7 ms·

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day.

by gexla 12y ago

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. There are a lot of posts here from developers talking about how they are more productive than their peers working less hours. Really, they probably have the same capacity for hours, but the less productive developers are carrying a lot of baggage in attempting to manage themselves (trying to push themselves when they shouldn't be.) I think you could actually put in more. The trick is to observe your own natural rhythm. For example, energy and your ability to focus is like a wave through the day. For most, I think the time of the most energy is early in the morning and then it declines from there. You aren't burning hours so much as you're burning that fuel in your brain. But if you put in your 4 hours early, then you could probably take a good break and get another good 90 minute session. You could also find other tasks that are much less cognitive demanding to fill your day. If you put in your 4 hours that you believe are more productive than what your peers put in, then fill out the rest of the day with things that are lighter and less "forced." If you are running a business, then after your creative work you still might have email, quotes, meetings, marketing, billing and a long list of other things to do. It could be pretty easy for a business manager to knock out 4 hours of creative work per day and then still fill out the rest of a normal working day with other tasks. If you didn't have these other sorts of tasks, then maybe you could work out a side project with your employer. After you do the "forced" work, then maybe there is something that you could work on which is more a "scratch an itch" type of project. This could be something that you see as a glaring problem for the business which also happens to be something that you are highly interested in. Maybe it's something that's a different area of expertise that you might want to move into in the future. Or maybe your 4 hours is all you can do without burning out.

gedrap 12y ago
Totally agree. 9-5 (or 9-6) engineering jobs are a bit crazy - no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. Many managers understand that and are cool with people just not doing work while at work... However, I would still prefer to go home than sitting and waiting for 5 or 6pm so I could do something more meaningful, because e.g. side-projects is a gray area while at work and that's fair. Even so, some non-technical higher-ups might think that the engineer is not working hard and just slacking off because everyone else is at the office till 6 or 7. Some companies recognize that (e.g. Netflix, Twitter, etc) and they don't care where and what are you do, as long as you get stuff done. In an ideal world, every company would treat engineers like that :)
- aidenn0 12y ago
  > no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. I disagree with your fact. I know many, many people who can do it. The simple fact that you talk about working on "side-projects" makes me think you have productive, creative hours outside the time you spend on work items. I do agree that in the current market for software developers, you'd be crazy to not try to get some of your creative time to work on what you want to instead of your employer, but I just don't comprehend all the people acting as if 8 hours a day, 5 days a week of productivity is unattainable.
  - untog 12y ago
    Perhaps a more accurate statement is that no-one is able to work productively for 8 hours straight, which is what the 9-5 job tries to make you do.
    - e12e 12y ago
      I've yet to really try it, but I always thought that (being single, without family) it would be more reasonable to work for 5 hours, have (at least) an hour break out of the office, and then work for another 5, for 4 days, is a more sensible approach to a 40 hour work week, than 58 with a (relatively) short break for lunch... I doubt that that would amount to 40 "productive" hours, but then again, I don't think the 85 leads to that either.
    - eastbayjake 12y ago
      Even if I wanted to work productively for 8 hours straight, most of the low-level office tasks I'm required to do keep me from doing it -- explain to marketing why X product from Y vendor won't work for our situation, responding to email, meetings that always take up an hour no matter how short the agenda, etc. I think most of the engineers I know have employer-created hurdles that limit them to 4-6 hours daily of truly productive work.
      - woah 12y ago
        Sounds like most of these things are pretty important for the business (except for maybe the overly long meetings). We'd all like to code in a bubble, but there are other things involved in running a business.
twelvechairs 12y ago
> Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. OK I'll bite. What are these fields? I think it is fanciful to call 4 hours per day 'normal'.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Any office job ever. As much as 50% of the time in an 8 hour day can be spent chatting with coworkers or inadvertently zoning out.
  - leoh 12y ago
    Or meetings. Poorly run meetings. Probably because people are tired.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Meetings can be incredibly useful (at least until we invent telepathy), but only if they're run well and held sparingly. Otherwise they turn into an easy way to look busy. As you suggest, efficient meetings aren't really possible when people are overworked. Even one-on-one conversations can fall apart when sleep deprived. I've had work-related conversations at the end of an overly long 8h day where neither one of us could form coherent sentences about the code we were discussing. In an ideal world, we would have left work two hours prior.
  - twelvechairs 12y ago
    This is a completely different argument. This is "most people aren't efficient, therefore because I am I should be able to work less" where OP's was "creative people can't (and don't) work above 4 hours" (yet can somehow do so on their own side project). I'll agree with you in general on this one (though perhaps then you should be happy with s 'standard job' salary), but disagree with OP.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
cl42 12y ago
To add to this, there's a great book on the topic regarding the daily rituals of artists: http://www.amazon.ca/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 http://www.amazon.ca/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/03072... It leads to the same conclusion -- 4 hours of work is about the maximum for any creative or intellectually rigorous field of work.
gbog 12y ago
"all you can do without burning out." If I may, this sounds to me like if you assumed that everyone should be working just one step below burn out limit. And this seems to be shared by so many people. I wonder what is the rationale behind it? Is it a way to maximise income? or to make sure the 1billionth chance to be a new Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is not lost? For me, as a French, it seems obvious that we should be very far from the burn out limit most of the time, we should be close to the balance between happiness and boredom, while keeping a sufficient income.
- dennisgorelik 12y ago
  If you don't push yourself, then you don't grow fast enough. Burnout is also bad, so the ideal is to stay exactly one step below burnout.
  - alistairSH 12y ago
    And there is research to back this up? One step below burn-out sounds miserable to me.
    - DrewAllyn 12y ago
      If its miserable, than it is burnout.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      I think if you're miserable, then you're actually at your burn-out. The notion of one-step below burn-out is that you're still getting enough stuff done (with the assumption that you _like_ your work, I guess).
  - gbog 12y ago
    > you don't grow fast enough. But what if I do not want to "grow fast enough"? Or, more precisely, what if I question the direction of this growth? For instance, I certainly should learn more and more, discover more interesting topics, become a better father, cultivate friendships, etc. This is what I would agree to grow, and it means spending more time with kids or friends, or reading books about whatever subject I am interested in at the moment (which happens to be anthropology and history). This is a "growth" that do not require one dangerous "one step below burn out" mantra. Moreover, I do not believe that the very few very successful people are more happy than other. I can give two examples: I do not think Steve Jobs was happier than a "normal guy". A closer and easier example is Mojang, creator of Minecraft, which I certainly respect and admire (much more than Jobs): is he happyer now that he got the jackpot? He worked hard, was very lucky, but not that he "arrived there", maybe, just maybe, he has a lot of negative pressure from his success, maybe he has a fear to fail and would rather go back to the happy times when he was coding alone a very raw sim game for <1000 fans. So, once the soup is assured for long enough, and despite all the essays by PG, why not just say "it is not for me"?
cliffcrosland 12y ago
If you love what you do for work, it is probably sustainable to work for more than 4 hours per day. We all do things during each of the 16 hours of consciousness per day. Some of those things are more enjoyable than others. If you find yourself in a situation where you must work more than 4 hours per day, and it is not enjoyable, there appear to be two options: 1. Find work that you enjoy doing more than 4 hours per day. 2. Learn to love what you do for work. In the healthy romantic relationships I've seen, partners fall in love, but they also choose to love one another. I wonder if loving work is similar. There is a lot of rhetoric encouraging people to follow their passions to find the jobs they love, but there is little rhetoric about choosing to love the job you have. It's important not to delude yourself that a horrible job is lovable, but it's also important to notice all of the positive aspects of a job and how you can use it to grow and give back.

by gexla 12y ago

gedrap 12y ago

Totally agree. 9-5 (or 9-6) engineering jobs are a bit crazy - no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. Many managers understand that and are cool with people just not doing work while at work... However, I would still prefer to go home than sitting and waiting for 5 or 6pm so I could do something more meaningful, because e.g. side-projects is a gray area while at work and that's fair. Even so, some non-technical higher-ups might think that the engineer is not working hard and just slacking off because everyone else is at the office till 6 or 7. Some companies recognize that (e.g. Netflix, Twitter, etc) and they don't care where and what are you do, as long as you get stuff done. In an ideal world, every company would treat engineers like that :)

aidenn0 12y ago
> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. I disagree with your fact. I know many, many people who can do it. The simple fact that you talk about working on "side-projects" makes me think you have productive, creative hours outside the time you spend on work items. I do agree that in the current market for software developers, you'd be crazy to not try to get some of your creative time to work on what you want to instead of your employer, but I just don't comprehend all the people acting as if 8 hours a day, 5 days a week of productivity is unattainable.
- untog 12y ago
  Perhaps a more accurate statement is that no-one is able to work productively for 8 hours straight, which is what the 9-5 job tries to make you do.
  - e12e 12y ago
    I've yet to really try it, but I always thought that (being single, without family) it would be more reasonable to work for 5 hours, have (at least) an hour break out of the office, and then work for another 5, for 4 days, is a more sensible approach to a 40 hour work week, than 58 with a (relatively) short break for lunch... I doubt that that would amount to 40 "productive" hours, but then again, I don't think the 85 leads to that either.
  - eastbayjake 12y ago
    Even if I wanted to work productively for 8 hours straight, most of the low-level office tasks I'm required to do keep me from doing it -- explain to marketing why X product from Y vendor won't work for our situation, responding to email, meetings that always take up an hour no matter how short the agenda, etc. I think most of the engineers I know have employer-created hurdles that limit them to 4-6 hours daily of truly productive work.
    - woah 12y ago
      Sounds like most of these things are pretty important for the business (except for maybe the overly long meetings). We'd all like to code in a bubble, but there are other things involved in running a business.

twelvechairs 12y ago

> Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. OK I'll bite. What are these fields? I think it is fanciful to call 4 hours per day 'normal'.

nitrogen 12y ago
Any office job ever. As much as 50% of the time in an 8 hour day can be spent chatting with coworkers or inadvertently zoning out.
- leoh 12y ago
  Or meetings. Poorly run meetings. Probably because people are tired.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Meetings can be incredibly useful (at least until we invent telepathy), but only if they're run well and held sparingly. Otherwise they turn into an easy way to look busy. As you suggest, efficient meetings aren't really possible when people are overworked. Even one-on-one conversations can fall apart when sleep deprived. I've had work-related conversations at the end of an overly long 8h day where neither one of us could form coherent sentences about the code we were discussing. In an ideal world, we would have left work two hours prior.
- twelvechairs 12y ago
  This is a completely different argument. This is "most people aren't efficient, therefore because I am I should be able to work less" where OP's was "creative people can't (and don't) work above 4 hours" (yet can somehow do so on their own side project). I'll agree with you in general on this one (though perhaps then you should be happy with s 'standard job' salary), but disagree with OP.
  - nitrogen 12y ago

cl42 12y ago

To add to this, there's a great book on the topic regarding the daily rituals of artists: http://www.amazon.ca/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/0307273601 http://www.amazon.ca/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-Work/dp/03072... It leads to the same conclusion -- 4 hours of work is about the maximum for any creative or intellectually rigorous field of work.

gbog 12y ago

"all you can do without burning out." If I may, this sounds to me like if you assumed that everyone should be working just one step below burn out limit. And this seems to be shared by so many people. I wonder what is the rationale behind it? Is it a way to maximise income? or to make sure the 1billionth chance to be a new Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is not lost? For me, as a French, it seems obvious that we should be very far from the burn out limit most of the time, we should be close to the balance between happiness and boredom, while keeping a sufficient income.

dennisgorelik 12y ago
If you don't push yourself, then you don't grow fast enough. Burnout is also bad, so the ideal is to stay exactly one step below burnout.
- alistairSH 12y ago
  And there is research to back this up? One step below burn-out sounds miserable to me.
  - DrewAllyn 12y ago
    If its miserable, than it is burnout.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    I think if you're miserable, then you're actually at your burn-out. The notion of one-step below burn-out is that you're still getting enough stuff done (with the assumption that you _like_ your work, I guess).
- gbog 12y ago
  > you don't grow fast enough. But what if I do not want to "grow fast enough"? Or, more precisely, what if I question the direction of this growth? For instance, I certainly should learn more and more, discover more interesting topics, become a better father, cultivate friendships, etc. This is what I would agree to grow, and it means spending more time with kids or friends, or reading books about whatever subject I am interested in at the moment (which happens to be anthropology and history). This is a "growth" that do not require one dangerous "one step below burn out" mantra. Moreover, I do not believe that the very few very successful people are more happy than other. I can give two examples: I do not think Steve Jobs was happier than a "normal guy". A closer and easier example is Mojang, creator of Minecraft, which I certainly respect and admire (much more than Jobs): is he happyer now that he got the jackpot? He worked hard, was very lucky, but not that he "arrived there", maybe, just maybe, he has a lot of negative pressure from his success, maybe he has a fear to fail and would rather go back to the happy times when he was coding alone a very raw sim game for <1000 fans. So, once the soup is assured for long enough, and despite all the essays by PG, why not just say "it is not for me"?

cliffcrosland 12y ago

If you love what you do for work, it is probably sustainable to work for more than 4 hours per day. We all do things during each of the 16 hours of consciousness per day. Some of those things are more enjoyable than others. If you find yourself in a situation where you must work more than 4 hours per day, and it is not enjoyable, there appear to be two options: 1. Find work that you enjoy doing more than 4 hours per day. 2. Learn to love what you do for work. In the healthy romantic relationships I've seen, partners fall in love, but they also choose to love one another. I wonder if loving work is similar. There is a lot of rhetoric encouraging people to follow their passions to find the jobs they love, but there is little rhetoric about choosing to love the job you have. It's important not to delude yourself that a horrible job is lovable, but it's also important to notice all of the positive aspects of a job and how you can use it to grow and give back.