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Is 40 hours a week too much?

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Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#111

Post by kebman »

I think people conflate "being productive" with "work."

The work is simply the contractual agreement between you and your employer. He or it has a notion about how long it's supposed to take, and you do too. And so on your end, you have to be willing to give up a certain amount of freedom in order to stay productive enough for the workplace to want to award you for the time spent in their service, whether that time is productive or not.

On their end, they of course want you to be as productive as possible, but they also know that it's not possible 100% of the time. And so that is the basis for the contract.

Then there are ways around it. Say you can make a hack that'll make you able to complete the job in half that time, or less. Lots of people get paid obscene amounts of money for very little "work" but the value of that work is simply that high, and so that's what they're paid for it.

So instead in thinking in terms of hours or work, I tend to want to think in terms of how much time I need to provide value. And the less time that is, the better - for both parties. They get better value for money, and I get more time to dream up better ways of creating value.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#112

Post by mdkfkfid »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94
mkl95 wrote: post #7

Many companies think their employees are being productive for 40 hours a week, while it's actually somewhere between 10 and 20, with the rest being a big void. If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell.

> with the rest being a big void. There shouldn't be a 20-30 hour "void" in people's work week. If people are meeting, discussing work, building relationships within the company, or otherwise doing things around their work, I still consider that to be productive time. Nobody actually expects programmers to be writing code 40 hours a week. We know this. On the other hand, if people are spending 30 hours per week messi…

> On the other hand, if people are spending 30 hours per week messing around on the internet, browsing social media, chatting in social Discords, or other activities that are clearly not work related, that's not normal at all at well managed companies.

It all just depends on how much ambition you have my friend, you too can slack off for 3/4 of your workday if you don't take on more responsibility than you can do in 1/4 of your time lolololol

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#113

Post by sokoloff »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94
mkl95 wrote: post #7

Many companies think their employees are being productive for 40 hours a week, while it's actually somewhere between 10 and 20, with the rest being a big void. If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell.

> with the rest being a big void. There shouldn't be a 20-30 hour "void" in people's work week. If people are meeting, discussing work, building relationships within the company, or otherwise doing things around their work, I still consider that to be productive time. Nobody actually expects programmers to be writing code 40 hours a week. We know this. On the other hand, if people are spending 30 hours per week messi…

I agree with most of what you say, but it still leaves room for efficiency gains if there’s 15 hours a week of meetings and building relationships that could be done in half that time, leaving an entire workday freed up.

I’ve worked on plenty of teams where nebulous “team building” was an entirely enjoyable and majority unnecessary excess way to spend time at work. Loved those teams, but we could have worked a 4 day week, still had a tight team, and gotten just as much done for the business.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#114

Post by SCdF »

To add my anecdata to the pile, if I "live right"[1] and ignore the pressure to work work work, I naturally have about 6hrs "bum on seat" work time per day, give or take. And that's without a commute. Or kids.

I haven't personally noticed being at the computer for 2hrs less a day causing me to be less productive.

What noticably makes me more productive:

- Not feeling exhausted, depressed, shitty, or feeling like I never have time for anything

- Working bum on seat until I feel like I'm not productive, then taking a break (go for a walk, empty the dishwasher) and let my brain solve the problem for me.

- If I really want to get more done and focus, and I have a clear goal, rounds of pomodoros

[1] get enough sleep; exercise each day; cook healthy meals; spend time with my partner; have time to myself; have time to perform daily chores and errands, etc

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#115

Post by thot_experiment »

It's complicated. I would never want to work for 40 hours/wk (honestly 20 is about my limit) in a hierarchy, but I could easily see myself doing more than that in a partnership.

Yes, you get diminishing returns on work if you're working a lot of hours, but you can still get more done per day even if it's not as efficient. Also, constant immersion in a domain causes acceleration/synergies that you don't get with a more "healthy" work-life balance. That being said I think chasing this is never worth it unless you're getting the same share of the loot as everyone else. (Or if you're the one who's disproportionately set up to benefit from the group's success, but I generally consider that to be immoral)

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#116

Post by PragmaticPulp »

shagie wrote: post #47
mkl95 wrote: post #7

Many companies think their employees are being productive for 40 hours a week, while it's actually somewhere between 10 and 20, with the rest being a big void. If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell.

While the "I'm sitting down and writing things that are going to be productive" is likely in the 10-20h/week range, there is still a lot of * Meetings * Mentoring * Answering random questions * Continuing education (Hey, Spring 6.0 was just released, what's in that?) * Support (and being available for support) Those can easily fill in a lot of the 'void'. I can point to 5h/week that are standing 'meetings' where it i…

Most of these conversations seem to come down to weird definitions of "productive time".

Most of us managers would consider meetings, mentoring, work-related Slack conversations to be productive time. Yet I read a lot of the comments here where people don't consider anything to be productive time unless they're actively writing code, which ignores the realities of working in a team environment.

A better metric might be tracking the amount of non-work time: Time spent on HN, social media, reading news articles, running errands. Again, us managers are realistic that everyone can (and should!) take small breaks throughout the day. However, if those breaks expand to fill 20-30 hours of the supposed 40-hour workweek, something has gone very wrong. That's certainly not normal at any well managed company.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#117

Post by dbetteridge »

bitL wrote: post #77
mkl95 wrote: post #7

Many companies think their employees are being productive for 40 hours a week, while it's actually somewhere between 10 and 20, with the rest being a big void. If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell.

There are companies in the SW industry that require 40h/week and actually monitor that (e.g. collecting metrics in 10-minute intervals and rejecting intervals with low intensity levels).

Got a list? Just so I know which companies to avoid like the plague.

Sometimes I'll wander round the house and read docs or make notes on my tablet while doing housework, still contributing to future work/planning but definitely would show as 'inactive'.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#118

Post by rqtwteye »

epaulson wrote: post #98

At the beginning of the pandemic, as a cost-saving measure my company did furloughs, which for most of us were mandatory unpaid days off two days a week for 6 weeks. We could take off Sun/Mon, Mon/Tues, Thurs/Fri, Fri/Sun, or Mon/Friday, depending on coverage and what made sense regionally. (Our middle east offices worked Sun-Thu normally, the Islamic weekend is Fri/Sat) I have to say, only 3 days "at work" in a week…

I agree about the 4 day week. During Covid may company reduced work hours to 32 and we took off Friday. I definitely felt that people were actually working these hours and meetings were way more focused. Overall i don’t think our release schedule got hurt at all by being less hours at work

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#119

Post by hesdeadjim »

Employee? Sure, aim to get your workweek as close to 0 hours as possible unless you genuinely love what you are doing, then clamp it at 40.

Startup/founder/significant equity holder? Sorry, no -- at least in the first year or three. Working 50 hours a week vs. 40 can be the difference between success and failure in the first few years of a company. I work anywhere between 40 and 60 hours depending on how critical a looming deadline is. No platitudes about "oh you're more productive many snares that would have screwed us hard. I do however place 60 as my soft limit, beyond that I will pay for it hard after a week or two.

Contrary to the cliches that abound around this topic, I am in good shape, healthy, have a rich-enough social life, and am a great dad.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#120

Post by eikenberry »

For creative positions I don't see hours/week as a useful metric for anything. Most of my time 'working' is not sitting at my computer typing or whatever.. it's thinking about things while laying in bed while I can't sleep or when sitting on the can or when taking a walk (etc.). Often my subconscious comes up with something while I'm not even thinking about it. So I'm working when playing games or reading as well. Working isn't labor, it isn't something you do. It is all about how much value you create.
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