10 ms·

This won't be valid for everyone, but I'm getting more and more convinced that most (a lot of?) people don't "work" work 40 hours anyway. I'm not even mentally

This won't be valid for everyone, but I'm getting more and more convinced that most (a lot of?) people don't "work" work 40 hours anyway. I'm not even mentally capable of doing 40 intense hours of focussed work. Not saying I don't have other tasks besides coding/thinking in that time, but honestly not for the full slot of time. It just feels to me like some sort of secret we all share and pretend like it's fine, but being honest and just doing the same stuff in say 32 hours and cutting out the cruft in between would be great. Or maybe it's just my add that likes a bit more pressure, I don't know. But what I do know is that, even with a very relaxed employer that allows you to take your time and chill, go workout or play a game for an hour, I can't fully relax or disconnect knowing that I'm expected to do those 40 hours, regardless of how often they say it's fine.

lucasyvas 4y ago
Most remote jobs I've worked at, I can't reach anyone on Friday. Probably not a coincidence. Even years ago when I was in the office, everyone would go on insanely long lunch breaks on Friday instead. If you work an office job, I can assure you that the number of people actually working on Friday is statistically irrelevant.
- vidanay 4y ago
  "Never buy a car built on a Friday or a Monday."
thenerdhead 4y ago
You're probably not wrong. The data supports it. > In October, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was 34.5 hours for the fifth month in a row. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm
- vjk800 4y ago
  And this is the time they at least pretend to be working. The amount of hours they actually do something productive is going to be much less.
- Arrath 4y ago
  The pessimist in me has to wonder how much of this is employers manipulating schedules to keep employees from classifying as full time? I see the report calls out part time workers at 3.7m yet still I wonder.
  - thenerdhead 4y ago
    That's a great point. I interpret that there's a difference of "assigned 40 hours" and "works 40 hours" that is being called out in this data.
- welshwelsh 4y ago
  That doesn't mean they actually work for 34.5 hours, that's just how long they get paid for. A UK company did a study which showed the average office worker, who is in the office 40 hours a week, is only productive for less than 3 hours a day. https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/office-worker-productivity https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/office-worker-product... I would guess the average workweek, only counting the time people are actually productive, is 10-15 hours a week. The rest of the time people waste procrastinating, posting on social media etc.
Tyrek 4y ago
If we "actually work" 32 hours out of 40 (80%), what is the likelihood that if we shift to a 32 hour max week, that the average person will only "actually work" ~26 hours (80% of 32) in this hypothetical future? What if at least part of the 20% is spent doing social activities, water cooler conversations, etc. that enable the remaining 80% to flow more efficiently?
- tnel77 4y ago
  I’m all for a shorter workweek, but I definitely expect that the social aspect of a job is good for overall productivity. Maybe I’m weird, but I enjoy asking my coworkers how their weekend was prior to a meeting starting or (back when I was in the office) as we ran into each other in the hallway.
  - Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
    Same! You're definitely not alone, even if I do feel like a rare species these days. I really wish we were all going in two or three days a week. This constant wfh is driving me crazy.
    - vonseel 4y ago
      People will tell you only lonely people think that way, but I think office socialization is a different kind of thing. At the office you meet and chat with people of all ages and different types. When you're with friends, you're probably hanging with a bunch of people more like yourself.
  - BryantD 4y ago
    You're not weird. I am not like you, but as a manager it's been important for me to recognize that this isn't at all uncommon.
  - vagrantJin 4y ago
    > I enjoy asking my coworkers how their weekend was prior to a meeting starting It's foreplay but for work. Forework?
mc32 4y ago
I agree we don't put in a full 40 hours. Unless someone is working a 1950's style assembly line (meatpacking plant for example) few will put in those 40 hours even in manual labor ---you're chatting, playing around, etc. for some time. White collar work, is of course, way worse. There is a lot of slack time in between tasks and meetings and so on. So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing.
- devmor 4y ago
  > So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing. Perhaps in manual labor, but I don't think this applies to white collar work. The limiting factor in output for this line of work seems to be intellectual exhaustion/burnout, not pacing.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Exactly. Setting aside the "metabolic drag" of working in a company (time spent attending mandatory trainings, recurring stand-ups/all-hands, etc), I think everyone working in software has more productivity in their 1st hour than in their 39th. The question is where does the N * f(N) first derivative turn negative. I think it's lower than 32 hours/week for software development myself.
    - devmor 4y ago
      I would agree with that figure. Personally I assign development to more of a "creative" role than a lot of people tend to. Your productivity can often depend on your inspiration, moreso the more senior/architectural your role is. I've certainly had moments where I accomplished more at one 3am moment of clarity than an entire week before - and I think most experienced developers can say the same.
wollsmoth 4y ago
I'm at least online 40 hours. Actively doing effort is harder but it's easier if I'm doing something interesting. I try to not beat myself up if I'm having trouble focusing some days. Some days it just ain't happening. Get a coffee read a magazine and try again a little later.
newbYhrly 4y ago
Musk posted screens of his Elden Ring progress a couple weeks after launch. Given other players had to sink 60-80 hours in to get to the same point Musk was broadcasting, he was working 48 hours a day at his companies and on Elden Ring. Bezos has given interviews about his habits. He works maybe 10-20 hours a week. Billing 40 hours every week to run scripts that generate a Github repo structure in minutes has been profitable for me though. Not going to knock Musk and Bezos optimizing for themselves by gaming others agency.
- ITB 4y ago
  Picasso offered a drawing in a napkin for $1M dollars, even though it took him 1 min to draw it. You know the gist. Bezos might do 20 hours a week of “work” because he scaffolded a giant organization around his brain, so he only needs to provide certain input. Besides, much of the non-work time, such as public speaking and so forth, is actually work. Also the ultimate test is whether after confessing to your real contribution, people are ok. I don’t think any amazon employee was annoyed after hearing this so called interview, whereas is your company knew what you were charging them for, they would fire you.
  - newbYhrly 4y ago
    He had 50 people invest tens of thousands each to build that scaffold. He’s not a genius just well networked. Idle idolatry of normal human beings with no effort to verify their real outputs creates an unfalsifiable truth Bezos is a lynchpin to reality. Ooo oo I heard it through the grapevine, Bezos is not what you might call “divine”… The rich did not invent science, engineering, and economic activity. Human behavior gives rise to those things organically. The rich are merely playing information awareness constraint games; a man named Farmer is a farmer, an engineer is an engineer, and there’s no reason to allow them agency to learn other things. His value is rooted in traditions of political correctness to buy into that narrative, not immutable laws of nature. Every worker faces the risk of their livelihood vanishing tomorrow. One slip of the tongue costing their job. Why are these guys insulated from the same?
    - 4y ago
jghn 4y ago
My most recent job is billable and time is tracked in tight increments. Because I now pay much more attention to when I am and am not 100% engaged, it's been eye opening how much 40 hours really is. I've found that I'm about 2/3 efficient. So if I designate 6 hours for "work", I'm really working (and thus billing) for about 4 hours.
- jermaustin1 4y ago
  I would bet those 2 hours you aren't billing for are still actual work. You are available, you are probably thinking about the company/the job/the work. That is all WORK, and should be billed. I used to do a lot of walks (before I moved from Upstate NY to Houston) where I would escape the code and think about the product. That was all billed time, and understood by my clients. Just because my fingers are not furiously typing, doesn't mean I'm not actively engaged in my work.
  - jghn 4y ago
    Sometimes. And in past jobs that's how I justified myself, sure I'm not hands on keyboard all the time but I'm "on" 95+% of my awake time. This company's policy is the clock is only running if you're 100% engaged. I try to stick with that. As time has gone on I've gotten better about mentally turning the switch more all the way on/all the way off. There's some grey area on both sides that I figure comes out in the wash. And if I have a serendipitous moment, it's not hard to turn the clock back on and have at it. It'd also look more different if the billing increment was wider. In a very past life I billed at 15 minute intervals. So if I was "on" for 12 minutes but stepped away to clear my head, the full 15 was billed.
_8j50 4y ago
People don't work for 40 hours but they are available for 40 hours, being available is also "work".
vlunkr 4y ago
> It just feels to me like some sort of secret we all share Yeah this is a pretty interesting phenomenon. I feel like as a kid I had no idea it would be this way, but every job I've worked, blue and white collar, has involved a lot of "time wasting." It's very surprising at first.
fourseventy 4y ago
Cruft will build back up in the 32 hours though. In 10 years people will be saying "does anyone else feel like they don't work the full 32? We should cut it down to 24!" There is always going to be some percentage of working time that isn't fully productive.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  I'm not sure what the problem with this is. It sounds like utopia.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  Eh, diminishing percentages. 40 -> 32 -> 30 -> 29.5 -> 29.3 -> 29.2 -> really, we are talking about minutes(?). Just keep 29-ish and check again in a century.
willio58 4y ago
This is why Remote is great. You have the flexibility, and as long as you get the work you say you'll get done done, who cares if you're literally sitting in a chair from 9-5?
- Auracle 4y ago
  Which is exactly how salaried work was supposed to work, not “40 hours is the minimum and we won’t pay you if we pile so much work on that you need to work 60 hours instead.”
gilbert_vanova 4y ago
The more your work is in creative output, the more likely you are to be working 100% of the time you're on the clock. Cognition is complex and most of it happens under the covers. Once you wake up, you load up your brains with concerns and don't stop thinking about it just because you aren't in meetings or actively coding. Your conscious thoughts are only one layer in a dense system. Arguably, you can't turn it off when you clock out either. It's why I argue for a retainer model on intellectual workers.
- urthor 4y ago
  Spot on. Do you have any books you'd received recommend that have any additional tricks?
elvis10ten 4y ago
I disagree based on personal (anecdotal) data. When I get into a “flow” on a project I can work 12+ hour days. My productivity dwindles as the day gets old for sure, but I don’t think it ever gets to zero or close. I dream/think about the project and the first thing on my mind in the morning is the next step on the project. Last time I was in flow, I single handedly built the next generation of a tool in 2 months. It’s currently taking the other team about 6 months to do the same but for another platform. The complexity is roughly the same and I think the engineers are as smart, if not smarter than me. I think the difference was that I did 12-16 hours for 2 month (including weekends). This is not sustainable of course. I developed my back and wrist pain at the end of the 2 months. This is something I consciously stop myself from doing ever again because health is all you got at the end of the day.
- suralind 4y ago
  Very realistic, I one had a different idea of how we would build a retool-like tool for a company I worked at. I spent 4 days to reimplement our app from scratch, I didn't include even 10% of what we had, but the framework was much more powerful. I typically code for like 3-4 hours a day, maybe 6-7 when I'm super into what I'm doing. BUT, I very frequently think about my work when I'm not working.
- banannaise 4y ago
  I've also done this before. After I was done, I couldn't focus properly for several weeks. Turns out I was largely just pushing back rest that I desperately needed, and I had to pay that back in the end.

lucasyvas 4y ago

Most remote jobs I've worked at, I can't reach anyone on Friday. Probably not a coincidence. Even years ago when I was in the office, everyone would go on insanely long lunch breaks on Friday instead. If you work an office job, I can assure you that the number of people actually working on Friday is statistically irrelevant.

vidanay 4y ago
"Never buy a car built on a Friday or a Monday."

thenerdhead 4y ago

You're probably not wrong. The data supports it. > In October, the average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was 34.5 hours for the fifth month in a row. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm

vjk800 4y ago
And this is the time they at least pretend to be working. The amount of hours they actually do something productive is going to be much less.
Arrath 4y ago
The pessimist in me has to wonder how much of this is employers manipulating schedules to keep employees from classifying as full time? I see the report calls out part time workers at 3.7m yet still I wonder.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  That's a great point. I interpret that there's a difference of "assigned 40 hours" and "works 40 hours" that is being called out in this data.
welshwelsh 4y ago
That doesn't mean they actually work for 34.5 hours, that's just how long they get paid for. A UK company did a study which showed the average office worker, who is in the office 40 hours a week, is only productive for less than 3 hours a day. https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/office-worker-productivity https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/office-worker-product... I would guess the average workweek, only counting the time people are actually productive, is 10-15 hours a week. The rest of the time people waste procrastinating, posting on social media etc.

Tyrek 4y ago

If we "actually work" 32 hours out of 40 (80%), what is the likelihood that if we shift to a 32 hour max week, that the average person will only "actually work" ~26 hours (80% of 32) in this hypothetical future? What if at least part of the 20% is spent doing social activities, water cooler conversations, etc. that enable the remaining 80% to flow more efficiently?

tnel77 4y ago
I’m all for a shorter workweek, but I definitely expect that the social aspect of a job is good for overall productivity. Maybe I’m weird, but I enjoy asking my coworkers how their weekend was prior to a meeting starting or (back when I was in the office) as we ran into each other in the hallway.
- Gene_Parmesan 4y ago
  Same! You're definitely not alone, even if I do feel like a rare species these days. I really wish we were all going in two or three days a week. This constant wfh is driving me crazy.
  - vonseel 4y ago
    People will tell you only lonely people think that way, but I think office socialization is a different kind of thing. At the office you meet and chat with people of all ages and different types. When you're with friends, you're probably hanging with a bunch of people more like yourself.
- BryantD 4y ago
  You're not weird. I am not like you, but as a manager it's been important for me to recognize that this isn't at all uncommon.
- vagrantJin 4y ago
  > I enjoy asking my coworkers how their weekend was prior to a meeting starting It's foreplay but for work. Forework?

mc32 4y ago

I agree we don't put in a full 40 hours. Unless someone is working a 1950's style assembly line (meatpacking plant for example) few will put in those 40 hours even in manual labor ---you're chatting, playing around, etc. for some time. White collar work, is of course, way worse. There is a lot of slack time in between tasks and meetings and so on. So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing.

devmor 4y ago
> So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing. Perhaps in manual labor, but I don't think this applies to white collar work. The limiting factor in output for this line of work seems to be intellectual exhaustion/burnout, not pacing.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Exactly. Setting aside the "metabolic drag" of working in a company (time spent attending mandatory trainings, recurring stand-ups/all-hands, etc), I think everyone working in software has more productivity in their 1st hour than in their 39th. The question is where does the N * f(N) first derivative turn negative. I think it's lower than 32 hours/week for software development myself.
  - devmor 4y ago
    I would agree with that figure. Personally I assign development to more of a "creative" role than a lot of people tend to. Your productivity can often depend on your inspiration, moreso the more senior/architectural your role is. I've certainly had moments where I accomplished more at one 3am moment of clarity than an entire week before - and I think most experienced developers can say the same.

wollsmoth 4y ago

I'm at least online 40 hours. Actively doing effort is harder but it's easier if I'm doing something interesting. I try to not beat myself up if I'm having trouble focusing some days. Some days it just ain't happening. Get a coffee read a magazine and try again a little later.

newbYhrly 4y ago

Musk posted screens of his Elden Ring progress a couple weeks after launch. Given other players had to sink 60-80 hours in to get to the same point Musk was broadcasting, he was working 48 hours a day at his companies and on Elden Ring. Bezos has given interviews about his habits. He works maybe 10-20 hours a week. Billing 40 hours every week to run scripts that generate a Github repo structure in minutes has been profitable for me though. Not going to knock Musk and Bezos optimizing for themselves by gaming others agency.

ITB 4y ago
Picasso offered a drawing in a napkin for $1M dollars, even though it took him 1 min to draw it. You know the gist. Bezos might do 20 hours a week of “work” because he scaffolded a giant organization around his brain, so he only needs to provide certain input. Besides, much of the non-work time, such as public speaking and so forth, is actually work. Also the ultimate test is whether after confessing to your real contribution, people are ok. I don’t think any amazon employee was annoyed after hearing this so called interview, whereas is your company knew what you were charging them for, they would fire you.
- newbYhrly 4y ago
  He had 50 people invest tens of thousands each to build that scaffold. He’s not a genius just well networked. Idle idolatry of normal human beings with no effort to verify their real outputs creates an unfalsifiable truth Bezos is a lynchpin to reality. Ooo oo I heard it through the grapevine, Bezos is not what you might call “divine”… The rich did not invent science, engineering, and economic activity. Human behavior gives rise to those things organically. The rich are merely playing information awareness constraint games; a man named Farmer is a farmer, an engineer is an engineer, and there’s no reason to allow them agency to learn other things. His value is rooted in traditions of political correctness to buy into that narrative, not immutable laws of nature. Every worker faces the risk of their livelihood vanishing tomorrow. One slip of the tongue costing their job. Why are these guys insulated from the same?
  - 4y ago

jghn 4y ago

My most recent job is billable and time is tracked in tight increments. Because I now pay much more attention to when I am and am not 100% engaged, it's been eye opening how much 40 hours really is. I've found that I'm about 2/3 efficient. So if I designate 6 hours for "work", I'm really working (and thus billing) for about 4 hours.

jermaustin1 4y ago
I would bet those 2 hours you aren't billing for are still actual work. You are available, you are probably thinking about the company/the job/the work. That is all WORK, and should be billed. I used to do a lot of walks (before I moved from Upstate NY to Houston) where I would escape the code and think about the product. That was all billed time, and understood by my clients. Just because my fingers are not furiously typing, doesn't mean I'm not actively engaged in my work.
- jghn 4y ago
  Sometimes. And in past jobs that's how I justified myself, sure I'm not hands on keyboard all the time but I'm "on" 95+% of my awake time. This company's policy is the clock is only running if you're 100% engaged. I try to stick with that. As time has gone on I've gotten better about mentally turning the switch more all the way on/all the way off. There's some grey area on both sides that I figure comes out in the wash. And if I have a serendipitous moment, it's not hard to turn the clock back on and have at it. It'd also look more different if the billing increment was wider. In a very past life I billed at 15 minute intervals. So if I was "on" for 12 minutes but stepped away to clear my head, the full 15 was billed.

_8j50 4y ago

People don't work for 40 hours but they are available for 40 hours, being available is also "work".

vlunkr 4y ago

> It just feels to me like some sort of secret we all share Yeah this is a pretty interesting phenomenon. I feel like as a kid I had no idea it would be this way, but every job I've worked, blue and white collar, has involved a lot of "time wasting." It's very surprising at first.

fourseventy 4y ago

Cruft will build back up in the 32 hours though. In 10 years people will be saying "does anyone else feel like they don't work the full 32? We should cut it down to 24!" There is always going to be some percentage of working time that isn't fully productive.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
I'm not sure what the problem with this is. It sounds like utopia.
diffeomorphism 4y ago
Eh, diminishing percentages. 40 -> 32 -> 30 -> 29.5 -> 29.3 -> 29.2 -> really, we are talking about minutes(?). Just keep 29-ish and check again in a century.

willio58 4y ago

This is why Remote is great. You have the flexibility, and as long as you get the work you say you'll get done done, who cares if you're literally sitting in a chair from 9-5?

Auracle 4y ago
Which is exactly how salaried work was supposed to work, not “40 hours is the minimum and we won’t pay you if we pile so much work on that you need to work 60 hours instead.”

gilbert_vanova 4y ago

The more your work is in creative output, the more likely you are to be working 100% of the time you're on the clock. Cognition is complex and most of it happens under the covers. Once you wake up, you load up your brains with concerns and don't stop thinking about it just because you aren't in meetings or actively coding. Your conscious thoughts are only one layer in a dense system. Arguably, you can't turn it off when you clock out either. It's why I argue for a retainer model on intellectual workers.

urthor 4y ago
Spot on. Do you have any books you'd received recommend that have any additional tricks?

elvis10ten 4y ago

I disagree based on personal (anecdotal) data. When I get into a “flow” on a project I can work 12+ hour days. My productivity dwindles as the day gets old for sure, but I don’t think it ever gets to zero or close. I dream/think about the project and the first thing on my mind in the morning is the next step on the project. Last time I was in flow, I single handedly built the next generation of a tool in 2 months. It’s currently taking the other team about 6 months to do the same but for another platform. The complexity is roughly the same and I think the engineers are as smart, if not smarter than me. I think the difference was that I did 12-16 hours for 2 month (including weekends). This is not sustainable of course. I developed my back and wrist pain at the end of the 2 months. This is something I consciously stop myself from doing ever again because health is all you got at the end of the day.

suralind 4y ago
Very realistic, I one had a different idea of how we would build a retool-like tool for a company I worked at. I spent 4 days to reimplement our app from scratch, I didn't include even 10% of what we had, but the framework was much more powerful. I typically code for like 3-4 hours a day, maybe 6-7 when I'm super into what I'm doing. BUT, I very frequently think about my work when I'm not working.
banannaise 4y ago
I've also done this before. After I was done, I couldn't focus properly for several weeks. Turns out I was largely just pushing back rest that I desperately needed, and I had to pay that back in the end.