I despise most of my employers for their focus on hours, and in fact I left a job last week that had me working long hours despite the actual quantity of work a

I despise most of my employers for their focus on hours, and in fact I left a job last week that had me working long hours despite the actual quantity of work assigned to me. But, ironically, I use hours as an objective way to measure my own work. I use a time-tracking program similar to what freelances would use so I can get an exact breakdown on time spent per day, as well as by project. My actual coding time is there, as well as time spent answering support emails, and time doing things that support the continuing growth of the business. Sure,sometimes a whole day flies by and I check the tracker and I've spent 10 hours actually working. But on days when I'm less motivated, it's sort of a game to rack up an hour here, 15 minutes there, and still manage to get a lot done. It's a really good way to spur yourself into tackling a bug/feature/challenge that you'd otherwise procrastinate. "OK, I have no idea where the hell to begin, but I can at least spend 30 minutes diligently investigating the matter. If I'm nowhere closer, I'll stop then and work on something else." Then you might find that a few hours fly by and the problem is solved. As long as you're brutally honest with yourself in tracking your time, and don't allow it just to become a procrastination mechanism (tracking time on things that really aren't constructive but seem sort of "productive"), it's a great way to measure yourself.