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Is 40 hours a week too much?

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Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#81

Post by heavyset_go »

kneebonian wrote: post #41
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #5

Too much for whom? For businesses, definitely not too much; if you're awake you could be working. For workers? We worked less when we were hunter-gatherers, and even peasants up to the industrial revolution worked seasonally and thus had an average of 20 hours a week. Now we work 40 hours a week for 44-48 weeks a year. And for what? To pay too much for health care, be stressed out constantly, sit in traffic commuting…

You know I hear this repeated about how people who did substance farming supposedly did less but that just doesn't seem to square with my experiences. Two examples I'll cite are the first is the experience recorded by my great great grandfather, he grew up on a farm in central Utah and when he was 14 years old his dad told him to take the sheep and go up into the mountains and don't come back until it snowed. I guess…

Your great great grandfather from your anecdote worked during/after the Industrial Revolution.

Historical evidence shows that people worked much less than they did during and after the Industrial Revolution[1].

[1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#82

Post by quickthrower2 »

nkrisc wrote: post #37
nkozyra wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell. I disagree. But I think what we qualify as "work" is more rigid than it needs to be. Is spending 5 minutes looking at HN every few hours work? Most people would say no, but it absolutely helps developers to know what's going on or new or what other devs outside their company are saying. If I spend 20 minutes reading about a language/app that my c…

Ok but can you write an OKR for reading HN?

Cue people reading HN for exactly 1200 seconds per day then overflow onto r/hackernews

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#83

Post by sarchertech »

orblivion wrote: post #55
interstice wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freelance web developer background currently developer / business owner - my achievable baseline is 30 hours of billed out time and around 10 hours of admin/emails/meetings etc. Keeping the emails from eating the rest is an ongoing battle though.

Do you not charge for meetings? And what about emails where you're hashing out something clearly in the domain of what you're working on?

When I’m consulting the only meetings I don’t bill for are meetings with prospects.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#84

Post by quickthrower2 »

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).

That might be Twitter … by Monday morning

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#85

Post by danabrams »

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.

My fear is that if you’re being productive 20 hours and unproductive 20 hours a week and the work week is reduced, how do we know you won’t just end up being productive 10 hours and unproductive 20.

That said, we should definitely be experimenting. If people are equally productive at 40 hours and 20 hours, we shouldn’t keep them in the office just for aesthetics.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#86

Post by varjag »

heavyset_go wrote: post #81
kneebonian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I hear this repeated about how people who did substance farming supposedly did less but that just doesn't seem to square with my experiences. Two examples I'll cite are the first is the experience recorded by my great great grandfather, he grew up on a farm in central Utah and when he was 14 years old his dad told him to take the sheep and go up into the mountains and don't come back until it snowed. I guess…

Your great great grandfather from your anecdote worked during/after the Industrial Revolution. Historical evidence shows that people worked much less than they did during and after the Industrial Revolution[1]. [1] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_...

Herding sheep didn't change dramatically with Industrial Revolution.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#87

Post by DesiLurker »

noncoml wrote: post #54
TylerE wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 is a big one.!I’ve solved more problems playing guitar or in the shower than I ever have banging my head against the keyboard

In that sense coding is like writing a book. Are you only productive when you actually type the words?

most of my coding time is actually figuring out the right way to do something. breaking the problem down right and then another big chunk is identifying (& 'fixing') interactions with external components. I know those are important things but at some level it feels as if I am not being productive. still I justify it by thinking about the opportunity cost of doing it the wrong way.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#88

Post by DiggyJohnson »

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).

In the US? That sounds bananas to me.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#90

Post by manmal »

CallMeJim wrote: post #45
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.

On the flip side; no one is productive 100% of the time. If people worked 20 hours per week, the actual productive time would likely be between 5 and 10 hours per week.

No, people would cut the unnecessary BS in order to get things done. Most people can’t concentrate 40h/week, so the BS serves to fill up the remaining time.
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