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So do you count your work hours as 3 hours or 7? And curious, if you try and optimise for more 'real work' time? I feel I'm quite hard on myself and consider it

by wowsig 9y ago

So do you count your work hours as 3 hours or 7? And curious, if you try and optimise for more 'real work' time? I feel I'm quite hard on myself and consider it unnatural if I read an article or even browse randomly at work.

xaedes 9y ago
A few months ago I had the feeling I get nothing done (programming), because of all the other stuff I had to do. That is why I started tracking my time consumption on a half hour base. "If you want to control something you need to measure it" was my thinking. The time tracking itself doesn't cost much time. Did it earlier for my private life for a few months. The first weeks my average programming time was only 1.5h! I slowly got it up to 3h now. But do I count it as 3h or 7h work? Hm - As a student I sure had more time for programming itself. But I actually get more work done now. I can much easier pursue multiple projects and delegate work to students. It is just that I didn't (have to) see all the organizational stuff that needs to happen beside the programming itself as a student. The other 4h I do valuable stuff. Some of it should imho be done by others, but we are currently a little bit short on staff..^^ It's a nice learning opportunity though. So to answer your question: I would count the whole 7 hours.
- xaedes 9y ago
  But honestly all the work-related reading on the web (e.g. hackernews) I do should count as work time too. Then you can add some 4 hours or so.
  - ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
    How do you decide if it's work-related reading/browsing or not? So watching a music video on YouTube is clear but I'd say HackerNews is muddy, leaning towards entertainment. For example you need to sleep to work too, but that doesn't count. HN may provide general nourishment about latest tech news and have interested articles that elevate your general knowledge but hard for me to pin that down as hours worked. That's the problem with work today, it's not easily measurable, in the old fashioned way of thinking of work as putting caps on bottles I'm guessing most people do far less than they believe, I wouldn't be shocked if it was only a couple of hours for many.
    - xaedes 9y ago
      Yea well you have to dig through a lot of trash to find the gems. But since it is part of the deal you need to take the time into account that you need to wander through the mud. Officially I won't count the hours that I use for this at home. But at least for me that is definitely work related.
  - Noumenon72 9y ago
    If you're not taking notes on it so you can access and use it later, it's likely just an idle interest. Reading's not the same as learning. Also if you would read it without getting paid, it's probably not work.
    - xaedes 9y ago
      Not all things I read on the way are worth taking notes of. But the work related gems I find will be mailed back to work with keywords. For gems that are related to personal interests I have other knowledge base dumps.

by wowsig 9y ago

xaedes 9y ago

A few months ago I had the feeling I get nothing done (programming), because of all the other stuff I had to do. That is why I started tracking my time consumption on a half hour base. "If you want to control something you need to measure it" was my thinking. The time tracking itself doesn't cost much time. Did it earlier for my private life for a few months. The first weeks my average programming time was only 1.5h! I slowly got it up to 3h now. But do I count it as 3h or 7h work? Hm - As a student I sure had more time for programming itself. But I actually get more work done now. I can much easier pursue multiple projects and delegate work to students. It is just that I didn't (have to) see all the organizational stuff that needs to happen beside the programming itself as a student. The other 4h I do valuable stuff. Some of it should imho be done by others, but we are currently a little bit short on staff..^^ It's a nice learning opportunity though. So to answer your question: I would count the whole 7 hours.

xaedes 9y ago
But honestly all the work-related reading on the web (e.g. hackernews) I do should count as work time too. Then you can add some 4 hours or so.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
  How do you decide if it's work-related reading/browsing or not? So watching a music video on YouTube is clear but I'd say HackerNews is muddy, leaning towards entertainment. For example you need to sleep to work too, but that doesn't count. HN may provide general nourishment about latest tech news and have interested articles that elevate your general knowledge but hard for me to pin that down as hours worked. That's the problem with work today, it's not easily measurable, in the old fashioned way of thinking of work as putting caps on bottles I'm guessing most people do far less than they believe, I wouldn't be shocked if it was only a couple of hours for many.
  - xaedes 9y ago
    Yea well you have to dig through a lot of trash to find the gems. But since it is part of the deal you need to take the time into account that you need to wander through the mud. Officially I won't count the hours that I use for this at home. But at least for me that is definitely work related.
- Noumenon72 9y ago
  If you're not taking notes on it so you can access and use it later, it's likely just an idle interest. Reading's not the same as learning. Also if you would read it without getting paid, it's probably not work.
  - xaedes 9y ago
    Not all things I read on the way are worth taking notes of. But the work related gems I find will be mailed back to work with keywords. For gems that are related to personal interests I have other knowledge base dumps.