I think I've been on both ends of this, sometimes being highly productive and working long hours, and other times just doing enough to not get fired. Remote wor

I think I've been on both ends of this, sometimes being highly productive and working long hours, and other times just doing enough to not get fired. Remote work and the pandemic have had an interesting effect in that it intensifies both passion and disinterest. IE, if I'm passionate about something, I'm much more likely to work on it more than I would in an office because I don't have the commute, have to worry about locking up the office, etc. etc.. But if I'm disinterested, it's easy to be really disinterested and watch a day slip away. When I was in an office, there was only so much pretending-to-work I could do before I got bored and actually had to force myself to do the work. Usually it was more of a grind, but I'd say my average performance was more consistent, whereas now it's either much higher or much lower, depending on what I'm doing. I'd say if it's career long though, and not just related to a job or a project, I don't think it's abnormal per-se... I've seen a lot of devs like this... but I think it wouldn't hurt to explore things you might be more passionate about. Like others have said, you're probably not going to get fired if you're doing just-enough, but it might have bad effects on your mental health.