I have some datapoints here. Twice in the last five years I have spent a year working half time (German parental leave is incredible). I noticed spending a high

I have some datapoints here. Twice in the last five years I have spent a year working half time (German parental leave is incredible). I noticed spending a higher proportion of my time on 'overhead' - emails, code reviews etc, but my overall productivity did not drop. I measured the bugs fixed over time, commits made, lines and files changed, emails sent, all proxies for activity. Some results are shown in this otherwise tangentially related blog post: http://yieldthought.com/post/6070927890/metagame-productivity-boost-stats-and-charts http://yieldthought.com/post/6070927890/metagame-productivit... Bear in mind when looking at the charts that they are corrected for man months not calendar months - my calendar productivity remained about the same or slightly better over the measured period. I recently reduced my hours to 27.5 just by asking. Without these positive experiences for all concerned that may not have been so easy.