11 ms·

Going for the 5 hour workday

334 points by kristerv 9y ago

mto 9y ago
I'm a remote freelancer and currently also doing 25h/week but usually distributed over 7 days. Originally started because the birth of my daughter but I've quickly noticed how my productivity increased. I think it's even more than my productivity in 40h in the office (also because I could never really relax there). I used to have the "I hate everything and being locked up in that office all day long is awful" moments every 3 months. Now my motivation stays roughly the same over the year.
whatnotests 9y ago
/me looks at clock, laughs, gets back to work.
- thinkMOAR 9y ago
  at least you are allowed (i assume) to check HN every now and then during office/work hours? There is always worse :)
  - whatnotests 9y ago
    Yeah mostly on HN while: * Tests are running. * long-running scripts are running. * Code is compiling. * Database is importing. * Files are copying. * etc Thank goodness for this site and a few others.
    - jk563 9y ago
      Perhaps you should master the art of sword-fighting in this time instead? https://xkcd.com/303/ https://xkcd.com/303/
    - ssijak 9y ago
      What do you compile, linux source?
      - whatnotests 9y ago
        * "Compiling" static assets (CSS/JS) on a JRuby-on-Rails project from 2012. * docker build -t whatever -f some/Dockerfile . * aws cloudformation update-stack ...
dasmoth 9y ago
Great to see people trying things like this! But... Ctrl-F "commute"? Nope, don't see anything. Are you either remote or living very close to the office? Having more than a few minutes of commute does potentially change the trade-offs.
- danieldisu 9y ago
  When you only have to work for 6 hours it's very easy to avoid the more congested hours. Allowing you to get to work by routes that normally are collapsed, or just using the same route and getting there 15+ minutes earlier because there are no traffic. I think is a win-win
  - Asooka 9y ago
    I used to work 6 hours and commuted each day by bike for a total of 2 hours of commute. It was the best. You do your work AND get your daily exercise AND have 8 hours left over.
    - rockostrich 9y ago
      You had a 1 hour commute each way by bike? Did you live 13+ miles away or did you just take a leisurely pace?
      - Asooka 9y ago
        It was ~10km in a straight line uphill. Our roads aren't really built for bikes and I don't want to become a smudge on the road, so my route was more meandering to avoid every large straight road possible. My absolute fastest was 32 minutes going work->home downhill, taking the usually unsafe roads, because traffic was unusually low for that day. After I bought a velocimeter and used it for a while, my average speed was about 14km/h.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  I do commute, this gives me roughly 2x50 minutes of time in the train. Since I have a 4/5 work schedule, I'd say I have 2x50 minx4 days + 8 = +- 14 hours free time a week (week end and evenings are family time).
shubhamjain 9y ago
Given a choice, I think 8x4 would be more sensible in terms of benefits. The best use of free time is enjoyable experiences outside work, which is more doable when you have it without interruptions of a work schedule. Five hours a day is awesome if you have a hobby or a side project; not so much if you want to travel. The second reason is the time it takes to level up and actually start working. Honestly, this could be lessened if I didn't check reddit & HN first thing after I start working but I have grown a bit habitual to it. At any given day, five hours of focused work is much better than eight hours filled with distractions, but I haven't found the magical solution to make that (super-focused work) happen. Personally, I don't have much of an issue with working hours. The main issue is I can't enjoy long stretches of vacation. Yes, it's possible to sacrifice some of your salary to go wild, but you can't do it without getting a frown from your superiors.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  Right now I work 4 days out of 5. I'm paid 4 and my retirement plan will be 4/5th too. But at the same time, I work on personal projects. I also choose my day off on tuesday. Because tuesday is not an extended weekend, so it's "my own projects day" and it's the first day like that in the week so I'm not tired like I'd be on, say thursday. I have to work until 67 in my country. So when I'll be off, I'll be way to tired to start new stuff. Moreover, after 50 years old, I'll get a good chance of getting cancer or some other life-changing disease. So I think it's better if I take my time right now... Final note : this holds because my job is not a dream job, so my return-on-time-investment is weak (I don't consider the ability to buy a big car or around-the-world vacations, or top-notch-phone to be a good return on the time I spend at work)
  - ianai 9y ago
    What's the job? I would like that flexibility.
    - wiz21c 9y ago
      Your regular IT manager. I work in a private company and my skills are rented to governments. I like it because it's private but the benefit of my work helps others. I worked in other industries and the balance was not like that; it was more my boss makes a ton of money on me, selling stuff that I don't consider much...
theparanoid 9y ago
I wish more companies offered less than 40hrs/wk. But, hey, most places don't like even giving vacation. I'd rather commit seppuku than go back to a 40hr office.
- dceddia 9y ago
  What do you do now?
heiti 9y ago
Have you also done anything about trying to find out why you have trouble focusing? I read some older article from your blog also and got the feeling you have been taking yourself as a static thing and that the things around you need to change for you to feel better. Or did i get that wrong?
- kristerv 9y ago
  Interesting view. I would myself say I've tried a lot of things and I wish I could be contempt with what I have, but it just never works out this way. However I'm totally open for suggestions, since I'm really willing to try anything (but "suck it up"). Also I have tried figuring out what's wrong/different about me and I have no answer. I've actually have had situations where I'm grateful for having a job at all, but the positivity only lasts a few weeks.
onion2k 9y ago
But since I'm giving the company the best hours of the day I would ask 80% of pay for the 60% of workload. The author states that he's able to work with fewer distractions and better concentration when it's a 5 hour day, so everyone's a winner - he gets more time, he gets the same amount of work done, and the company saves money. I can imagine it works very well in the author's circumstances. But how many workers are in the same situation? For a start, very few people can afford a 20% cut to their pay. Anyone in that situation is out. For businesses that pay people enough that they could afford a 20% pay cut, such as the big high profile IT companies, the business is usually awash with cash; they need people to do more work and are willing to pay overtime for them to do it. Saving 20% of the wage bill is no incentive. Lastly, as dasmoth points out, if you have a commute then you'd just be increasing the relative amount of time you're travelling compared to working, which I imagine would make it feel much worse. I have a 30 minute commute each way and when I do a half day it feels like a huge waste of time. As a solution when it's appropriate I think it's great, but I doubt it's applicable to many people.
- alkonaut 9y ago
  > But how many workers are in the same situation? Most software developers, I'd guess > very few people can afford a 20% cut to their pay. Anyone in that situation is out. True, but among software devs it's proably a lot more common than in the rest of the population > Saving 20% of the wage bill is no incentive. It's the same argument as why businesses want workers to do 50h weeks and not 40. It's hard to find two talented persons so they find one and hope he'll work more. What they aren't seeing is that they'll have to find a replacement for him within just a couple of years. The incentive for the business must come from the fact that once this is widespread enough, talented people aren't going to want to work for the old "we expect you to be here 40-50h" businesses. > if you have a commute then you'd just be increasing the relative amount of time you're travelling compared to working, which I imagine would make it feel much worse. This is important. First, if you have a 1h commute it makes no sense to go to an office every day and do 5h as you point out. For some it would make more sense to work 2-6 days a week from home, thereby reducing the number of commute hours per work hour. For others, it would make most sense to do 4x6 instead of 5x5 hours etc. Also (and this is very important) if you do commute it's important to be able to work during the commute. A 1h train ride is easy to convert to work (even if it's not productive work but at least being available for chat questions, catching up with email etc) but a 1h car ride is not.
jlebrech 9y ago
It's already a 5 hour work day, it's just inside of an 8 hour attendance day.
- Marinlemaignan 9y ago
  ahah yes, true, and this makes people like he and i mad, i guess some kind of hyperactivity.
  - edem 9y ago
    It is not hyperactivity, more like a waste of my time.
- dovdovdov 9y ago
  More like a let's touch that code for an hour or so day. ;)
  - bbcbasic 9y ago
    Od the coding time. I spend 95% time looking at code and 5% coding.
  - pawadu 9y ago
    After that lets have a meeting!
    - hacksonx 9y ago
      Just finished a 2 month project without having a single meeting with business and I must say, things are much better. Business never told me directly what to do and I never told them directly how long something would take me. Best approach ever.
      - avoutthere 9y ago
        This works wonderfully if everybody involved acts rationally and professionally. Otherwise, it can quickly become a nightmare.
EZ-E 9y ago
One issue is that most companies would take a person asking for a lighter work hours as lazy, or not motivated No matter the company, there will always have "that" vibe when wanting less hours, unless they are specifically seeking a part time "What's wrong, don't you want to work 50 hours a week like the rest of us ? What's the matter ? Not motivated ?"
- cr1895 9y ago
  For a different perspective, consider the Netherlands where the right to work part-time is enshrined in law. It's really common for people to switch to 36 or 32 hours having previously worked 40 hours full-time, and it's culturally acceptable and isn't seen as lazy or unmotivated. http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/economist-explains-12 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/ec...
  - skrebbel 9y ago
    True. That said, working many short days isn't very common. Nearly all parttimers work 3 or 4 8-hour days a week.
  - roel_v 9y ago
    "and it's culturally acceptable and isn't seen as lazy or unmotivated" Uh, you should probably add to that "... by other people who work part time". There most certainly is a career bias against part time workers. Sure, in some sectors it might be worse than others, and not all of it is that explicit - but come promotion time, working part time gives you a severe handicap.
    - cr1895 9y ago
      Well, no, I wouldn't add that because plenty who work full-time don't see part-timers as lazy or unmotivated (or may intend to do so themselves at some point if they have a kid, for example). And sure...it may indeed be the case for some that promotions are slower to come by not working full-time. Hardly strange- if you work fewer hours, your experience will accrue more slowly. But this is separate from cultural acceptability or value judgments by your coworkers/employer: one can be productive and motivated for 36 hours a week, just as one can be lazy and unmotivated for 40.
Zelmor 9y ago
2 weeks is not enough of a dataset. Habits have to be unlearned and off-work time reorganized. Come back in a year. Also, it would be better to ask the manager's observations regarding productivity. Biases and all, you see.
- kristerv 9y ago
  will do :)
jrumbut 9y ago
I really wish more companies would be willing to do this, as a childless adult I have no need for more than 20 hours worth of pay, and my health definitely benefits on a lighter schedule. Currently I'm achieving this through contracting but I would much rather have a more typical employment situation to reduce the administrative burden and the need for sales.
- prawn 9y ago
  Is there an issue with a part-time job that was either 2-3 days/week or 0.5 FTE spread across the week? There are countless part-time jobs out there.
  - jrumbut 9y ago
    There are countless part time jobs, but fewer interesting ones. That's a little picky on my side, however at the same time there are so many companies looking for developers full time you would think a few more would become part time friendly as a way to differentiate themselves.
    - prawn 9y ago
      I don't see how your wish for a "typical employment situation" intersects with a preference for "interesting" jobs. ;)
- wfunction 9y ago
  > I really wish more companies would be willing to do this, as a childless adult I have no need for more than 20 hours worth of pay, and my health definitely benefits on a lighter schedule. Pardon my ignorance but in your view how is having a child supposed to push this in the other direction? Do you see having a child as an opportunity/reason to raise the 20 hours/week to 40 hours/week and stay away from home longer? Because I thought the point of raising children was so you could spend some of your time raising a family, and my impression was most older people would rather be with their families than at work. Do you see yourself wishing that you could work 40 hours when you have children or something? Wouldn't it make more sense to work more now and save for that future instead so you don't have to work as hard then?
ianai 9y ago
The reason hourly employees are to be paid time and a half in the US is to incentivize companies to hire more people. Decreasing the full time/OT line increases the demand for labor. I just wish I knew how to make that thought agreeable in the US.
- mac01021 9y ago
  > I just wish I knew how to make that thought agreeable in the US. Maybe relieving employers of the need to provide all full time employees with fringe benefits (ie. medical insurance)? I don't know if this means we need a publicly funded, single-payer, healthcare system, or if there is a more attractive solution. But the way a person's healthcare is tied to their employer in this country is rather bizarre, and I'm sure it is widely regarded by businesses as an incentive to avoid brining on more full-time people.
  - LordKano 9y ago
    Maybe relieving employers of the need to provide all full time employees with fringe benefits (ie. medical insurance)? Even before it was legally mandated, market forces made it virtually impossible to not offer it for full-time skilled labor. Why would I work for you when I can go to your competitor, work for them and get medical insurance? Even if I was in a position where I needed a job, as soon as I can leave, I'm going to go elsewhere.
    - mac01021 9y ago
      Why don't the same market forces drive my employer to buy gas for my car or give me gift cards to amazon or walmart?
      - LordKano 9y ago
        Ask for that in your next salary negotiation.
lbill 9y ago
My contract specifies a 7.5h workday... But I do only 6h/day, and so do most of my colleagues. I am very lucky: I live in France, this country has a strong culture of "stay late at work and the boss will like you", yet my firm does not care about that. It cares about getting sh*t done. This is a broader subject than "work hours": my firm thinks that staying more hour to procrastinate is not not useful, and it believes that employees are more efficient when they are happy! In order to have an efficient workforce and less turnover, I think any business should try to answer: "for each employee: what conditions does he/she need to be happy at work?".
- briandear 9y ago
  You definitely have a dream job for France! I live here too but I am "lucky" to work for US employers remotely but from what I have seen at traditional French companies your situation is unusual. I hope that those ideas start to spread across French business culture!
puranjay 9y ago
I've always worked from home (freelanced, then started a remote company). Never actually been to a regular office. Recently, I joined a coworking space. I used to think that I'm "unproductive", but after seeing how others actually work, I'm surprised that businesses get any work done at all. I'll be amazed if most employees work at more than 60% productivity.
- IshKebab 9y ago
  I think 60% is high...
- 3princip 9y ago
  I've worked in offices, now working from home. A few hours a day is enough to be considered exceptionally productive in terms of coding for me, this leaves a lot of time for other productivity, family, work around the house. In an office environment the rest of the time is spent looking busy. A surprising number of people will not admit it and will very adamently deny that they are not being productive, yet output shows differently. But then there are meetings. Factoring in meetings takes a lot of time. Endless talk about improving process... The flip-side of focusing on productivity and less so on actively participating in meetings or scheduling them is getting stuck in a coding job, being remote and not active in pursuing promotions the companies I work for usually fall back to relying on me for good code and meeting/exceeding planned output and that's it. In my experience, if you have the goal of moving up a company hierarchy, you have to put on a show that you are a busy which has little to do with output (code) and lots to do with appearences (lot's of talking).
- kristerv 9y ago
  haha, I sometimes wonder the same :)
dvcrn 9y ago
I am very very interested in this myself. I proposed something similar to my current company but got refused. I experimented with different hours off on certain days and found that the thing that would turn me into a productivity monster would be a 4-5h work day with remote option. But now try to find something like this (especially in Asia). Despite loving my current job, I think if I would get a counter offer from a company with these benefits, I would probably quit right away. I am personally not a office bee and dislike leaving when it's dark. I'm drained of all my motivation and the darkness makes me just want to go home, watch a YouTube video and sleep, just to repeat the same cycle again. I managed to counter this fairly successfully by working outside of cafes that have terraces and picking a new location every day. My motivation and productivity level stays up longer and the drain is reduced, but now if I just had more time...
unlmtd 9y ago
Hourly wages are inefficient. Contract everything instead; it allows for better productivity and way more accurate accounting.
arien 9y ago
I went through some kind of burnout as well last year (more related to personal stuff than work itself) and decided to take a long vacation. I didn't want to go back to the usual schedule and risk having the same issue again in a year or two, so I decided to work part time when I came back. So, now I work Monday to Wednesday and have Thursday to Sunday free. This means I only have three days per week to make an impact on the company (as opposed to the ones who work full time), so I find myself really focused. My productivity vs before has skyrocketed. What do I do on my extra days? Sometimes I go out, sometimes I just do nothing and relax, sometimes I do small side contracts or personal projects. I hope one of these takes off one day and allow me to recover the money I gave up when switching to part time. At least now I've got the energy to work on them.
bbcbasic 9y ago
Just had my weekly Wednesday off (oceanic the zone) and spent 3 hours working on my side hussle that is a web store. Tweaked the theme, analysed ad data and set up some new ad tests. I felt super productive getting as much done as might take 8 hours if the work was "jobified". Spent rest of day trying out mattresses, getting a massage, cooking fish and watching star trek. Hoping I'm successful so that every day can be like this!
sshb 9y ago
On Sweden's 6-hour workday: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/efficiency-up-turnover-down-sweden-experiments-with-six-hour-working-day https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/efficiency-up-...
yosefk 9y ago
I've tried both 5 short workdays and 3 longer workdays. I like 3 longer workdays better. A full day for work and a full day for something else mean, to me, that I can focus more fully on work and then focus more fully on something else. A "half work, half not work" day means, to me, that I can't quite focus on either. TFA presents the shorter week [the alternative to a shorter day] as 3 consecutive days; I prefer interleaving work and non-work days, so as to neither be absent from work for 2 days in a row, nor work for 2 days in a row.
- hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago
  I worked the 3x10 schedule for a while, I loved it! Unfortunately, my boss insisted I come back to work full-time.
ensiferum 9y ago
As so often is the case the post highlights how work gets in the way of life. Should have been born rich ;-)
wastedhours 9y ago
Also worth realising that in a lot of companies you're not being paid for your output, you're being paid for a certain amount of access to your brain. The value in your job isn't your output, it's the organisational outcomes that occur as a result of you doing what ya do. Some companies are fine and built around the outcomes of 5 hours a day of your code. Some organisations though really want 8 hours a day of access to those sweet, sweet neurons. Even if the constant interruptions, meetings and feelings of unproductivity are side effects, perhaps they value the outcomes of 2 hours a day of your code and the value sharing that comes from an inane question at 17:59, more than absolute output. Not saying the latter is more efficient or should be right, but just showing there's different value companies derive from their employees over and above project deliverables.
- ldp01 9y ago
  Absolutely. There are plenty of examples where the job completely dictates the hours: Operational roles can either require shifts, or on-call availability. And hours only get worse for people with critical skillsets!
- Asooka 9y ago
  Is that really true, or is it just a well-sounding rationalisation we tell ourselves to avoid doing anything to make things better?
  - wastedhours 9y ago
    Granted, I specialise in well-sounding rationalisations ;) however, I do think it's true for some knowledge worker jobs that it's not just the direct knowledge we impart into a specific project, but the knowledge distributed within a company. I know that I've learnt things from meetings where it's evidently a burden/"waste of time" for the party I'm gaining from, and likewise, am fairly certain I've delivered value to others when it's been a waste for me. It might not be the best way of handling it, but some organisations are designed to work that way, and as much as we can try and mould where we work around us, sometimes it's just a different dynamic.
  - 9y ago
wcummings 9y ago
If a company starting doing this, it would be a real boon for recruiting. It's pretty hard to compete w/.
gkya 9y ago
I know this is off-topic, but I hate the st ligature, so out of place... I mean it's a screen I'm looking at, not press-printed paper, no need to save on fonts.
davidgerard 9y ago
The word "commute" is missing from this essay.
- ghaff 9y ago
  More broadly, there's overhead and limitations imposed by having to work on a given day. Even if you're working a short day, you usually can't take off and do a substantial recreational activity or really jump into some project. People differ of course, but a 3-day weekend is worth a whole lot more to me than somewhat shorter days.
Asooka 9y ago
Well, programming isn't really traditional work. You know, W=F×s We don't apply a lot of F and definitely don't move a long s, so at the end of the day there isn't a lot of W we've done. I think it's useful to think of the Puritanian work ethic briefly mentioned in this article, together with the recent article about running modern society on human power alone. Back in the day, we really did run a lot of things on human power. Yes, for the really long s, we used large animals capable of sustaining a great deal of F throughout the day, but other than that, a lot of stuff was done by hand. If you don't apply your share of the F, you literally don't have food to eat. The goods you had were a direct product of hand labour, every bread was made with a nontrivial amount of calories expended by human muscle. As we see, the more you work your muscles, the better they start working - that's the basic premise of exercise and getting in shape. However, your brain doesn't quite work like that. You can over-exert your mind much more easily than you can your muscles and it just doesn't recover as well as them. For your muscle, the cycle is work->muscle hurts->muscle recovers->work hurts you less now. For your mind, the cycle is the other way around work->you get burned out->you recover->you now burn out more easily. This fundamental difference in the nature of work in the knowledge economy is what we should focus on, to overcome the work ethic, traditions and employer-employee regulations, that were formed in the time when 1 bread = lots and lots of calories expended by muscle.
readittwice 9y ago
There is another point to consider: Getting 20% less money, doesn't necessarily also mean 20% less money after taxes. When I was working part-time (20h per week) while studying, working full-time during summer meant this: ~90% more work (from 20h to 38.5h) but only ~60% higher salary (after taxes). So I just continued to work part-time in holidays and enjoyed summer. In my country higher salary means higher taxes, working less hours therefore means paying less taxes because of a lower salary. Taxes don't consider the number of hours you work. Although you need to consider that you also pay less e.g. into your pensions fund, some of your additional salary is "just" taxed away. When working 20h the difference for me was substantial, right now not so much. But that may be different for you.
kareemm 9y ago
Reminds me of a buddy's 5 year plan. He owned 50% of a company that he bootstrapped to 8 figures in revenue; his co-founder owned the other 50%. Here's his 5 year plan: Year 1: work 4 days a week Year 2: work 3 days a week Year 3: work 2 days a week Year 4: work 1 day a week Year 5: cash cheques, spend time with his family, and do adventure sports full time
Azeralthefallen 9y ago
I actually worked at a company who tried something similar to this (6 hours/5 days) for about ~2 months, and it worked for a little while. Unfortunately we found a lot of problems with this: - People who started early (~7am), left really early, and people who like to start much later (~10am). This led to only ~3 hour overlap time period when the majority of the dev team was in. There was a small effort to normalize the start times, but we could never find a common time that worked for everyone. - I felt this put an obscene amount of pressure on some people (including myself) more so than others. - People hate meetings, people beg and cry that meetings are a waste, but the bitter reality is ether you get everyone on the same page at once, or you need to do it separately, which becomes even more pressure for certain people. Combine this with the limited time when you can guarantee the majority of dev will be in, makes it difficult. - The coop/intern students i felt got shafted hard by this, since time is so much more valuable during that two months they often got very little direction. - I also personally found that about 6 of us (team leads/seniors) ended up with much more pressure, and stress due to trying to force 8 hours of work into 6 hours of a day. In the end we ended up giving up on the idea, due in combination to other departments complaining, some HR payroll issues, and problems with coverage.
- matrix 9y ago
  This highlights something about our industry that I find a little weird. Collectively we want to be respected as professionals, yet feel it's ok come into work whenever it pleases us despite its impact on the team. In my view, a true professional shows up and gets the job done, no matter what. Asking employees to show up at 9 am on a reasonably consistent basis so that the team can work effectively seems like a pretty low bar to me (except in the case of special personal circumstances, of course).
  - loader 9y ago
    Especially when you're telling them they only need to work 6 hours. If my boss said we're moving to 6 hours a day, I'll be pretty happy to oblige and be in when they need me.
  - krausejj 9y ago
erikb 9y ago
I find that 20 and 25 hours is too little. You need to spend a considerable time in office just to be part of what's going on. However 30-35h where perfect. You get stuff done, you are not too far out of the loop, especially if others do the same, you are still able to rest enough.
ryandrake 9y ago
Lot of people in this thread saying they'd be willing to work N% hours less for N% less pay. Am I the only one living in a high cost of living area, for which the opposite is true? I'd be totally for working more but getting paid more. At this point in my life, mid-life crisis age, I am starting to notice time stalking me, realizing my inadequate retirement savings, and wondering how many more at-bats I'm going to have before it's time to walk away from the baseball game. Am I going to have to eat dog food when I retire? What's my kid's college going to cost? Will I ever be able to afford a vacation? Who really has comfortable answers to these questions? Why on earth would you choose to work and get paid less than you can, while you are young and capable?? I look back and wish I had worked multiple jobs when I was younger, not that I had fewer hours.
- stevenkovar 9y ago
  Personal anecdote, but working less helped me both enjoy life more and secure a better future for myself. Downtime isn't a loss of productivity. It's when you let your subconscious do its job—making gut decisions, allowing ideas to overlap one another, omitting the non-essential. It's key for creativity, and creativity is what helps you spot opportunities. It sounds like you're stuck in an uncomfortable loop. What's working amazingly well in your life right now? What's not? Double down on what is going well for you and free yourself from the obligation of maintaining the rest. You zero out your inbox, why not your stressbox? What obligations can you walk away from to give yourself time to do what matters?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mholmes680 9y ago
  sounds like you're in NJ too... I feel this way, but maybe less in "crisis" mode. My focus now is working smarter, not longer. (and my kids will have to earn their own college money because thats the only option, I'm not certain college will be the same thing in 15 years anyway. I will train them to be robot repairmen/women as a backup plan)
- cr1895 9y ago
  >Who really has comfortable answers to these questions? Depends on your level of comfort and future ambitions, of course, but if you live in a country with low(er) cost of living, strong social safety nets, tuition/healthcare costs minor issues, etc. then spending more of your (young) life outside of an office may be very attractive. Which is probably why part-time work is relatively popular in the Netherlands, that and strong desire for a healthy work/life balance.
krambs 9y ago
I remember the Heroku founders espoused 6 hour work days for developers. They felt that this was the daily limit for creative workers - and that there was not only diminishing returns after 6 hours, but potentially negative ones (due to bad decisions made when overworked).
n1vz3r 9y ago
I track all my billable time for last 7 years. My average is 4:30 billable hours a day and I can confirm that every period of over-working ends with equal or longer period of under-working. So the 4:30 is like a gold number. I stopped to fight with this, and now after 4:30 hours I happily clock out and go home. (Yes, I'm self-employeed). This way the only reasonable strategy to earn more without having health issues is to bill more per hour. Exception to this 4:30 rule is non-programming work that doesn't require high concentration: visual design, reports, configuration, CSS tweaks etc - I can do it pretty much non-stop for whole day.
- tclancy 9y ago
  >every period of over-working ends with equal or longer period of under-working I've only recently come to accept this. I've recently hit a period of too many clients showing up at one time and I now feel stupid when I work on the weekend because I know that kind of "heroic" effort will be balanced out by me goofing off on Monday.
  - mpfundstein 9y ago
    and thats precisely the cool thing. i made 4k last weekend working on a video encoder. delivered and now goof of since then
- athenot 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing this! That does beg the question: how much non-billable time do you have? Being self-employed, you have a very acute insight as to what's billable and what is not, but in a typical salaried position, eveything is lumped together. I'd be curious to know if your total time is closer to 8 hours/day once you factor in estimates, leads, customer travel, accounting and all the stuff that comes with your own structure. On a related note, it's useful to know the ratio of billable vs. overhead. All too often, people new to the self-employed world plan for unrealistic billing hours and forget about this overhead.
  - n1vz3r 9y ago
    Since I rarely begin new projects and have several loyal clients, overhead such as bookkeeping, estimates and talks is relatively small. (Especially estimates: usually I don't estimate at all, just get the work done and bill for it later; and most talks and customer travel, when still unavoidable, are done by my partner who is non-programmer). This works other way too: I usually avoid new clients to minimize overhead. Also the overhead is exactly the reason I don't hire people: time and energy to spend on management are tremendous and up to this moment I wasn't been able both to hire someone and make profit from it. So, my model doesn't work well for teams. Or maybe I suck at management. Another problem is time spent idling: my time in the office varies from 5 to 8 hours, when I switch from tasks I'm often distracted by non-work things such as reading news, lunch, occasional gaming. The main non-obvious downside with pay-by-hour model is that when I try to be more effective, I spend more energy, but get less money. P.S. Can't provide exact numbers now because not in the office.
jblow 9y ago
I had this same kind of personality / mental condition, and I am going to say, if he is really of the same personality type, 5-hour days are not going to help this author in the long term. What is helping his mood is not really the shorter day, but the hope of having made a short-term structural change that might fix things. The thing is, it won't. He already mentions at the end that burnouts are back. Well, pretty soon the 5-hour days will be feeling too long and he will be 'unable' to do them. Then what? 3-hour days? The fundamental problem is that he doesn't actually want to be doing what he is doing, despite the rhetoric of "great team and awesome project". Come on, is that really how you feel about it deep in your heart, or is it empty SV rhetoric? Two things will help this author: (1) Strike out on your own, following your own motivation only. Yes you have to figure out how to make ends meet financially, but that is your lot in life. Fortunately it is easier to do this with computers than in most other fields. (2) Meditate, learn to observe your mind and why it does what it does, so that you don't feel powerless or subservient to things like burnout. It's hard to explain the transformation that takes place, but being able to stand next to or outside these mental processes is very powerful.
- Danihan 9y ago
  Exactly. If you love what you're doing and feel challenged in the _right_ way, 17 hour days will generally feel like a difficult but worthwhile gift. Back in the day, I used to love working 16-20 hour shifts (unlimited overtime) in a tech-support call center. I was in my early twenties, and while most people hated tech support, I felt like every call I took got people connected to the internet, where who knew what they could accomplish, look-up, research, etc. I was genuinely helping hundreds of people a day get online, it felt great. Versus, if you hate hate hate what you're doing, you'll feel burned out after a few hours a week. And you could fall anywhere in between too. I've felt both extremes working in the same position at different times, depending on the circumstances.
  - jblow 9y ago
    I don't think it has to be explicit hate-of-the-job for burnout to occur. For me personally it was just lack of meaning in that job. I didn't, deep down, feel that it was very important, or the right thing for me to be doing. It was just the thing I was doing because I didn't have anything better to do.
waivej 9y ago
Back when I worked for someone else, I switched to part time after I had been there several years. I would work Mon, Tues, Thurs and got paid 60% of my previous salary. I was more productive than ever and came to the office having thought through things and ready to type it out. I also didn't notice the drop in salary because I had time to repair things and didn't "buy" progress in hobbies. I also had time to design things for work while sitting in a convertible by a lake rather than a drab office. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Sometimes I wish I could do the same thing working for myself but the situation is different. The only tough part was not having time to socialize with coworkers. They would take breaks and talk about things but I felt my time was so precious that I wanted to get my work done.
- pc86 9y ago
  This does seem nice, but if I'm being honest with myself if I was only working 3/5 of the time for 3/5 of the pay, the last thing I'd be doing in a convertible by the lake was work. :) M/T/H does seem better than M/T/W or M/W/F though.
korzun 9y ago
You can't measure engineering productivity over a span of a couple of weeks. You can't compare the output from week X to week Y unless the test conditions and subjects are completely in-sync. We all know that would be impossible. Here, the author claims there is a change in productivity, all the way down to a %. There is nothing scientific behind this; you might as well let your cat pick the numbers. They will be just as valid.
kenbolton 9y ago
I started doing four hour workdays about eight years ago. Every day is a potential workday, and some rare workdays are two! I don't find it burdensome to have a month-long streak of working every day at this pace. And if I "miss" a day (or week), it isn't the end of the world. I have a seasonal side-hustle that includes the occasional 12-hour workday and even multi-day 24 hour stretches. Funny side-effect is an increase in code quality and productivity during the season.
irrational 9y ago
How would I have time to both do my work and read Hacker News with only 5 hours in my workday?
bufordsharkley 9y ago
> Free time has filled up. I still get more stuff done, but personal development still requires proper scheduling and planning. The allure of "I'll have time for everything" has gone. Yes: it's not the working for 8 hours, but rather the limited time left after the 8 hours is over. There is so much more in my life than what others will pay me to do, and I'd have so much more energy for work if I was given more of my time back to pursue it...
galfarragem 9y ago
My dream workday: From 6:15am to 9:00am, work alone at home. Get ready and 15 minutes walk/cycle to an office. From 9:30am to 12:45pm, team work. 6h/day (3h on Friday), 27h/week. Wednesday and Friday work from home only.
krausejj 9y ago
Why not be a freelancer? Work when you want to; earn market rent for your time; and balance your need for leisure time (which may differ from others') with your need for compensation (and, maybe some other gratification if you love your job). We are all free agents, even if it doesn't always feel that way in a traditional job.

334 points by kristerv 9y ago

mto 9y ago

I'm a remote freelancer and currently also doing 25h/week but usually distributed over 7 days. Originally started because the birth of my daughter but I've quickly noticed how my productivity increased. I think it's even more than my productivity in 40h in the office (also because I could never really relax there). I used to have the "I hate everything and being locked up in that office all day long is awful" moments every 3 months. Now my motivation stays roughly the same over the year.

whatnotests 9y ago

/me looks at clock, laughs, gets back to work.

thinkMOAR 9y ago
at least you are allowed (i assume) to check HN every now and then during office/work hours? There is always worse :)
- whatnotests 9y ago
  Yeah mostly on HN while: * Tests are running. * long-running scripts are running. * Code is compiling. * Database is importing. * Files are copying. * etc Thank goodness for this site and a few others.
  - jk563 9y ago
    Perhaps you should master the art of sword-fighting in this time instead? https://xkcd.com/303/ https://xkcd.com/303/
  - ssijak 9y ago
    What do you compile, linux source?
    - whatnotests 9y ago
      * "Compiling" static assets (CSS/JS) on a JRuby-on-Rails project from 2012. * docker build -t whatever -f some/Dockerfile . * aws cloudformation update-stack ...

dasmoth 9y ago

Great to see people trying things like this! But... Ctrl-F "commute"? Nope, don't see anything. Are you either remote or living very close to the office? Having more than a few minutes of commute does potentially change the trade-offs.

danieldisu 9y ago
When you only have to work for 6 hours it's very easy to avoid the more congested hours. Allowing you to get to work by routes that normally are collapsed, or just using the same route and getting there 15+ minutes earlier because there are no traffic. I think is a win-win
- Asooka 9y ago
  I used to work 6 hours and commuted each day by bike for a total of 2 hours of commute. It was the best. You do your work AND get your daily exercise AND have 8 hours left over.
  - rockostrich 9y ago
    You had a 1 hour commute each way by bike? Did you live 13+ miles away or did you just take a leisurely pace?
    - Asooka 9y ago
      It was ~10km in a straight line uphill. Our roads aren't really built for bikes and I don't want to become a smudge on the road, so my route was more meandering to avoid every large straight road possible. My absolute fastest was 32 minutes going work->home downhill, taking the usually unsafe roads, because traffic was unusually low for that day. After I bought a velocimeter and used it for a while, my average speed was about 14km/h.
wiz21c 9y ago
I do commute, this gives me roughly 2x50 minutes of time in the train. Since I have a 4/5 work schedule, I'd say I have 2x50 minx4 days + 8 = +- 14 hours free time a week (week end and evenings are family time).

shubhamjain 9y ago

Given a choice, I think 8x4 would be more sensible in terms of benefits. The best use of free time is enjoyable experiences outside work, which is more doable when you have it without interruptions of a work schedule. Five hours a day is awesome if you have a hobby or a side project; not so much if you want to travel. The second reason is the time it takes to level up and actually start working. Honestly, this could be lessened if I didn't check reddit & HN first thing after I start working but I have grown a bit habitual to it. At any given day, five hours of focused work is much better than eight hours filled with distractions, but I haven't found the magical solution to make that (super-focused work) happen. Personally, I don't have much of an issue with working hours. The main issue is I can't enjoy long stretches of vacation. Yes, it's possible to sacrifice some of your salary to go wild, but you can't do it without getting a frown from your superiors.

wiz21c 9y ago
Right now I work 4 days out of 5. I'm paid 4 and my retirement plan will be 4/5th too. But at the same time, I work on personal projects. I also choose my day off on tuesday. Because tuesday is not an extended weekend, so it's "my own projects day" and it's the first day like that in the week so I'm not tired like I'd be on, say thursday. I have to work until 67 in my country. So when I'll be off, I'll be way to tired to start new stuff. Moreover, after 50 years old, I'll get a good chance of getting cancer or some other life-changing disease. So I think it's better if I take my time right now... Final note : this holds because my job is not a dream job, so my return-on-time-investment is weak (I don't consider the ability to buy a big car or around-the-world vacations, or top-notch-phone to be a good return on the time I spend at work)
- ianai 9y ago
  What's the job? I would like that flexibility.
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    Your regular IT manager. I work in a private company and my skills are rented to governments. I like it because it's private but the benefit of my work helps others. I worked in other industries and the balance was not like that; it was more my boss makes a ton of money on me, selling stuff that I don't consider much...

theparanoid 9y ago

I wish more companies offered less than 40hrs/wk. But, hey, most places don't like even giving vacation. I'd rather commit seppuku than go back to a 40hr office.

dceddia 9y ago
What do you do now?

heiti 9y ago

Have you also done anything about trying to find out why you have trouble focusing? I read some older article from your blog also and got the feeling you have been taking yourself as a static thing and that the things around you need to change for you to feel better. Or did i get that wrong?

kristerv 9y ago
Interesting view. I would myself say I've tried a lot of things and I wish I could be contempt with what I have, but it just never works out this way. However I'm totally open for suggestions, since I'm really willing to try anything (but "suck it up"). Also I have tried figuring out what's wrong/different about me and I have no answer. I've actually have had situations where I'm grateful for having a job at all, but the positivity only lasts a few weeks.

onion2k 9y ago

But since I'm giving the company the best hours of the day I would ask 80% of pay for the 60% of workload. The author states that he's able to work with fewer distractions and better concentration when it's a 5 hour day, so everyone's a winner - he gets more time, he gets the same amount of work done, and the company saves money. I can imagine it works very well in the author's circumstances. But how many workers are in the same situation? For a start, very few people can afford a 20% cut to their pay. Anyone in that situation is out. For businesses that pay people enough that they could afford a 20% pay cut, such as the big high profile IT companies, the business is usually awash with cash; they need people to do more work and are willing to pay overtime for them to do it. Saving 20% of the wage bill is no incentive. Lastly, as dasmoth points out, if you have a commute then you'd just be increasing the relative amount of time you're travelling compared to working, which I imagine would make it feel much worse. I have a 30 minute commute each way and when I do a half day it feels like a huge waste of time. As a solution when it's appropriate I think it's great, but I doubt it's applicable to many people.

alkonaut 9y ago
> But how many workers are in the same situation? Most software developers, I'd guess > very few people can afford a 20% cut to their pay. Anyone in that situation is out. True, but among software devs it's proably a lot more common than in the rest of the population > Saving 20% of the wage bill is no incentive. It's the same argument as why businesses want workers to do 50h weeks and not 40. It's hard to find two talented persons so they find one and hope he'll work more. What they aren't seeing is that they'll have to find a replacement for him within just a couple of years. The incentive for the business must come from the fact that once this is widespread enough, talented people aren't going to want to work for the old "we expect you to be here 40-50h" businesses. > if you have a commute then you'd just be increasing the relative amount of time you're travelling compared to working, which I imagine would make it feel much worse. This is important. First, if you have a 1h commute it makes no sense to go to an office every day and do 5h as you point out. For some it would make more sense to work 2-6 days a week from home, thereby reducing the number of commute hours per work hour. For others, it would make most sense to do 4x6 instead of 5x5 hours etc. Also (and this is very important) if you do commute it's important to be able to work during the commute. A 1h train ride is easy to convert to work (even if it's not productive work but at least being available for chat questions, catching up with email etc) but a 1h car ride is not.

jlebrech 9y ago

It's already a 5 hour work day, it's just inside of an 8 hour attendance day.

Marinlemaignan 9y ago
ahah yes, true, and this makes people like he and i mad, i guess some kind of hyperactivity.
- edem 9y ago
  It is not hyperactivity, more like a waste of my time.
dovdovdov 9y ago
More like a let's touch that code for an hour or so day. ;)
- bbcbasic 9y ago
  Od the coding time. I spend 95% time looking at code and 5% coding.
- pawadu 9y ago
  After that lets have a meeting!
  - hacksonx 9y ago
    Just finished a 2 month project without having a single meeting with business and I must say, things are much better. Business never told me directly what to do and I never told them directly how long something would take me. Best approach ever.
    - avoutthere 9y ago
      This works wonderfully if everybody involved acts rationally and professionally. Otherwise, it can quickly become a nightmare.

EZ-E 9y ago

One issue is that most companies would take a person asking for a lighter work hours as lazy, or not motivated No matter the company, there will always have "that" vibe when wanting less hours, unless they are specifically seeking a part time "What's wrong, don't you want to work 50 hours a week like the rest of us ? What's the matter ? Not motivated ?"

cr1895 9y ago
For a different perspective, consider the Netherlands where the right to work part-time is enshrined in law. It's really common for people to switch to 36 or 32 hours having previously worked 40 hours full-time, and it's culturally acceptable and isn't seen as lazy or unmotivated. http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/economist-explains-12 http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/05/ec...
- skrebbel 9y ago
  True. That said, working many short days isn't very common. Nearly all parttimers work 3 or 4 8-hour days a week.
- roel_v 9y ago
  "and it's culturally acceptable and isn't seen as lazy or unmotivated" Uh, you should probably add to that "... by other people who work part time". There most certainly is a career bias against part time workers. Sure, in some sectors it might be worse than others, and not all of it is that explicit - but come promotion time, working part time gives you a severe handicap.
  - cr1895 9y ago
    Well, no, I wouldn't add that because plenty who work full-time don't see part-timers as lazy or unmotivated (or may intend to do so themselves at some point if they have a kid, for example). And sure...it may indeed be the case for some that promotions are slower to come by not working full-time. Hardly strange- if you work fewer hours, your experience will accrue more slowly. But this is separate from cultural acceptability or value judgments by your coworkers/employer: one can be productive and motivated for 36 hours a week, just as one can be lazy and unmotivated for 40.

Zelmor 9y ago

2 weeks is not enough of a dataset. Habits have to be unlearned and off-work time reorganized. Come back in a year. Also, it would be better to ask the manager's observations regarding productivity. Biases and all, you see.

kristerv 9y ago
will do :)

jrumbut 9y ago

I really wish more companies would be willing to do this, as a childless adult I have no need for more than 20 hours worth of pay, and my health definitely benefits on a lighter schedule. Currently I'm achieving this through contracting but I would much rather have a more typical employment situation to reduce the administrative burden and the need for sales.

prawn 9y ago
Is there an issue with a part-time job that was either 2-3 days/week or 0.5 FTE spread across the week? There are countless part-time jobs out there.
- jrumbut 9y ago
  There are countless part time jobs, but fewer interesting ones. That's a little picky on my side, however at the same time there are so many companies looking for developers full time you would think a few more would become part time friendly as a way to differentiate themselves.
  - prawn 9y ago
    I don't see how your wish for a "typical employment situation" intersects with a preference for "interesting" jobs. ;)
wfunction 9y ago
> I really wish more companies would be willing to do this, as a childless adult I have no need for more than 20 hours worth of pay, and my health definitely benefits on a lighter schedule. Pardon my ignorance but in your view how is having a child supposed to push this in the other direction? Do you see having a child as an opportunity/reason to raise the 20 hours/week to 40 hours/week and stay away from home longer? Because I thought the point of raising children was so you could spend some of your time raising a family, and my impression was most older people would rather be with their families than at work. Do you see yourself wishing that you could work 40 hours when you have children or something? Wouldn't it make more sense to work more now and save for that future instead so you don't have to work as hard then?

ianai 9y ago

The reason hourly employees are to be paid time and a half in the US is to incentivize companies to hire more people. Decreasing the full time/OT line increases the demand for labor. I just wish I knew how to make that thought agreeable in the US.

mac01021 9y ago
> I just wish I knew how to make that thought agreeable in the US. Maybe relieving employers of the need to provide all full time employees with fringe benefits (ie. medical insurance)? I don't know if this means we need a publicly funded, single-payer, healthcare system, or if there is a more attractive solution. But the way a person's healthcare is tied to their employer in this country is rather bizarre, and I'm sure it is widely regarded by businesses as an incentive to avoid brining on more full-time people.
- LordKano 9y ago
  Maybe relieving employers of the need to provide all full time employees with fringe benefits (ie. medical insurance)? Even before it was legally mandated, market forces made it virtually impossible to not offer it for full-time skilled labor. Why would I work for you when I can go to your competitor, work for them and get medical insurance? Even if I was in a position where I needed a job, as soon as I can leave, I'm going to go elsewhere.
  - mac01021 9y ago
    Why don't the same market forces drive my employer to buy gas for my car or give me gift cards to amazon or walmart?
    - LordKano 9y ago
      Ask for that in your next salary negotiation.

lbill 9y ago

My contract specifies a 7.5h workday... But I do only 6h/day, and so do most of my colleagues. I am very lucky: I live in France, this country has a strong culture of "stay late at work and the boss will like you", yet my firm does not care about that. It cares about getting sh*t done. This is a broader subject than "work hours": my firm thinks that staying more hour to procrastinate is not not useful, and it believes that employees are more efficient when they are happy! In order to have an efficient workforce and less turnover, I think any business should try to answer: "for each employee: what conditions does he/she need to be happy at work?".

briandear 9y ago
You definitely have a dream job for France! I live here too but I am "lucky" to work for US employers remotely but from what I have seen at traditional French companies your situation is unusual. I hope that those ideas start to spread across French business culture!

puranjay 9y ago

I've always worked from home (freelanced, then started a remote company). Never actually been to a regular office. Recently, I joined a coworking space. I used to think that I'm "unproductive", but after seeing how others actually work, I'm surprised that businesses get any work done at all. I'll be amazed if most employees work at more than 60% productivity.

IshKebab 9y ago
I think 60% is high...
3princip 9y ago
I've worked in offices, now working from home. A few hours a day is enough to be considered exceptionally productive in terms of coding for me, this leaves a lot of time for other productivity, family, work around the house. In an office environment the rest of the time is spent looking busy. A surprising number of people will not admit it and will very adamently deny that they are not being productive, yet output shows differently. But then there are meetings. Factoring in meetings takes a lot of time. Endless talk about improving process... The flip-side of focusing on productivity and less so on actively participating in meetings or scheduling them is getting stuck in a coding job, being remote and not active in pursuing promotions the companies I work for usually fall back to relying on me for good code and meeting/exceeding planned output and that's it. In my experience, if you have the goal of moving up a company hierarchy, you have to put on a show that you are a busy which has little to do with output (code) and lots to do with appearences (lot's of talking).
kristerv 9y ago
haha, I sometimes wonder the same :)

dvcrn 9y ago

I am very very interested in this myself. I proposed something similar to my current company but got refused. I experimented with different hours off on certain days and found that the thing that would turn me into a productivity monster would be a 4-5h work day with remote option. But now try to find something like this (especially in Asia). Despite loving my current job, I think if I would get a counter offer from a company with these benefits, I would probably quit right away. I am personally not a office bee and dislike leaving when it's dark. I'm drained of all my motivation and the darkness makes me just want to go home, watch a YouTube video and sleep, just to repeat the same cycle again. I managed to counter this fairly successfully by working outside of cafes that have terraces and picking a new location every day. My motivation and productivity level stays up longer and the drain is reduced, but now if I just had more time...

unlmtd 9y ago

Hourly wages are inefficient. Contract everything instead; it allows for better productivity and way more accurate accounting.

arien 9y ago

I went through some kind of burnout as well last year (more related to personal stuff than work itself) and decided to take a long vacation. I didn't want to go back to the usual schedule and risk having the same issue again in a year or two, so I decided to work part time when I came back. So, now I work Monday to Wednesday and have Thursday to Sunday free. This means I only have three days per week to make an impact on the company (as opposed to the ones who work full time), so I find myself really focused. My productivity vs before has skyrocketed. What do I do on my extra days? Sometimes I go out, sometimes I just do nothing and relax, sometimes I do small side contracts or personal projects. I hope one of these takes off one day and allow me to recover the money I gave up when switching to part time. At least now I've got the energy to work on them.

bbcbasic 9y ago

Just had my weekly Wednesday off (oceanic the zone) and spent 3 hours working on my side hussle that is a web store. Tweaked the theme, analysed ad data and set up some new ad tests. I felt super productive getting as much done as might take 8 hours if the work was "jobified". Spent rest of day trying out mattresses, getting a massage, cooking fish and watching star trek. Hoping I'm successful so that every day can be like this!

sshb 9y ago

On Sweden's 6-hour workday: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/efficiency-up-turnover-down-sweden-experiments-with-six-hour-working-day https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/efficiency-up-...

yosefk 9y ago

I've tried both 5 short workdays and 3 longer workdays. I like 3 longer workdays better. A full day for work and a full day for something else mean, to me, that I can focus more fully on work and then focus more fully on something else. A "half work, half not work" day means, to me, that I can't quite focus on either. TFA presents the shorter week [the alternative to a shorter day] as 3 consecutive days; I prefer interleaving work and non-work days, so as to neither be absent from work for 2 days in a row, nor work for 2 days in a row.

hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago
I worked the 3x10 schedule for a while, I loved it! Unfortunately, my boss insisted I come back to work full-time.

ensiferum 9y ago

As so often is the case the post highlights how work gets in the way of life. Should have been born rich ;-)

wastedhours 9y ago

Also worth realising that in a lot of companies you're not being paid for your output, you're being paid for a certain amount of access to your brain. The value in your job isn't your output, it's the organisational outcomes that occur as a result of you doing what ya do. Some companies are fine and built around the outcomes of 5 hours a day of your code. Some organisations though really want 8 hours a day of access to those sweet, sweet neurons. Even if the constant interruptions, meetings and feelings of unproductivity are side effects, perhaps they value the outcomes of 2 hours a day of your code and the value sharing that comes from an inane question at 17:59, more than absolute output. Not saying the latter is more efficient or should be right, but just showing there's different value companies derive from their employees over and above project deliverables.

ldp01 9y ago
Absolutely. There are plenty of examples where the job completely dictates the hours: Operational roles can either require shifts, or on-call availability. And hours only get worse for people with critical skillsets!
Asooka 9y ago
Is that really true, or is it just a well-sounding rationalisation we tell ourselves to avoid doing anything to make things better?
- wastedhours 9y ago
  Granted, I specialise in well-sounding rationalisations ;) however, I do think it's true for some knowledge worker jobs that it's not just the direct knowledge we impart into a specific project, but the knowledge distributed within a company. I know that I've learnt things from meetings where it's evidently a burden/"waste of time" for the party I'm gaining from, and likewise, am fairly certain I've delivered value to others when it's been a waste for me. It might not be the best way of handling it, but some organisations are designed to work that way, and as much as we can try and mould where we work around us, sometimes it's just a different dynamic.
- 9y ago

wcummings 9y ago

If a company starting doing this, it would be a real boon for recruiting. It's pretty hard to compete w/.

gkya 9y ago

I know this is off-topic, but I hate the st ligature, so out of place... I mean it's a screen I'm looking at, not press-printed paper, no need to save on fonts.

davidgerard 9y ago

The word "commute" is missing from this essay.

ghaff 9y ago
More broadly, there's overhead and limitations imposed by having to work on a given day. Even if you're working a short day, you usually can't take off and do a substantial recreational activity or really jump into some project. People differ of course, but a 3-day weekend is worth a whole lot more to me than somewhat shorter days.

Asooka 9y ago

Well, programming isn't really traditional work. You know, W=F×s We don't apply a lot of F and definitely don't move a long s, so at the end of the day there isn't a lot of W we've done. I think it's useful to think of the Puritanian work ethic briefly mentioned in this article, together with the recent article about running modern society on human power alone. Back in the day, we really did run a lot of things on human power. Yes, for the really long s, we used large animals capable of sustaining a great deal of F throughout the day, but other than that, a lot of stuff was done by hand. If you don't apply your share of the F, you literally don't have food to eat. The goods you had were a direct product of hand labour, every bread was made with a nontrivial amount of calories expended by human muscle. As we see, the more you work your muscles, the better they start working - that's the basic premise of exercise and getting in shape. However, your brain doesn't quite work like that. You can over-exert your mind much more easily than you can your muscles and it just doesn't recover as well as them. For your muscle, the cycle is work->muscle hurts->muscle recovers->work hurts you less now. For your mind, the cycle is the other way around work->you get burned out->you recover->you now burn out more easily. This fundamental difference in the nature of work in the knowledge economy is what we should focus on, to overcome the work ethic, traditions and employer-employee regulations, that were formed in the time when 1 bread = lots and lots of calories expended by muscle.

readittwice 9y ago

There is another point to consider: Getting 20% less money, doesn't necessarily also mean 20% less money after taxes. When I was working part-time (20h per week) while studying, working full-time during summer meant this: ~90% more work (from 20h to 38.5h) but only ~60% higher salary (after taxes). So I just continued to work part-time in holidays and enjoyed summer. In my country higher salary means higher taxes, working less hours therefore means paying less taxes because of a lower salary. Taxes don't consider the number of hours you work. Although you need to consider that you also pay less e.g. into your pensions fund, some of your additional salary is "just" taxed away. When working 20h the difference for me was substantial, right now not so much. But that may be different for you.

kareemm 9y ago

Reminds me of a buddy's 5 year plan. He owned 50% of a company that he bootstrapped to 8 figures in revenue; his co-founder owned the other 50%. Here's his 5 year plan: Year 1: work 4 days a week Year 2: work 3 days a week Year 3: work 2 days a week Year 4: work 1 day a week Year 5: cash cheques, spend time with his family, and do adventure sports full time

Azeralthefallen 9y ago

I actually worked at a company who tried something similar to this (6 hours/5 days) for about ~2 months, and it worked for a little while. Unfortunately we found a lot of problems with this: - People who started early (~7am), left really early, and people who like to start much later (~10am). This led to only ~3 hour overlap time period when the majority of the dev team was in. There was a small effort to normalize the start times, but we could never find a common time that worked for everyone. - I felt this put an obscene amount of pressure on some people (including myself) more so than others. - People hate meetings, people beg and cry that meetings are a waste, but the bitter reality is ether you get everyone on the same page at once, or you need to do it separately, which becomes even more pressure for certain people. Combine this with the limited time when you can guarantee the majority of dev will be in, makes it difficult. - The coop/intern students i felt got shafted hard by this, since time is so much more valuable during that two months they often got very little direction. - I also personally found that about 6 of us (team leads/seniors) ended up with much more pressure, and stress due to trying to force 8 hours of work into 6 hours of a day. In the end we ended up giving up on the idea, due in combination to other departments complaining, some HR payroll issues, and problems with coverage.

matrix 9y ago
This highlights something about our industry that I find a little weird. Collectively we want to be respected as professionals, yet feel it's ok come into work whenever it pleases us despite its impact on the team. In my view, a true professional shows up and gets the job done, no matter what. Asking employees to show up at 9 am on a reasonably consistent basis so that the team can work effectively seems like a pretty low bar to me (except in the case of special personal circumstances, of course).
- loader 9y ago
  Especially when you're telling them they only need to work 6 hours. If my boss said we're moving to 6 hours a day, I'll be pretty happy to oblige and be in when they need me.
- krausejj 9y ago

erikb 9y ago

I find that 20 and 25 hours is too little. You need to spend a considerable time in office just to be part of what's going on. However 30-35h where perfect. You get stuff done, you are not too far out of the loop, especially if others do the same, you are still able to rest enough.

ryandrake 9y ago

Lot of people in this thread saying they'd be willing to work N% hours less for N% less pay. Am I the only one living in a high cost of living area, for which the opposite is true? I'd be totally for working more but getting paid more. At this point in my life, mid-life crisis age, I am starting to notice time stalking me, realizing my inadequate retirement savings, and wondering how many more at-bats I'm going to have before it's time to walk away from the baseball game. Am I going to have to eat dog food when I retire? What's my kid's college going to cost? Will I ever be able to afford a vacation? Who really has comfortable answers to these questions? Why on earth would you choose to work and get paid less than you can, while you are young and capable?? I look back and wish I had worked multiple jobs when I was younger, not that I had fewer hours.

stevenkovar 9y ago
Personal anecdote, but working less helped me both enjoy life more and secure a better future for myself. Downtime isn't a loss of productivity. It's when you let your subconscious do its job—making gut decisions, allowing ideas to overlap one another, omitting the non-essential. It's key for creativity, and creativity is what helps you spot opportunities. It sounds like you're stuck in an uncomfortable loop. What's working amazingly well in your life right now? What's not? Double down on what is going well for you and free yourself from the obligation of maintaining the rest. You zero out your inbox, why not your stressbox? What obligations can you walk away from to give yourself time to do what matters?
deleted 9y ago
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mholmes680 9y ago
sounds like you're in NJ too... I feel this way, but maybe less in "crisis" mode. My focus now is working smarter, not longer. (and my kids will have to earn their own college money because thats the only option, I'm not certain college will be the same thing in 15 years anyway. I will train them to be robot repairmen/women as a backup plan)
cr1895 9y ago
>Who really has comfortable answers to these questions? Depends on your level of comfort and future ambitions, of course, but if you live in a country with low(er) cost of living, strong social safety nets, tuition/healthcare costs minor issues, etc. then spending more of your (young) life outside of an office may be very attractive. Which is probably why part-time work is relatively popular in the Netherlands, that and strong desire for a healthy work/life balance.

krambs 9y ago

I remember the Heroku founders espoused 6 hour work days for developers. They felt that this was the daily limit for creative workers - and that there was not only diminishing returns after 6 hours, but potentially negative ones (due to bad decisions made when overworked).

n1vz3r 9y ago

I track all my billable time for last 7 years. My average is 4:30 billable hours a day and I can confirm that every period of over-working ends with equal or longer period of under-working. So the 4:30 is like a gold number. I stopped to fight with this, and now after 4:30 hours I happily clock out and go home. (Yes, I'm self-employeed). This way the only reasonable strategy to earn more without having health issues is to bill more per hour. Exception to this 4:30 rule is non-programming work that doesn't require high concentration: visual design, reports, configuration, CSS tweaks etc - I can do it pretty much non-stop for whole day.

tclancy 9y ago
>every period of over-working ends with equal or longer period of under-working I've only recently come to accept this. I've recently hit a period of too many clients showing up at one time and I now feel stupid when I work on the weekend because I know that kind of "heroic" effort will be balanced out by me goofing off on Monday.
- mpfundstein 9y ago
  and thats precisely the cool thing. i made 4k last weekend working on a video encoder. delivered and now goof of since then
athenot 9y ago
Thanks for sharing this! That does beg the question: how much non-billable time do you have? Being self-employed, you have a very acute insight as to what's billable and what is not, but in a typical salaried position, eveything is lumped together. I'd be curious to know if your total time is closer to 8 hours/day once you factor in estimates, leads, customer travel, accounting and all the stuff that comes with your own structure. On a related note, it's useful to know the ratio of billable vs. overhead. All too often, people new to the self-employed world plan for unrealistic billing hours and forget about this overhead.
- n1vz3r 9y ago
  Since I rarely begin new projects and have several loyal clients, overhead such as bookkeeping, estimates and talks is relatively small. (Especially estimates: usually I don't estimate at all, just get the work done and bill for it later; and most talks and customer travel, when still unavoidable, are done by my partner who is non-programmer). This works other way too: I usually avoid new clients to minimize overhead. Also the overhead is exactly the reason I don't hire people: time and energy to spend on management are tremendous and up to this moment I wasn't been able both to hire someone and make profit from it. So, my model doesn't work well for teams. Or maybe I suck at management. Another problem is time spent idling: my time in the office varies from 5 to 8 hours, when I switch from tasks I'm often distracted by non-work things such as reading news, lunch, occasional gaming. The main non-obvious downside with pay-by-hour model is that when I try to be more effective, I spend more energy, but get less money. P.S. Can't provide exact numbers now because not in the office.

jblow 9y ago

I had this same kind of personality / mental condition, and I am going to say, if he is really of the same personality type, 5-hour days are not going to help this author in the long term. What is helping his mood is not really the shorter day, but the hope of having made a short-term structural change that might fix things. The thing is, it won't. He already mentions at the end that burnouts are back. Well, pretty soon the 5-hour days will be feeling too long and he will be 'unable' to do them. Then what? 3-hour days? The fundamental problem is that he doesn't actually want to be doing what he is doing, despite the rhetoric of "great team and awesome project". Come on, is that really how you feel about it deep in your heart, or is it empty SV rhetoric? Two things will help this author: (1) Strike out on your own, following your own motivation only. Yes you have to figure out how to make ends meet financially, but that is your lot in life. Fortunately it is easier to do this with computers than in most other fields. (2) Meditate, learn to observe your mind and why it does what it does, so that you don't feel powerless or subservient to things like burnout. It's hard to explain the transformation that takes place, but being able to stand next to or outside these mental processes is very powerful.

Danihan 9y ago
Exactly. If you love what you're doing and feel challenged in the _right_ way, 17 hour days will generally feel like a difficult but worthwhile gift. Back in the day, I used to love working 16-20 hour shifts (unlimited overtime) in a tech-support call center. I was in my early twenties, and while most people hated tech support, I felt like every call I took got people connected to the internet, where who knew what they could accomplish, look-up, research, etc. I was genuinely helping hundreds of people a day get online, it felt great. Versus, if you hate hate hate what you're doing, you'll feel burned out after a few hours a week. And you could fall anywhere in between too. I've felt both extremes working in the same position at different times, depending on the circumstances.
- jblow 9y ago
  I don't think it has to be explicit hate-of-the-job for burnout to occur. For me personally it was just lack of meaning in that job. I didn't, deep down, feel that it was very important, or the right thing for me to be doing. It was just the thing I was doing because I didn't have anything better to do.

waivej 9y ago

Back when I worked for someone else, I switched to part time after I had been there several years. I would work Mon, Tues, Thurs and got paid 60% of my previous salary. I was more productive than ever and came to the office having thought through things and ready to type it out. I also didn't notice the drop in salary because I had time to repair things and didn't "buy" progress in hobbies. I also had time to design things for work while sitting in a convertible by a lake rather than a drab office. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Sometimes I wish I could do the same thing working for myself but the situation is different. The only tough part was not having time to socialize with coworkers. They would take breaks and talk about things but I felt my time was so precious that I wanted to get my work done.

pc86 9y ago
This does seem nice, but if I'm being honest with myself if I was only working 3/5 of the time for 3/5 of the pay, the last thing I'd be doing in a convertible by the lake was work. :) M/T/H does seem better than M/T/W or M/W/F though.

korzun 9y ago

You can't measure engineering productivity over a span of a couple of weeks. You can't compare the output from week X to week Y unless the test conditions and subjects are completely in-sync. We all know that would be impossible. Here, the author claims there is a change in productivity, all the way down to a %. There is nothing scientific behind this; you might as well let your cat pick the numbers. They will be just as valid.

kenbolton 9y ago

I started doing four hour workdays about eight years ago. Every day is a potential workday, and some rare workdays are two! I don't find it burdensome to have a month-long streak of working every day at this pace. And if I "miss" a day (or week), it isn't the end of the world. I have a seasonal side-hustle that includes the occasional 12-hour workday and even multi-day 24 hour stretches. Funny side-effect is an increase in code quality and productivity during the season.

irrational 9y ago

How would I have time to both do my work and read Hacker News with only 5 hours in my workday?

bufordsharkley 9y ago

> Free time has filled up. I still get more stuff done, but personal development still requires proper scheduling and planning. The allure of "I'll have time for everything" has gone. Yes: it's not the working for 8 hours, but rather the limited time left after the 8 hours is over. There is so much more in my life than what others will pay me to do, and I'd have so much more energy for work if I was given more of my time back to pursue it...

galfarragem 9y ago

My dream workday: From 6:15am to 9:00am, work alone at home. Get ready and 15 minutes walk/cycle to an office. From 9:30am to 12:45pm, team work. 6h/day (3h on Friday), 27h/week. Wednesday and Friday work from home only.

krausejj 9y ago

Why not be a freelancer? Work when you want to; earn market rent for your time; and balance your need for leisure time (which may differ from others') with your need for compensation (and, maybe some other gratification if you love your job). We are all free agents, even if it doesn't always feel that way in a traditional job.