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Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

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Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#31

Post by magnamerca »

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…

I'm not a software developer, but basically a structural engineer / project engineer. I just wanted to say that my job is exactly like yours in some ways. Most of my quality work gets done in less than 2-3 hours; the rest of the time I'm either doing menial/repetitve tasks or talking to people / in meetings.

I guess I'm just trying to point out that I think this isn;t exclusive to software jobs, but it's the same trend for any mental labour job.

Getting into, and staying in, a state of flow requires a high cognitive workload, and getting back into it once you're kicked out is almost impossible some days. It often takes me at least 30 minutes to get back into that state, if at all. I think our society needs to re-think how we spend our time at work,but unfortunately that'll require government regulation, unless companies that are bold enough to switch to a 6 hour workday actual start making more money than their competitors.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#32

Post by UglyToad »

random_kris wrote: post #28
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…

I don't know that either. I can be REALLY productive for 2-3 hours a day but rest is socializing with other devs, answering emails etc... I try to structure my day so that I learn some stuff in those 8 hours, do some personal stuff (pay bills, call doctor, arrange stuff after work). I am regarded as quite productive but sometimes I feel really bad for not putting 100% in all those 8 hours but I find it impossible. I…

I think it's maybe partly that the jobs I've tended to work have no real socializing/email answering/meetings aspect. I've tried to get more onto that side just to preserve my sanity but it's been very much "go through tickets for 7-8 hours a day".

I can't remember the last time I needed to respond to an email.

And they've all been very different jobs/industries - consultancy, startup and large company. Maybe part of it is the tech (C# .NET) or the location (England) but from talking to my friends in the industry the experience seems to be similar.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#33

Post by Lewton »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #26
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…

Yeah, I also see this issue. It's made worse by Agile/Scrum that assumes during the planning poker meeting that every dev has 8 hours per day available of constant flow while the real value being maybe 5-6 if you're lucky so you end up cutting corners or burned out due to the stress of meeting the target velocity.

Not an inherent agile/scrum problem, we assume 6 hours availability per day during planning in my team

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#34

Post by probablybroken »

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…

I find I tend to write bugs after around 7 hour's work, and during the first four, I can throw myself at a new task in a way that at the end of the day I'd be utterly incapable. I think shorter office days would benefit most mature developers. ( I say mature here because I've worked with people who only manage to get things done through many hours extended foot dragging and procrastination. If you can focus, short days can be beneficial. )

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#35

Post by andrekandre »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #4
astonex wrote: post #2

Something like 30 hours a week, 4 days a week cant come soon enough. Right now I work 40-45, 5 days a week and it feels like all I do is work and chores.

Two questions Are many companies offering 4 day weeks? I’d guess yes. Can people afford to live off a 4 day week salary? I’d guess no in general.

i guess the idea is, considering how much worker productivity has improved over the decades, even working 4 days a week, one should still be able to survive just fine (at least that is my interpretation)

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#36

Post by markus_zhang »

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…

For people advocate 10-hour days, it's possible that they are plagued by meetings/etc. so can only work efficiently during certain hours. If you look at the sum of high productive hours it could be just like you: 2-3 hours.

I think 3 hours of high productivity is maximum for me too, the thing is it is very difficult to reach really high productivity, so I can wrap up my work in maybe 4-5 hours writing SQL and report (exclude the meetings and break/etc.) and still have energy to write code in my spare time for around 1-2 hours. How and when to achieve high productivity and enter the flow are pretty random for me.

If you can reach high productivity for 3 straight hours a day I'd envy you, because you probably achieve more than people (like me) who work 5-6 hours in sub-prime conditions. I'd rather to work full of energy for 3 hours during the morning, take break in the afternoon, and come back for another 1-2 hours. Much more enjoyable.

BTW I found that useless meetings drain energy really FAST.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#37

Post by random_kris »

UglyToad wrote: post #32
random_kris wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that either. I can be REALLY productive for 2-3 hours a day but rest is socializing with other devs, answering emails etc... I try to structure my day so that I learn some stuff in those 8 hours, do some personal stuff (pay bills, call doctor, arrange stuff after work). I am regarded as quite productive but sometimes I feel really bad for not putting 100% in all those 8 hours but I find it impossible. I…

I think it's maybe partly that the jobs I've tended to work have no real socializing/email answering/meetings aspect. I've tried to get more onto that side just to preserve my sanity but it's been very much "go through tickets for 7-8 hours a day". I can't remember the last time I needed to respond to an email. And they've all been very different jobs/industries - consultancy, startup and large company. Maybe part of…

I am working for a relatively small consultancy company. We are team of 5 programmers working on various small programs for government. It gets crazy coordinating between different people trying to get to know where to get data etc... I am changing to a pure backend java job next month. I can't wait to see how other programming jobs look like. (working at this consultancy is my 1st job as a programmer and I've been here for past 3 years)

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#38

Post by astonex »

epaga wrote: post #27
astonex wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for starters, looking at the charts in the link 30 hours is still much more productive than the 40hr 1975 worker. As a programmer I'm not doing focused programming for any more than 30 hours a week anyway

He was joking because you said 30 hours a day

Ah, I completely misread it both times.

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#39

Post by namelosw »

sancha_ wrote: post #8
namelosw wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be more than happy to work 1 day per week and live with 20% of my current salary. I believe a lot of people can accept 80% salary for 4 days per week.

My previous company allowed people to work 4 days for 80% pay. Out of 60 people, 3 people took advantage of that.

I'm curious. Could you by any chance know some reason behind this? Is the salary not sufficient for the zone, or people do enjoy working, or they just simply think they would be bored as they take it?

Re: Productivity and the Workweek (2000)

#40

Post by glormph »

Lynbarry wrote: post #29

I reduced my time at work to 80% at the beginning of July. Every Friday is my day now. This week I had to switch it up so today is my day off. It's 1pm and I have already worked out, ran some errands that had been bugging me and am now reading this in one of my favorite diners which I for some reason almost never found the time to go to before. If you have the chance and it seems intriguing to you I encourage everyon…

This sounds awesome. I'm held back a bit, I have always been warned against working less than a full workweek, since it would presumely substantially harm my (European) retirement build-up (unless I would make a lot more money than I currently do). I have never investigated yet, but would before cutting working hours.
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