I'm not a programmer and this was some years ago at a corporate job, but it's potentially a useful data point given your actual question. I processed accident

I'm not a programmer and this was some years ago at a corporate job, but it's potentially a useful data point given your actual question. I processed accident claims and I needed to hit a weekly quota that came out to 60 counted tasks per day (this did not directly correlate to "claims completed"). There was inevitably anywhere from one to two hours worth of tasks that had to be done but didn't directly count towards quota, like phone calls to try to get a missing piece of information to try to avoid writing a letter to try to get it off your desk in minutes instead of weeks. So I typically spent my first two hours handling those tasks, which had to be done but "didn't count," and then had six hours left to meet a quota of 60 counted tasks per day. Sometimes that first two hours resulted in zero counted tasks completed and sometimes it got me a few counted tasks completed, like four or five. I generally went to the bathroom every hour on the hour. I had two fifteen minute breaks. Those two things together ate up roughly an hour of those remaining six hours. So now you have five hours in which to meet quota for the day. Team meetings, coworkers dropping by to ask questions and assorted other nonsense typically also ate away at the remaining time for accomplishing anything. We aren't quite down to the Office Space quote of "I only do about ten minutes of real work a week" but this was a high pressure environment that they had trouble finding qualified people for. In my class of about 20 students for training for this entry level job, there were only five or six actual new hires and one of them couldn't hack it and washed out. The others were internal promotions, returning employees (one military wife was back in town, having moved away for a while when they were stationed elsewhere, and they were thrilled to see her) and transfers from other departments. One of my coworkers on my team set a goal of getting a job at this Fortune 500 company and it took her like five years to get in. Another had a background in EMS and also set a goal of getting a job -- any job -- at this company. I'm telling you all that to try to give some context because this is the only full-time paid job I have ever had. I was a homemaker for a lot of years and I've done freelance work since. My understanding is this was "the best of the best of the best" at a highly competitive, award-winning company and a good day for me was about 4.5 hours of uninterrupted work with serious concentration. I now do freelance work (and my own projects). If I spend part of the day "piddling productively" and at least four hours focused on really getting shit done, I'm extremely happy. I know from experience that's actually pretty kick ass.