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Accept that "work" does not mean 8 hours a day heads-down actively writing code. Humans did not evolve to spend 40 hours a week staring at a box of light, mashi

Accept that "work" does not mean 8 hours a day heads-down actively writing code. Humans did not evolve to spend 40 hours a week staring at a box of light, mashing plastic buttons while slumped in a chair and if you can't do that it's an attention disorder. The six hours of what managers might call "non-productive" time in my day is requisite for the two hours of "productive" code-writing mixed in. That's 8 hours of "real work" in my book, and I would wager higher quality than that of someone who forces themselves to just grind out code against their body's will.

corrral 4y ago
Yeah, my answer to this is "I don't". If you're even a little bright (which is the most I, personally, can claim) and capable of actually Getting Shit Done when you are working (so, you do, in fact, know your shit, and have decent sense/taste for where to apply effort), surprisingly few hours a week are needed to maintain or even exceed par, lots of places. [EDIT] Though I guess my main technique for ensuring fully-actually-working time is effective is that I'm fairly serious about tightening feedback loops. This is basically like doing your mise en place when cooking. Make sure as much working time as possible is actually working, and that you can do a write-build-test cycle as fast as possible, make it easy to hop in and do five minutes of work and truly accomplish something, et c.
- sudden_dystopia 4y ago
  Can confirm, this approach works outside of tech as well. Not just buckling down to get shit done, but be proactive enough to anticipate what’s coming and when so you don’t get buried. Don’t let your in box fill up, look available on IM, answer the phone when it rings, streamline your processes. And then otherwise take the rest of the day off except for anything new that may pop up that you can knock out.
sudden_dystopia 4y ago
Just so you are aware, this is not a luxury that many jobs outside of tech affords. My previous job gave me way more than 8 hours of work to complete in a day and was completely tone deaf for years about widespread morale issues(insurance adjusting for a company who’s spokesperson rhymes with Bo). So I went to a new company, doing a similar job and they give me what they think takes 8 hours but usually really only takes me around 4-6 hours. My point is, some companies will just work you to death and others are either naive or compassionate(probably naive). You need to find the naive companies to work for unless you want to get taken advantage of.
- stolenmerch 4y ago
  And some companies give you exactly 8 hours of work. I once had a job working in a 90 degree warehouse taking boxes out of boxes and putting them in other boxes. 8 hours on the dot. Clocked by the minute. Everyday. To this day I don't take for granted being stressed out working "overtime" software projects.

corrral 4y ago

Yeah, my answer to this is "I don't". If you're even a little bright (which is the most I, personally, can claim) and capable of actually Getting Shit Done when you are working (so, you do, in fact, know your shit, and have decent sense/taste for where to apply effort), surprisingly few hours a week are needed to maintain or even exceed par, lots of places. [EDIT] Though I guess my main technique for ensuring fully-actually-working time is effective is that I'm fairly serious about tightening feedback loops. This is basically like doing your mise en place when cooking. Make sure as much working time as possible is actually working, and that you can do a write-build-test cycle as fast as possible, make it easy to hop in and do five minutes of work and truly accomplish something, et c.

sudden_dystopia 4y ago
Can confirm, this approach works outside of tech as well. Not just buckling down to get shit done, but be proactive enough to anticipate what’s coming and when so you don’t get buried. Don’t let your in box fill up, look available on IM, answer the phone when it rings, streamline your processes. And then otherwise take the rest of the day off except for anything new that may pop up that you can knock out.

sudden_dystopia 4y ago

Just so you are aware, this is not a luxury that many jobs outside of tech affords. My previous job gave me way more than 8 hours of work to complete in a day and was completely tone deaf for years about widespread morale issues(insurance adjusting for a company who’s spokesperson rhymes with Bo). So I went to a new company, doing a similar job and they give me what they think takes 8 hours but usually really only takes me around 4-6 hours. My point is, some companies will just work you to death and others are either naive or compassionate(probably naive). You need to find the naive companies to work for unless you want to get taken advantage of.

stolenmerch 4y ago
And some companies give you exactly 8 hours of work. I once had a job working in a 90 degree warehouse taking boxes out of boxes and putting them in other boxes. 8 hours on the dot. Clocked by the minute. Everyday. To this day I don't take for granted being stressed out working "overtime" software projects.