5 ms·

I disagree. I have 6-7 hour workdays. That's nice but no nearly as nice as another free day. I still feel like I have no time for my own life/projects. I still

I disagree. I have 6-7 hour workdays. That's nice but no nearly as nice as another free day. I still feel like I have no time for my own life/projects. I still feel exhausted after working even 6-7-hours (because I'm not a morning person naturally yet have to go work in the morning) and the evening time (nor even an evening nap) never actually feels nice if I worked that day. I go out on Saturday, sleep until evening (the only way I can actually get pleasurable and physically regenerative sleep) on Sunday, get up and immediately start feeling bad about the fact I had no productive time for my side projects/home as another workweek starts in just some hours. I'd rather work full 8 hours a day but have 4-day workweek. Ideally I'd prefer Wednesdays to be non-working days - this way I wouldn't have to spend more than 2 days in a row working in the office. For me this would feel even better than just 3-day weekends with 4-day contiguous workweeks. 5-vs-2 feels like you live in the office and go to visit home. 4-vs-3 feels the same although notably better. 2-1-2-2 (office-home-office-home) would actually feel you live at home and go to the office to get the job done. I even feel almost sure this would boost my actual office-time productivity.

kahon65 4y ago
Change job dude, you are going to have a burn out
- qwerty456127 4y ago
  My job is easy, crisis-proof and generally fun, not to mention 6-7-hour workdays which many can only dream about (not a common thing to find at my location). I just hate getting up in mornings, having fixed time schedule and spending many days in a row working this way. But that's the standard almost everybody has to deal with. So I don't feel like changing the job. Perhaps I'm going to return to flexible-schedule gigs someday, that felt better except too insecure. I just hope the society is going to move to 4-day workweek. It's been so long since it last decreased the workweek length. In fact I only share details about my sub-optimal perceived well-being because people tend to come up with useful suggestions of relevant supplements and practices. E.g. from my own experience I can say homemade kombucha can boost after-work evening well-being significantly (feels like some batches boost serotonin or something like that).
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    Dude, change job. You can absolutely find a software job where they let you work later in the day.
    - qwerty456127 4y ago
      I used to have a software job but am not sure I want to return to that. I prefer communicating to people. Writing code gets me severe ADHD attacks :-]
  - unfocused 4y ago
    I know you're not to supposed to listen to advice on the Internet, but perhaps improving/changing your sleeping habits if you want to stay in your job? If Saturday is the one day you are getting good sleep, then there is some improvement to be done. Perhaps reading a book before bed, and trying to go to bed early, can create a new sleep routing for your sleep hygiene? Worth a try! Hope you feel less tired!
    - qwerty456127 4y ago
      > I know you're not to supposed to listen to advice on the Internet Perhaps that's the conventional wisdom yet advices on the Internet are exactly what I hunt for by writing this kind of comments here :-) For a reasonably rationally minded person this is a great input of things to explore. Many such advices already changed my life for good.
      - bckr 4y ago
        Another thing to look into is whether you have snoring / sleep apnea. Most people who do, it seems, are not aware of it. 2 easy, objective tests: 1) Ask your sleeping partner, if you have one, if you snore. 2) Record yourself sleeping. I used an app called SnoreLab which does audio analysis to give you a numerical rating and pulls clips of likely snoring moments so you don't have to scrub through the entire night's recording. The app also gives a pretty exhaustive list of recommendations for fixing snoring. Many people have snoring / apnea and don't know it / are in denial. Poor sleep quality / being tired is a symptom. Fixing this can add quality years to your life, so worth looking into.
iso1631 4y ago
When I'm not on site I work 4x10 hour days, usually 0900-1900, with 1h25 break. When I'm out and about I'll work as long as I need to, 12 hours is a typical day, but any hours I do over 35 per week get paid time-and-a-half. If I'm out on an event and say staying in a hotel in rural Norfolk, I'd far rather work from 10 or 11 to 2300 than do 1500-2300, it's not like I'm going to make use of the extra 4 hours in the morning. A 6 hour day sounds awful, I barely get into top gear until about 5 hours into the day on a typical desk day.
- toqy 4y ago
  What are you doing for the first 5 hours? I typically find that if I'm actually working and not in too many meetings I'm basically checked out after 5 straight hours if I haven't wandered off already.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    Generally firefighting, dealing with emails and various minor requests that all take less than half an hour but involve a lot of task switching.
    - pineconewarrior 4y ago
      I do a lot of this too. The worst is when the company I work for tries to prevent this from happening. I seem to -need- that time to "gear up" as you say. I also find it very rewarding to help my colleagues with these types of quick issues, as it often prevents issues from ballooning, encourages collaboration and builds trust. When they force me into "developer timeout" and effectively isolate me, I just sit there struggling for the first half of the day anyway.
CWuestefeld 4y ago
My wife and I just started slowing down to ramp into retirement, so we're both working 4-day weeks. We had the idea to stagger the days, alternating between Fridays and Mondays off. That works out so that weekends alternate between 2 days and 4 days. And a 4-day weekend is enough that you can really do something - an actual trip or something. Having that every other week is really nice.

kahon65 4y ago

Change job dude, you are going to have a burn out

qwerty456127 4y ago
My job is easy, crisis-proof and generally fun, not to mention 6-7-hour workdays which many can only dream about (not a common thing to find at my location). I just hate getting up in mornings, having fixed time schedule and spending many days in a row working this way. But that's the standard almost everybody has to deal with. So I don't feel like changing the job. Perhaps I'm going to return to flexible-schedule gigs someday, that felt better except too insecure. I just hope the society is going to move to 4-day workweek. It's been so long since it last decreased the workweek length. In fact I only share details about my sub-optimal perceived well-being because people tend to come up with useful suggestions of relevant supplements and practices. E.g. from my own experience I can say homemade kombucha can boost after-work evening well-being significantly (feels like some batches boost serotonin or something like that).
- chitowneats 4y ago
  Dude, change job. You can absolutely find a software job where they let you work later in the day.
  - qwerty456127 4y ago
    I used to have a software job but am not sure I want to return to that. I prefer communicating to people. Writing code gets me severe ADHD attacks :-]
- unfocused 4y ago
  I know you're not to supposed to listen to advice on the Internet, but perhaps improving/changing your sleeping habits if you want to stay in your job? If Saturday is the one day you are getting good sleep, then there is some improvement to be done. Perhaps reading a book before bed, and trying to go to bed early, can create a new sleep routing for your sleep hygiene? Worth a try! Hope you feel less tired!
  - qwerty456127 4y ago
    > I know you're not to supposed to listen to advice on the Internet Perhaps that's the conventional wisdom yet advices on the Internet are exactly what I hunt for by writing this kind of comments here :-) For a reasonably rationally minded person this is a great input of things to explore. Many such advices already changed my life for good.
    - bckr 4y ago
      Another thing to look into is whether you have snoring / sleep apnea. Most people who do, it seems, are not aware of it. 2 easy, objective tests: 1) Ask your sleeping partner, if you have one, if you snore. 2) Record yourself sleeping. I used an app called SnoreLab which does audio analysis to give you a numerical rating and pulls clips of likely snoring moments so you don't have to scrub through the entire night's recording. The app also gives a pretty exhaustive list of recommendations for fixing snoring. Many people have snoring / apnea and don't know it / are in denial. Poor sleep quality / being tired is a symptom. Fixing this can add quality years to your life, so worth looking into.

iso1631 4y ago

When I'm not on site I work 4x10 hour days, usually 0900-1900, with 1h25 break. When I'm out and about I'll work as long as I need to, 12 hours is a typical day, but any hours I do over 35 per week get paid time-and-a-half. If I'm out on an event and say staying in a hotel in rural Norfolk, I'd far rather work from 10 or 11 to 2300 than do 1500-2300, it's not like I'm going to make use of the extra 4 hours in the morning. A 6 hour day sounds awful, I barely get into top gear until about 5 hours into the day on a typical desk day.

toqy 4y ago
What are you doing for the first 5 hours? I typically find that if I'm actually working and not in too many meetings I'm basically checked out after 5 straight hours if I haven't wandered off already.
- iso1631 4y ago
  Generally firefighting, dealing with emails and various minor requests that all take less than half an hour but involve a lot of task switching.
  - pineconewarrior 4y ago
    I do a lot of this too. The worst is when the company I work for tries to prevent this from happening. I seem to -need- that time to "gear up" as you say. I also find it very rewarding to help my colleagues with these types of quick issues, as it often prevents issues from ballooning, encourages collaboration and builds trust. When they force me into "developer timeout" and effectively isolate me, I just sit there struggling for the first half of the day anyway.

CWuestefeld 4y ago

My wife and I just started slowing down to ramp into retirement, so we're both working 4-day weeks. We had the idea to stagger the days, alternating between Fridays and Mondays off. That works out so that weekends alternate between 2 days and 4 days. And a 4-day weekend is enough that you can really do something - an actual trip or something. Having that every other week is really nice.