4 ms·

I don't know what's the perfect amount of work every week, but I'm sure anything > 40h is wrong, and you should add commute time if more than 30min/day, otherwi

by antirez 10y ago

I don't know what's the perfect amount of work every week, but I'm sure anything > 40h is wrong, and you should add commute time if more than 30min/day, otherwise it's a fake figure. In 36-40h/week it's possible to do a lot of things. If you can't often is not because of the time, but because the same people wanting you to work more vaporize your time with meetings, conference calls, emails, phone calls, at a rate that makes it impossible for you to work. Or your coworkers are tempesting you with questions. Or your boss is switching your goal every day not allowing you to produce properly. Or you lack discipline to sit down and work instead of surfing random websites. Anyway whatever the problem is, the solution is NEVER to work more than 40h. Working more can just lead to a shitty life, depression, burn-out, and so forth.

dx034 10y ago
I wouldn't necessarily draw the line there. It always depends on your situation. If you don't have a family, working 7.30am-5.30pm (my approx working hours) 5 days per week still allows you to have enough time to spend with friends and for side projects. If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? Sitting in front of the TV at home isn't necessarily better than an interesting project at work. Will not always be the case, so it's (in my opinion) completely normal to work longer during some months of the year and shorter during others. For me, flexibility is clearly more importan than working hours. It's great to have a workplace where you can go for a long lunch once in a while or a doctor's appointment without anyone raising questions. It's about being able to make plans. If I know that I can go out for Dinner next Wed on 5pm then it's no problem to work longer on other days. Not being able to plan this sucks, no matter how much you actually work. But I agree that if the work environment is unproductive, working more is definitely not the solution.
- antirez 10y ago
  7.30/5.30 works, but if you think at the lunch pause and the inevitable things to do a few hours a week, you are into the 40h limits more or less... This is why I say 40h is likely the limit. Then if it's 38 or 43... is a small percentage, but 50 is already out of order and 60 crazy IMHO.
- guitarbill 10y ago
  > If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? Because longer != better. It's like why sleeping on a problem helps or why some people have the best thoughts in the shower. The best way to really make the most of those 8 hours is to do other stuff the rest of the time. Besides, if you're a professional, you should at least have the courtesy not to devalue your colleague's time. If you start working longer, management might ask your colleague who has a family to do the same (or worse, fire them). Everybody loses by working unpaid overtime except the company. If you want to do this, make sure it's your company.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  > If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? I'll work longer than 8 hours if I want to. I won't work longer than 8 hours because you want or expect me to. That's the difference.
- kdamken 10y ago
  I hope you negotiated an appropriate salary for the extra 25% a week you're apparently working as opposed to the standard 40 hours a week. There are jobs with flexibility that don't require that amount of time.
  - dx034 10y ago
    No, I didn't negotiate a 25% bonus as I didn't choose the job based on the salary. Of course I need a decent salary, but I took the job because I like what I'm doing here and I'm fascinated by the work. Much of what I do now during working hours was what I did before on side projects. It's fun for me to work on it and the employer gives me flexibility to test my ideas. So both parties benefit from this arrangement. I wouldn't trade my job against a better paying job with strict 40h/week if I don't like it as much. And I wouldn't want an employer where every working day is strictly 9-5, no matter what project you're on or how the workload is.
javajosh 10y ago
I really like that phrasing, "vaporizing your time", which captures the adversarial nature of external interruptions in a suitably light-hearted way. I would add that to produce anything it is important to clear a space both in time and physical or abstract space (e.g. a folder, if you are a programmer) into which you put tools and supplies and labor. You must then a) know each space, and b) develop a way to visit each space (and leave it) as required by circumstance and your own needs. For a program, you need (at a bare minimum): a folder, a toolset, a set of time, and a list of predicates that are currently false that you commit to making evaluate to true (but no cheating). This process is actively harmed by overwork, because overwork attacks the same cognition that is necessary to successfully execute the process.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Good post, but... Never say never. Instead, say "almost never". In this business, sometimes a crisis happens. Sometimes you need to be there more than 40 hours a week. I accept that as part of the profession, as long as it's rare. When a show-stopper bug gets exposed two days before we're supposed to ship, and my boss called me at 9 PM, I came in and was there until 1 AM identifying the problem. When it's only happened once in seven years, well, you just roll with it when it happens. When they expect it every week? No. Change your expectations, or I'll change jobs.
- antirez 10y ago
  Yes a "sprint" is doable for me as well. 1/2 every year...
r_smart 10y ago
I know everyone is different, but one of my greatest periods of productivity was when I was finishing my EE degree. My employer let me drop my hours down to 30/week, but it didn't really change my responsibilities / workload. I used to come in to work, bust ass, and get to class. It was a really happy time for me, professionally speaking.

by antirez 10y ago

dx034 10y ago

I wouldn't necessarily draw the line there. It always depends on your situation. If you don't have a family, working 7.30am-5.30pm (my approx working hours) 5 days per week still allows you to have enough time to spend with friends and for side projects. If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? Sitting in front of the TV at home isn't necessarily better than an interesting project at work. Will not always be the case, so it's (in my opinion) completely normal to work longer during some months of the year and shorter during others. For me, flexibility is clearly more importan than working hours. It's great to have a workplace where you can go for a long lunch once in a while or a doctor's appointment without anyone raising questions. It's about being able to make plans. If I know that I can go out for Dinner next Wed on 5pm then it's no problem to work longer on other days. Not being able to plan this sucks, no matter how much you actually work. But I agree that if the work environment is unproductive, working more is definitely not the solution.

antirez 10y ago
7.30/5.30 works, but if you think at the lunch pause and the inevitable things to do a few hours a week, you are into the 40h limits more or less... This is why I say 40h is likely the limit. Then if it's 38 or 43... is a small percentage, but 50 is already out of order and 60 crazy IMHO.
guitarbill 10y ago
> If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? Because longer != better. It's like why sleeping on a problem helps or why some people have the best thoughts in the shower. The best way to really make the most of those 8 hours is to do other stuff the rest of the time. Besides, if you're a professional, you should at least have the courtesy not to devalue your colleague's time. If you start working longer, management might ask your colleague who has a family to do the same (or worse, fire them). Everybody loses by working unpaid overtime except the company. If you want to do this, make sure it's your company.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
> If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? I'll work longer than 8 hours if I want to. I won't work longer than 8 hours because you want or expect me to. That's the difference.
kdamken 10y ago
I hope you negotiated an appropriate salary for the extra 25% a week you're apparently working as opposed to the standard 40 hours a week. There are jobs with flexibility that don't require that amount of time.
- dx034 10y ago
  No, I didn't negotiate a 25% bonus as I didn't choose the job based on the salary. Of course I need a decent salary, but I took the job because I like what I'm doing here and I'm fascinated by the work. Much of what I do now during working hours was what I did before on side projects. It's fun for me to work on it and the employer gives me flexibility to test my ideas. So both parties benefit from this arrangement. I wouldn't trade my job against a better paying job with strict 40h/week if I don't like it as much. And I wouldn't want an employer where every working day is strictly 9-5, no matter what project you're on or how the workload is.

javajosh 10y ago

I really like that phrasing, "vaporizing your time", which captures the adversarial nature of external interruptions in a suitably light-hearted way. I would add that to produce anything it is important to clear a space both in time and physical or abstract space (e.g. a folder, if you are a programmer) into which you put tools and supplies and labor. You must then a) know each space, and b) develop a way to visit each space (and leave it) as required by circumstance and your own needs. For a program, you need (at a bare minimum): a folder, a toolset, a set of time, and a list of predicates that are currently false that you commit to making evaluate to true (but no cheating). This process is actively harmed by overwork, because overwork attacks the same cognition that is necessary to successfully execute the process.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

Good post, but... Never say never. Instead, say "almost never". In this business, sometimes a crisis happens. Sometimes you need to be there more than 40 hours a week. I accept that as part of the profession, as long as it's rare. When a show-stopper bug gets exposed two days before we're supposed to ship, and my boss called me at 9 PM, I came in and was there until 1 AM identifying the problem. When it's only happened once in seven years, well, you just roll with it when it happens. When they expect it every week? No. Change your expectations, or I'll change jobs.

antirez 10y ago
Yes a "sprint" is doable for me as well. 1/2 every year...

r_smart 10y ago

I know everyone is different, but one of my greatest periods of productivity was when I was finishing my EE degree. My employer let me drop my hours down to 30/week, but it didn't really change my responsibilities / workload. I used to come in to work, bust ass, and get to class. It was a really happy time for me, professionally speaking.