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Under good conditions one can easily work 70 hours/week and stay productive. But traditional open-office sweatshop with 2 hour commute does not work that way.

by jkot 11y ago

bonaldi 11y ago
The research contradicts you, and if you're going by your intuition you're likely wrong, even about your own performance. It's exactly your sort of thinking that means the industry keeps working the way it is
- jo909 11y ago
  While I totally believe the research is right, and see the same results and draw the same conclusions for myself, I don't think the research can tell anything about one individual. The way studies work is to measure the average of a large group. Most people I assume (I don't have data to back that up) work in jobs that do not have what jkot meant with "good conditions". So the research finds that _on average_ longer work hours do not result in more work done, and that is good advice for every employer. For a motivated individual or small group that can be different, so I believe such personal accounts and would not tell them they are wrong. I can totally see how founders, special personalities, people with what I call the "perfect job" can work much longer than 40 hours without being wrong about their own performance. The wrong thing is only to expect that from others or to create an environment that makes others believe it would be true for them too.
  - thenomad 11y ago
    Covered at least in part in http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-worked/ http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-work... - including perception vs reality of productivity in crunch time. He has a graph on that: http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-percieved-productivity-daniel-cook-working-overtime-eric-dodds-productivity-hacking-blog-series.jpg http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-per... It's possible that some special individuals can work longer hours than average without productivity loss. However, without hard data to prove you're one of those individuals, given the above, it may be inadvisable to simply assume you are...
    - falcolas 11y ago
      In addition to this, for every "capable of working more than 40 hours" worker, there's another "incapable of being productive more than 40 hours" worker. That's the joy with averages. So look around you - of the 20 people who are working late hours with you and believe they are still productive, 10 of them are wildly unproductive, quite possibly to the point of contributing disproportionally negative productivity due to writing bugs. Is the additional 400 man-hours of productive work worth those 400-800 man-hours spent debugging problems which could have been avoided?
- jkot 11y ago
  Not really, problem is that most people define "work" as sitting behind computer.
  - bonaldi 11y ago
    Again, no - the original research was into people working in a huge range of ways -- heavy industry, outdoor occupations, clerical work etc. If you mean "I can socialise and network and that counts as work", I don't think that's what comes over in your original post.
jschwartzi 11y ago
Ford built tenements for his factory workers so they would live close to work, and he originated some of the research that 50+ hour weeks are damaging to productivity.
piva00 11y ago
Define "good conditions", it's a judgement of value, based on subjective perception. I find it quite hard to work 70 hours/week even if my work is very well organized (my main productivity drain) and I'm working at home, with my own setup in an environment I crafted for being distraction-free and really comfortable. I can work for at most a week at the pace of 70 hours/week, after that I know I'll really drop my productivity even when I'm liking what I'm doing and truly motivated... That's my personal experience after my first 9 years in the industry, having worked on open plan offices, team-rooms offices and at home for a couple of years.
paulojreis 11y ago
Someone once said that "the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness". Where's yours?

Under good conditions one can easily work 70 hours/week and stay productive. But traditional open-office sweatshop with 2 hour commute does not work that way.

by jkot 11y ago

Under good conditions one can easily work 70 hours/week and stay productive. But traditional open-office sweatshop with 2 hour commute does not work that way.

bonaldi 11y ago

The research contradicts you, and if you're going by your intuition you're likely wrong, even about your own performance. It's exactly your sort of thinking that means the industry keeps working the way it is

jo909 11y ago
While I totally believe the research is right, and see the same results and draw the same conclusions for myself, I don't think the research can tell anything about one individual. The way studies work is to measure the average of a large group. Most people I assume (I don't have data to back that up) work in jobs that do not have what jkot meant with "good conditions". So the research finds that _on average_ longer work hours do not result in more work done, and that is good advice for every employer. For a motivated individual or small group that can be different, so I believe such personal accounts and would not tell them they are wrong. I can totally see how founders, special personalities, people with what I call the "perfect job" can work much longer than 40 hours without being wrong about their own performance. The wrong thing is only to expect that from others or to create an environment that makes others believe it would be true for them too.
- thenomad 11y ago
  Covered at least in part in http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-worked/ http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-work... - including perception vs reality of productivity in crunch time. He has a graph on that: http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-percieved-productivity-daniel-cook-working-overtime-eric-dodds-productivity-hacking-blog-series.jpg http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-per... It's possible that some special individuals can work longer hours than average without productivity loss. However, without hard data to prove you're one of those individuals, given the above, it may be inadvisable to simply assume you are...
  - falcolas 11y ago
    In addition to this, for every "capable of working more than 40 hours" worker, there's another "incapable of being productive more than 40 hours" worker. That's the joy with averages. So look around you - of the 20 people who are working late hours with you and believe they are still productive, 10 of them are wildly unproductive, quite possibly to the point of contributing disproportionally negative productivity due to writing bugs. Is the additional 400 man-hours of productive work worth those 400-800 man-hours spent debugging problems which could have been avoided?
jkot 11y ago
Not really, problem is that most people define "work" as sitting behind computer.
- bonaldi 11y ago
  Again, no - the original research was into people working in a huge range of ways -- heavy industry, outdoor occupations, clerical work etc. If you mean "I can socialise and network and that counts as work", I don't think that's what comes over in your original post.

jschwartzi 11y ago

Ford built tenements for his factory workers so they would live close to work, and he originated some of the research that 50+ hour weeks are damaging to productivity.

piva00 11y ago

Define "good conditions", it's a judgement of value, based on subjective perception. I find it quite hard to work 70 hours/week even if my work is very well organized (my main productivity drain) and I'm working at home, with my own setup in an environment I crafted for being distraction-free and really comfortable. I can work for at most a week at the pace of 70 hours/week, after that I know I'll really drop my productivity even when I'm liking what I'm doing and truly motivated... That's my personal experience after my first 9 years in the industry, having worked on open plan offices, team-rooms offices and at home for a couple of years.

paulojreis 11y ago

Someone once said that "the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness". Where's yours?