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Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

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Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#181

Post by ketzo »

SimbaOnSteroids wrote: post #179
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…

Thanks for this, I'm working my first job feeling like a complete slacker everyday, it's just like my head is full of fog after a certain period of time and I can't seem to push through it.

My experience too. This thread is helping dispel a bit of the imposter syndrome for me — you’re not alone at all.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#182

Post by barefoot »

therealx wrote: post #174
0xffff2 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A reasonable measure of what it takes to stay current and relevant in this industry is twenty hours of dedicated reinvestment per week. Which industry is that exactly? Because it's sure not mine, and I'm a software engineer, which I thought was the default assumption here.

The guy is, assuming some normalcy, unhealthy. Maybe he's very young and still in the learning phase where you're eating up all your time learning, or maybe some physical/mental difference (Autism, etc). He's clearly never been burned out, and notice he budgets no time for social activities. Very unhealthy.

It's a challenging habit to start but not as difficult as you'd imagine to maintain. That said, I've met a number of other professionals that sustain similar schedules. I have an array of hobbies including flying, rock climbing, tennis, and traveling. I've never been diagnosed with any behavior or personality disorder and organize social time primarily around the weekends. I also hit the gym every day which helps a lot. I completely credit any success I've had to working out frequently.

I don't cast any judgement over developers not choosing to reinvest. I also think it's critical to know your limits and stay within them. I've been burned out several times throughout my career and know where my limits are.

I am however very certain that this industry rewards continued learning and with the right mindset it's very rewarding both in the short and long term.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#183

Post by cableshaft »

r34 wrote: post #170
cableshaft wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work on one project for 6-12 months? Sounds wonderful. Try context switching between 7 different application's codebases with different technology stacks / system architecture in a single iteration (well, sometimes just 3 or 4). Our department was eviscerated and software that had dedicated people on them all got put in my lap to maintain and support. I have to reboot in my head how each application works a couple ti…

Yup, maybe 6-12 moths is wonderful comparing to what you have to deal with, but still not enough for me to get into flow. I consider myself average programmer, so in your environment I'd feel like in hell ;)

I used to only work on one project at a time at certain previous jobs. I really miss it. I felt a lot more productive then.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#185

Post by chrstphrhrt »

bubbabojangles wrote: post #14

Perhaps if we were not handing over most of the productivity gains of society to CEOs, the rest of us would not need to work so many hours. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/

What really gets me about this as a sometimes-entrepreneur, is that management is not even taking personal risks. Besides narrow cases of torts and their need to have fiduciary duties, they are no different from other staff workers.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#186

Post by blunte »

Cost of living increases almost every year. Value of money decreases somewhat from inflation. Worker salaries have not been increasing on pace with inflation, much less cost of living increases, since oh... the Reagan years.

What has increased dramatically since the Reagan years is executive pay and wealth of top 1%. What has also increased is consumer debt, particularly during the Clinton years. At the same time that consumer debt was increasing, interest rates (for consumers, not the prime rate) were climbing quickly to their legal limits. Also, those legal limits were occasionally being increased.

Yes consumers are consuming more stuff, and yes most of that extra consumption is rather wasteful and provides decreasing benefit in terms of quality of life or happiness. But the rate of some consumption is going down. Modern computers, TVs, and even mobile phones now can do so much more than most users need that there is less and less reason to upgrade frequently. Buying a new car every couple of years is a great way to waste money. But generally speaking, "the people" aren't living larger than they did 20-30 years ago.

There's very little doubt that the vast majority of the value of the increased productivity output has gone to the top 1%. That's factually visible even without exposing the many sources of hidden offshore wealth that is sometimes estimated to be multiple times larger than the known wealth.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#187

Post by 0xffff2 »

barefoot wrote: post #182
therealx wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy is, assuming some normalcy, unhealthy. Maybe he's very young and still in the learning phase where you're eating up all your time learning, or maybe some physical/mental difference (Autism, etc). He's clearly never been burned out, and notice he budgets no time for social activities. Very unhealthy.

It's a challenging habit to start but not as difficult as you'd imagine to maintain. That said, I've met a number of other professionals that sustain similar schedules. I have an array of hobbies including flying, rock climbing, tennis, and traveling. I've never been diagnosed with any behavior or personality disorder and organize social time primarily around the weekends. I also hit the gym every day which helps a l…

>It's a challenging habit to start but not as difficult as you'd imagine to maintain.

The question is, why would you want to? I don't spend any time at all staying current on my own time. I stay current on my employer's time. That's part of what they pay me for. If they don't want to pay for it, then I'm finding a new employer.

Furthermore, I just have no idea where you come up with 20 hours per week. The kind of software I write just doesn't change anywhere near that fast, and I'm doing cutting-edge R&D! When I need to learn a new thing to do my job effectively, I go do research and learn whatever I need to. I don't, and see absolutely no reason to actively seek out new things to learn that I have no immediate plan to actually use.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#188

Post by gooby »

barefoot wrote: post #166
oarabbus_ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second what the previous guy said - what could you possibly be spending 4 hours daily on? Anyone who claims to be current and moving ahead in all 8 of those areas would immediately set off red flags and signal to me that they definitely aren't current in all those areas.

I would argue that I'm current on the machine learning and practical software development side and minimally current on the others and improving. To offer some background, on the machine learning side I've built and deployed over one hundred models using nearly every major machine learning technique available today. To stay sharp I actively compete in Kaggle and other competitions (and have won a few small competitio…

Man, you sound like you need a big fat blunt. There is more to life than what you are describing here. Do you have any hobbies?

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#189

Post by dcolkitt »

scottlocklin wrote: post #112

Let's reduce economics to its barest rudiments: I'm pretty sure a worker could buy a house and support a family in 1950 on a single, average 40 hour a week salary; this was probably also true even as late as 1970. How many workers in the modern economy can buy a house and support a family on 1/4 of a 40 hour a week salary? Those "productivity" numbers are obviously cooking the books bullshit. Either that or they're n…

In 1950 the average new home was 983 square feet and the average household 3.8 people. Today it's 2500 square feet and 2.6 people. That's a 270% increase in home space per person.

And that doesn't even get into all the other ways that modern housing is fancier. Central A/C, attached garages, swimming pools, high ceilings, granite countertops, finished basements, more bathrooms, massively decreased fire risk, higher capacity electrical circuits, improved water heaters, builtin appliances.

Median home price in the US is $123/square foot. To house a family of four, under 1950s standards costs about $125,000 in America today. That's easily affordable to a single earner at the median full-time wage of $45,000/year.

I'm not saying that housing policy doesn't artificially inflate the price of housing. There are many easy reforms that would drastically increase affordability. Especially in high-priced metros. But to pretend like people in 1950 had it easier than today is just ignorant of the historical facts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_... [2] https://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/the-righteous-small-house... [3] https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/average-price-per-square-...

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#190

Post by fulekia »

bovermyer wrote: post #121
commandlinefan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I sidestep this problem by getting to work before all of those people are even awake.

110% this. I mostly work from home, but on office days, I show up at least an hour before everyone else, and often get a lot done in that time. Once people show up, start making coffee, talking about the latest sportsing, etc., I'm already 2.5 hours into my day.
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