off an 8.5 hour day. It's at the point now where it's extremely likely I'll…

Reading this makes me feel less bad, I tend to think I'm making excuses for myself and/or just being lazy. Especially because I also have to do some tech support stuff, side meetings, etc, while trying to work on (at least one) project simultaneously, the actual programming part suffers first.

Some days I just can't get the programming wheels turning, and a lot of the time it's just because I keep getting interrupted or can't focus with noise around me. God forbid I work from home when I have a hard deadline so interruptions are at a minimum...

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#105

Post by wes-k »

UglyToad wrote: post #21

I'd be interested to know if other software developers feel their current working hours are good/positive? From feedback I've had I'm generally regarded as pretty good at my job and highly productive but my current working hours leave me completely drained, to the point I go home and collapse on the sofa, make dinner and go to bed. And that's off an 8.5 hour day. It's at the point now where it's extremely likely I'll…

Before leaving software, give freelancing / contracting a chance!

I’ve managed to get great clients for years+ working 20hrs/week. I’m briefly doing 40hrs/week right now and am definitely finding it draining!

One neat benefit of freelancing is that if you don’t feel like working, don’t! It’s a win win. You don’t work when you feel drained and the company doesn’t pay you for your least productive hours.

Best of luck!

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#106

Post by tadzik_ »

Whygul wrote: post #66
Expez wrote: post #60

I work 60% now. Instead of having two days off each week I've opted to work 4.5h each day. I can only focus intensely for about 4h each day on coding, so this works out well. It's always been this way for me and to get to 8 hours I'd go through the logs each day (important, but not taxing at all and something better left to an intern most of the time) and attend much more meetings (low intensity but 90% of them were…

Where do you work that gives you this option if you don't mind sharing a little more?

Not OP but I have a similar workstyle: I work half-time for one client (remotely), 4 hours a week for another (also remotely) and occasionally take side gigs like teaching or something. The remote work is mostly in Norway, I live in Poland, so the pay cut is not noticable – the fact that "I could be making twice as much if I worked “normally”" is something that always is in the back of my head, but is somewhat dimished by the fact that I still make more than a typical fulltime salary would net me here in Poland.

Being a contractor in a niche technology (in my case it's Perl) is great for this, because the companies involved can't really say "work more or we'll find someone else" – we both know that they won't ;) Also, beyond 4-5 hours a day my (and afaik everyone else's) productivity is diminishing anyway, so it's not like they're losing much because of it.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#107

Post by nostalgk »

scroot wrote: post #87
dustinmoris wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software to me is extremely mentally demanding and draining, it requires short burts of extreme concentration, but what is more draining is making up the remaining 4-5 hours looking busy. Well said! I haven't met a single software engineer who hasn't described something similar to me. I'm the same, I like to wake up early, enjoy my first coffee and then I feel the most productive for the first 4 hours of the day. I…

The future struggle for people in these kinds of jobs is to get the wider culture to admit to itself that the latter 4 hours are unnecessary and even detrimental to workers.

I think it's rougher for people to understand that aren't in this industry, and there are so many jobs that _do_ benefit from this in a numerical way, i.e. more parts per hour, more accounts created, sales made, etc.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#108

Post by scroot »

nostalgk wrote: post #107
scroot wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future struggle for people in these kinds of jobs is to get the wider culture to admit to itself that the latter 4 hours are unnecessary and even detrimental to workers.

I think it's rougher for people to understand that aren't in this industry, and there are so many jobs that _do_ benefit from this in a numerical way, i.e. more parts per hour, more accounts created, sales made, etc.

Can't deny that there are some industries where more hours are better and that beyond the 4-5 hour range they don't suffer from diminishing returns. But I'd point to David Graeber here and just say that there seem to be a lot of people out there making themselves look busy for much of the day, and in the process wasting a lot of their lives and needlessly taxing their own emotional states. And together we've tacitly made a decision that this is all OK and normal.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#109

Post by Expez »

Whygul wrote: post #66
Expez wrote: post #60

I work 60% now. Instead of having two days off each week I've opted to work 4.5h each day. I can only focus intensely for about 4h each day on coding, so this works out well. It's always been this way for me and to get to 8 hours I'd go through the logs each day (important, but not taxing at all and something better left to an intern most of the time) and attend much more meetings (low intensity but 90% of them were…

Where do you work that gives you this option if you don't mind sharing a little more?

In-house product development of a SaaS platform. You can check out it out at ardoq.com.

The company is imo a great place to work, but this is also in Norway where it's pretty common for people (usually older ones, though) to work 80 or 60%. That probably made this a lot more likely to happen.

I'll add that there was some fear that everyone else would want the same arrangement and that we'd suddenly only have devs working part time, but nobody else has expressed any interest in this. Different strokes for different folks...

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#110

Post by wuliwong »

UglyToad wrote: post #21

I'd be interested to know if other software developers feel their current working hours are good/positive? From feedback I've had I'm generally regarded as pretty good at my job and highly productive but my current working hours leave me completely drained, to the point I go home and collapse on the sofa, make dinner and go to bed. And that's off an 8.5 hour day. It's at the point now where it's extremely likely I'll…

My experience has been highly variable. It's just my experience, I'm a pretty weird person and tend to be an outlier. But I do think the observation of the variable effect of different job situations in my life is pretty interesting.

I had a period of time where I worked entirely on my own "startup" for about 12 months. I worked nearly 7 days a week for (what I recall as) a lot of hours but I honestly don't know how many. This work was SO much fun. It was definitely still work but I don't think I've ever had more exhilaration than created and launching the projects I did in that year.

I then worked at a startup where we worked a solid 6 days a week for about 10 hours a day. That really consumed my life and wasn't very rewarding in my opinion. I learned a lot and made some really great connections to silicon valley investor types but the job consumed so much of my life and the startup wasn't successful at all.

The next stage in my life was the time I coded the most. I worked for one of the huge silicon valley software companies and they fostered a good work-life balance for the employees. We generally worked 8 hour days and no weekends ever. Also, the work environment was pleasant. I became good friends with my coworkers. I say that because I think that all contributed to the 8 hours not feeling extremely draining. I had a lot of energy left after work. During those two years I launched two websites in my spare time that were pretty heavy undertakings. I also dabbled in other projects. I worked a lot of nights and weekend on top of the corporate job. I could go several weeks without a single day off.

After that I worked at a startup for 2 years and another quasi-startup for 2 years after that. I really disliked both of those jobs and seemed to have very little drive to work on anything on my own time. I actually started playing and recording a lot more music in those years, even started a podcast. :)

I recently switched jobs to a larger company with an established app and it has a similar feel of the other big-corp job I held. Generally, I work 8 hour days, a little bit of weekend and night work but only around releases and deadlines. I also get along with the people in my office very well, it's fun to be at work.

I consider myself as an "emotional" developer. I kinda say it sarcastically but there is some truth to it. When I feel good about what I'm doing, I can lock in for many hours straight and it doesn't drain me that much.

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