5 ms·

Hm. Given an average week, probably on average 35% of my day is not working. Average being a reasonably interesting bug and/or project to sink my teeth into. So

Hm. Given an average week, probably on average 35% of my day is not working. Average being a reasonably interesting bug and/or project to sink my teeth into. Somedays I'll work 10 hours. Others I'll work 4 to 6. Unlike most people, if I finish my work in 5 hours, I go home. If I'm not going to be working, I'd rather not be working at home. I've never had any complaints about work quality or throughput. I have had one complaint about not being seen in the office. [edit] clarified the 35% bucket

tucaz 10y ago
How do you assess "finished my work"? Unless you are working on tickets that might stop coming in is really hard to be "out of work", specially in projects. I ask this because I see a lot of people saying the same but there's always more work to do, being testing something that should be working, fixing bugs, refactoring that old piece of junk you left behind due to times constraints, etc.
- justrudd 10y ago
  For me, it starts during sprint planning. I know what work is going into the sprint, and what work is being assigned to me (we don't run sprints in the natural way of grabbing the next card that's free. I disagree with it, but it is what it is). So I plan out what I need to do on a day-to-day basis to finish that amount of work. For a normal sprint (i.e executing on plans and agreed upon designs) I try to plan the day to be ~6 hours of coding work a day. Sometimes my estimates are long and I finish in 4 or 5 hours. Could I start on the next card? Absolutely. And if I finish all my work early, I'll pull something from the backlog. But in general, I find it more sustainable to just go home after I finish in 5 hours because I know there are going to be times that I work 10 or 12 hours (or a Saturday). Also, for me, depending on the next card, it might take an hour or so to get going at the end of a day. So I'm now at 7 to 8 hours which is when I normally leave. Was that hour or two wasted? No. I retain the knowledge till the next day. But again for me, I've found that coming in and starting a new task fresh reduces that one or two hours to less and gives me a singular focus for the day. If I finish in 2 or 3 hours, I always move on to the next task. That would be silly to go home after 2 hours (most days). I adapt this style for wherever I work. It has worked for me at start ups as well as BigCo. [Update] For the side things (refactoring messy code, flakey tests, automating a tedious process, etc.) - I create cards/tasks for them and get them into the sprint. I know this makes me sound like a "terrible" employee. But it allows me to give my best on a more sustainable basis. And if it is something that truly needs to be done in a month, I'll work those 10 or 12 hour 7 day work weeks...
  - tokenizerrr 10y ago
    How do your coworkers feel about you only being a few hours at the office?
    - dilemma 10y ago
      They probably make snide remarks because they don't understand that someone executing according to plan, consistently over several years and projects, working 5 hours per day, is more valuable than someone working 8 hours in a less organized manner and sometimes missing deadlines.
      - dingaling 10y ago
        It sounds like you're only allocated to one project at a time, correct? In many big corps it's common to be on four or five projects at any one time. Finishing one discrete piece of work is only a signal for the next project manager to appear at my desk and demand that I get working on his piece of work. And I can see his perspective, he doesn't particularly care if i was super-productive that day on Project-A when he's managing Project-B and there are still hours left in the working day.

tucaz 10y ago

How do you assess "finished my work"? Unless you are working on tickets that might stop coming in is really hard to be "out of work", specially in projects. I ask this because I see a lot of people saying the same but there's always more work to do, being testing something that should be working, fixing bugs, refactoring that old piece of junk you left behind due to times constraints, etc.

justrudd 10y ago
For me, it starts during sprint planning. I know what work is going into the sprint, and what work is being assigned to me (we don't run sprints in the natural way of grabbing the next card that's free. I disagree with it, but it is what it is). So I plan out what I need to do on a day-to-day basis to finish that amount of work. For a normal sprint (i.e executing on plans and agreed upon designs) I try to plan the day to be ~6 hours of coding work a day. Sometimes my estimates are long and I finish in 4 or 5 hours. Could I start on the next card? Absolutely. And if I finish all my work early, I'll pull something from the backlog. But in general, I find it more sustainable to just go home after I finish in 5 hours because I know there are going to be times that I work 10 or 12 hours (or a Saturday). Also, for me, depending on the next card, it might take an hour or so to get going at the end of a day. So I'm now at 7 to 8 hours which is when I normally leave. Was that hour or two wasted? No. I retain the knowledge till the next day. But again for me, I've found that coming in and starting a new task fresh reduces that one or two hours to less and gives me a singular focus for the day. If I finish in 2 or 3 hours, I always move on to the next task. That would be silly to go home after 2 hours (most days). I adapt this style for wherever I work. It has worked for me at start ups as well as BigCo. [Update] For the side things (refactoring messy code, flakey tests, automating a tedious process, etc.) - I create cards/tasks for them and get them into the sprint. I know this makes me sound like a "terrible" employee. But it allows me to give my best on a more sustainable basis. And if it is something that truly needs to be done in a month, I'll work those 10 or 12 hour 7 day work weeks...
- tokenizerrr 10y ago
  How do your coworkers feel about you only being a few hours at the office?
  - dilemma 10y ago
    They probably make snide remarks because they don't understand that someone executing according to plan, consistently over several years and projects, working 5 hours per day, is more valuable than someone working 8 hours in a less organized manner and sometimes missing deadlines.
    - dingaling 10y ago
      It sounds like you're only allocated to one project at a time, correct? In many big corps it's common to be on four or five projects at any one time. Finishing one discrete piece of work is only a signal for the next project manager to appear at my desk and demand that I get working on his piece of work. And I can see his perspective, he doesn't particularly care if i was super-productive that day on Project-A when he's managing Project-B and there are still hours left in the working day.