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Work is a spectrum between specific repetitive tasks and the need for deep creative solutions to problems. On one hand we have the need to pull this lever every
by jfoutz 10y ago
Work is a spectrum between specific repetitive tasks and the need for deep creative solutions to problems. On one hand we have the need to pull this lever every 36 seconds. on the other, is The Problem. We've all faced The Problem, but perhaps not for work. It's the thing that's at the top of the stack for days, weeks, or months on end. Perhaps solving a Rubik's cube. Perhaps understanding recursion. We've all gone through that phase of not understanding something and thinking about it constantly.
IMHO, the 9-5 is is useful because, in the pull the lever case, the lever gets pulled. More importantly, a substantial fraction of time exposed to The Problem. You have nine hours to kill, odds are good people will spend those hours possibly getting hooked on solving The Problem. There's little chance they'll solve the problem in those hours, but they'll get hooked on The Problem and think about it while washing dishes, in the shower, and sleeping. Once you're hooked, it's tough to get away from it without solving it.
Ultimately, i think anything repetitive will be automated away. But we still need some way to hook people on The Problem. Hours and hours of exposure is probably inefficient, but it's effective.
- iopq 10y agoIt's not effective because I value my time so I don't work a full time job. You'd get me interested if your work day was 4 hours a day.
- jfoutz 10y agoBut that's not really how it works. Sure, for lever pulling, no problem. For solving a hard problem, I think about it constantly for weeks on end. The 9-5 is just trying to hook you. if you can demonstrate you only need to show up for an hour, one time, and get hooked on my problem, that's pretty valuable. It's just hard to demonstrate you're hooked. Maybe you're thinking about my problem, maybe you're thinking about grape pop tarts. There's no way for me to know what's at the top of your stack.
- quantumhobbit 10y agoShouldn't the results of the work speak for themselves? If the work output is the same either way, it doesn't matter if I spent 40 days in the desert meditating on the problem or 15 minutes thinking about it in the shower.
- jfoutz 10y agoYes! But does it work like that? Certainly, some problems i've had insight into and had a very good answer very quickly. But if i'm stuck thinking about the problem in the shower, well i've probably been thinking about it for at least a day. Sleep is a powerful source of solutions. Realistically, it's not the next morning in the shower, it's 40 days later. The desert is fine if that's what works for you. Most people (imho) grind away with no effect for days or weeks, and then have that flash of insight. A new thing to try. Most work is stupid, typing in stupid things to effectively prove the stupid thing doesn't work. This is more on the lever pulling edge of the spectrum. But then, eventually, there's that one insight that makes the whole thing tractable. In the shower. On a Tuesday. It only works because we've been thinking about the thing, in the background, for a long time.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- taneq 10y agoIf you're not interested in your work enough to spend 8 hours a day on it, you're doing the wrong work. (Or the sucky part of the right work... we've all been there.) I don't think it's possible to do your best work on something non-trivial without fully immersing yourself in it.
- dasmoth 10y agoI'd agree with your final statement, but I don't see any connection between "full immersion" and eight+ hour days. Rather the contrary, actually. Three or Four hour stints of concentration are optimal for me, and seldom seen to happen in an office environment. Clearly, others will do their best in different environments. The search for "one size fits all" is part of the problem here.
- treehau5_ 10y agoThis is simply not true, the 8 hour workday is a complete arbitrary concept. There is a wealth of research to show our creative thinking is best done in short spurts. Time off in between actually helps your subconscious continue to work on the solution, something known as "diffuse mode" when I am attempting to solve a problem. There is a reason why so many of former geniuses, great authors, mathematicians said their best solutions came after a walk through nature.
- taneq 10y agoMaybe I should have phrased it as "to spend 8 hours a day thinking about it." And I'm not suggesting you need to be spending every waking moment on it, either. But you have to be focused on something for some minimum percentage of your time (which does vary for each person) before your subconscious really starts digging into it.