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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

#71

Post by charlesism »

susam wrote: post #40

I agree with this article mostly, although 3 hours a day might be too little to make good progress with work for some people. This article reminded me of my previous workplace (about 7 years ago) where my manager discouraged engineers from working for more than 6 hours a day. He recommended 4 hours of work per day and requested us not to exceed more than 6 hours of work per day. He believed working for less number of…

It's another "magic short cut" article. They're like crack to HN. Fun to read; probably not wise to take seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2_snSkpULQ

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

#72

Post by 1123581321 »

I read an essay several years ago that suggested working three focused hours a day. But, it suggested slowly increasing the hours worked while keeping the same level of focus, and doing restorative activities in the remaining time. The idea was that this would "triple" productivity.

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

#74

Post by wilblack »

I started contract work last fall. I set me rate assuming a 25 hour work week. At first I tried working ~4 hrs / day everyday day. I quickly realized this did not work for me. Working everyday, even just a little is not sustainable for me. I have a family and they are still on the 9 to 5 schedule, so working even a few hours on weekends cut into my family time which is important to me. So now I force myself to take at least one weekend day off with no prgramming. This is hard because I love to program. Also I have a hard cutoff time during the week days at about 5:30pm when my wife and kid get home. I usually feel like I want to keep working but that forces me to stop (at least until my daughter goes to bed). So now I work 5 or 6 days a week but seldom exceed 6 hours/ day. Most days are closer to 4hrs. It's great at this pace because I usually always feel like i want to keep programming so I don't get burnt out. And if I do have an off day I just don't work.

The problem I am running into now is what do I do with my spare time? All my hobbies are computer based (video games and Raspberry Pi projects) but I am trying to minimize my screen time in my off hours. This will get better in the spring and summer as the weather gets better but during winter on the Oregon Coast going outside is hit or miss.

And I hear you about not being able to go to bed until I solve a problem I am stuck on, that drives me crazy.

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

#75

Post by wilblack »

driverdan wrote: post #46
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 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. There's an easy solution to that problem: don't take on those projects. If they don't fit into your schedule don't do them.

You could say that but it seems like you will be turning down a lot of work. If you are only working 3 to 4 hours a day it is not that hard to double yours hours for a week or two to meet a client's deadline. It will keep your clients happy and if you charge by the hour it a nice bonus on your invoice.

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

#76

Post by Drdrdrq »

amelius wrote: post #61

> Making money on the App Store is really tough, and people don’t care how many hours I spend on my apps. They only care if it is useful or not. This is a completely result oriented world, but personally, I like it. I would guess that, if the OP had a competitor, then the OP would be easily forced out of the market if that competitor worked 4 hours a day :)

Not really, that's exactly the point. OP would be forced out of the market if that competitor produced better results. Not the same thing.

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

#77

Post by vhost- »

wilblack wrote: post #74

I started contract work last fall. I set me rate assuming a 25 hour work week. At first I tried working ~4 hrs / day everyday day. I quickly realized this did not work for me. Working everyday, even just a little is not sustainable for me. I have a family and they are still on the 9 to 5 schedule, so working even a few hours on weekends cut into my family time which is important to me. So now I force myself to take a…

Since you mentioned Oregon, you should try rock climbing. This is one of the best places in the country to be a climber given we have Smith Rock, Broughton bluff and other climbing areas.

I've been climbing for years outside work and I feel like it's a great hobby for programmers. It gets you outside and you are essentially problem solving. I found my side projects (video games, rpi things, fun programming) are much more productive when I spend time climbing.

I also found it helps me not think about work. Before I started climbing, I would think about my next work day non-stop which was totally counter-productive. I would over think things and then get stuck in a rut for weeks at a time. I now care less about my work when I'm off and I think it's actually made me a better employee.

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

#78

Post by rokhayakebe »

dkopi wrote: post #50
jiblylabs wrote: post #27

As a freelancer, I understand where some of the comments "As a freelancer this won't work" are coming from. However, the last year I've flipped my freelancing model where I offer a more productized service with a clearly defined scope and set price. Instead of doing design work for $XXX/h, I'll deliver A,B,C within Timeframe Y, for Price $XXXX. With clearly defined services, I've actually been working for the last 12…

This approach has a lot of pros and cons. By committing to a fixed price for a project, you're taking a lot of risk on yourself. What if it takes more than Y? What if you weren't able to expect the true scope of the project? What if the customer isn't cooperative and wastes your time? What is considered a reasonable delivery? How many bugs do you continue to fix for free without charging more? How many changes to you…

What if it takes more than Y?

No problem there. Educate your clients. Tell them if it takes significantly longer than expected you will come back to them. Tell them it is not likely but you want to be straight from the beginning.

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

#79

Post by coldtea »

wolfgke wrote: post #30
quietplatypus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they are also often bullshit deadlines that users dont care about but gets a few brownie points for management.

No true Scotsman fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

I don't think "no true Scotchman" means what you think it means...

It's about criticizing something as invalid, BS, problematic etc. -- is not even about saying something X doesn't belong to an idealized category.

It's about shifting the discussion to "X doesn't belong to an idealized category" AFTER you were OK talking generally about it previously.

This means that when one talks morally/ideologically/etc. about what constitutes "a true scotchman" (e.g. not in the plain sense of citizen of Scotchman") it's not a fallacy to ascribe certain attributes to the notion (because "true" here essentially means "ideal", "most representative" etc, instead of merely "actually existing").

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

#80

Post by Michielvv »

wilblack wrote: post #75
driverdan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There's an easy solution to that problem: don't take on those projects. If they don't fit into your schedule don't do them.

You could say that but it seems like you will be turning down a lot of work. If you are only working 3 to 4 hours a day it is not that hard to double yours hours for a week or two to meet a client's deadline. It will keep your clients happy and if you charge by the hour it a nice bonus on your invoice.

I think the assumption of the author is that the 3 hours he does work are best-case productive hours. If you work 40+ hours a week, you still have to account for all those staring-at-your screen hours, that are not contributing towards meeting the deadline.

Somewhat related: I found it is a lot easier (and natural) to estimate projects in terms of 'ideal' hours. And then just assume there are only 20 to 25 of those a week. That quite closely matches the 21 hours of the original post.

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