10 ms·

Working Too Much is Hurting Your Productivity

151 points by pselle 14y ago

Video from the "Go The Fuck Home" Ignite Philly presentation.

cgshaw 14y ago
Stress is probably the worst thing that can happen to you when trying to start. Crushes your immune system and get you sick. Prevents creativity, hell keeps you from doing even mundane and simple tasks well. Makes you hell to interact with your peers, friends and family. People are always preaching at us to work until our faces fall off, but that's just not sustainable nor productive.
RandallBrown 14y ago
It's amazing how few people get this. I just started a new job and everyone is telling me how much everyone here works. I look at the products we make and the deadlines that are set and they aren't any bigger or more agressive than anywhere else that I worked. It has just always been a part of this companies culture I guess, but I don't see the need to sit in my office for 8 extra hours a week when all I'll end up doing is bullshitting on the Internet.
- danudey 14y ago
  At my job, I used to stay late. I'd stay until 10 PM some nights and be super productive. Except I realized that I was dicking around until 5 PM and then being super productive for five hours after most (non-tech) people had gone home. I was staying up late, waking up late, being useless for most of the morning, taking long lunches, and not getting much done. Now I get up every morning, I get to work around 8:30. I spend about an hour in the morning getting my work sorted out, getting my head together, figuring out my tasks for the day, and then being productive until 5 PM, then leaving. I've been more productive, I've been more accessible to coworkers with different schedules, I'm enjoying my job more, and more importantly, I'm enjoying life more. I'm not tired all day, I'm not useless when I get home, I'm not up late for no good reason. Working a fixed, reasonable schedule (with occasional exceptions) has been such a huge boost to my productivity that even people I don't work directly with have commented to my manager on how much of a difference it's made. The hardest part, as she mentions in her talk, is leaving even though my manager is still here, and still working on things, but when I realized that I stopped being very productive at about 4:30 anyway, I figured that was a good reason to tap out and go home. Try it. It works.
- nullflux 14y ago
  Yes. In many cases, I don't think it has anything to do with employees wanting to be there. The problem I've found is that most managers (and VCs) I've met seem to think that if you aren't devoting your life to your code monastery, you aren't productive and you aren't dedicated. Startups place an enormous amount of value on "ass in seat" time even though sometimes being in the seat isn't often the productive thing to do. There is a horribly mistaken belief that the more you sit at work, the more you get done, and if someone else is sitting there longer than you, they're a "better" employee. It's perception, not reality. If we really want to go the fuck home, managers need to drastically change what they think "productive" is in a knowledge industry. Writing code is not like being on a factory line. The motions are not repetitive and you are required to be creative. I think I'm as productive in a 30 hour week as I am on a 60 hour one: in the latter case, I'm spending too much time spinning on overhead or burned out and playing Portal.
hkyeti 14y ago
what's up with all the swearing? this trend of swearing as linkbait is getting pretty lame.
- danielhunt 14y ago
  I see absolutely nothing wrong with swearing. I actually have more of an issue with the automatic disapproval than a healthy spread of profanities.
  - coderdude 14y ago
    I doubt it's an automatic disapproval. It's annoying because swearing is used as linkbait all the time.
    - danielhunt 14y ago
      Now, that argument I can understand. And if that is indeed the reason for the GP, then fair enough. But is it really any different than 'sex sells'?
    - j_baker 14y ago
      If it's used all the time, it must be easy for you to provide a few examples. I've seen a few cases where a post title used profanity in a way that's arguably unnecessary, but I can't think of any examples of outright linkbaiting.
      - RegEx 14y ago
        > I've seen a few cases where a post title used profanity in a way that's arguably unnecessary I think that's pretty much what he means, but you can't blame the author since it seems to work. People here are passionate, especially when it comes to articles related to the human side of software development. Profanity can tap into that emotion fairly well.
        coderdude 14y ago
jh3 14y ago
Personally, I find it more annoying to see so many "my business I hacked up over the weekend" and "look at my startup that I created in 20 hours" posts. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I see way more of these kinds of posts than I do ones that contain expletives. In fact, I would prefer a page full of posts with titles that contain 'fuck' rather than an entire page of posts about copycat blogging platforms or 'my weekend project, now app, now "business," made with rails and coffebonemongodb.js'. Well, that came out of no where. Time to read the OPs post. /rant (which was supposed to be in reply to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771670 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771670) Edit: I definitely agree with the video and wish everyone worked like that. The part about the managers leading the team by going home on time is true too.
jsaxton86 14y ago
To me, the most interesting part of this video was the graph of worker efficiency as a function of hours worked per week, which can be found here as part of a fascinating study: http://cmdept.unl.edu/drb/Reading/overtime1.htm http://cmdept.unl.edu/drb/Reading/overtime1.htm

151 points by pselle 14y ago

Video from the "Go The Fuck Home" Ignite Philly presentation.

Stress is probably the worst thing that can happen to you when trying to start. Crushes your immune system and get you sick. Prevents creativity, hell keeps you from doing even mundane and simple tasks well. Makes you hell to interact with your peers, friends and family. People are always preaching at us to work until our faces fall off, but that's just not sustainable nor productive.

RandallBrown 14y ago

It's amazing how few people get this. I just started a new job and everyone is telling me how much everyone here works. I look at the products we make and the deadlines that are set and they aren't any bigger or more agressive than anywhere else that I worked. It has just always been a part of this companies culture I guess, but I don't see the need to sit in my office for 8 extra hours a week when all I'll end up doing is bullshitting on the Internet.

danudey 14y ago
At my job, I used to stay late. I'd stay until 10 PM some nights and be super productive. Except I realized that I was dicking around until 5 PM and then being super productive for five hours after most (non-tech) people had gone home. I was staying up late, waking up late, being useless for most of the morning, taking long lunches, and not getting much done. Now I get up every morning, I get to work around 8:30. I spend about an hour in the morning getting my work sorted out, getting my head together, figuring out my tasks for the day, and then being productive until 5 PM, then leaving. I've been more productive, I've been more accessible to coworkers with different schedules, I'm enjoying my job more, and more importantly, I'm enjoying life more. I'm not tired all day, I'm not useless when I get home, I'm not up late for no good reason. Working a fixed, reasonable schedule (with occasional exceptions) has been such a huge boost to my productivity that even people I don't work directly with have commented to my manager on how much of a difference it's made. The hardest part, as she mentions in her talk, is leaving even though my manager is still here, and still working on things, but when I realized that I stopped being very productive at about 4:30 anyway, I figured that was a good reason to tap out and go home. Try it. It works.
nullflux 14y ago
Yes. In many cases, I don't think it has anything to do with employees wanting to be there. The problem I've found is that most managers (and VCs) I've met seem to think that if you aren't devoting your life to your code monastery, you aren't productive and you aren't dedicated. Startups place an enormous amount of value on "ass in seat" time even though sometimes being in the seat isn't often the productive thing to do. There is a horribly mistaken belief that the more you sit at work, the more you get done, and if someone else is sitting there longer than you, they're a "better" employee. It's perception, not reality. If we really want to go the fuck home, managers need to drastically change what they think "productive" is in a knowledge industry. Writing code is not like being on a factory line. The motions are not repetitive and you are required to be creative. I think I'm as productive in a 30 hour week as I am on a 60 hour one: in the latter case, I'm spending too much time spinning on overhead or burned out and playing Portal.

hkyeti 14y ago

what's up with all the swearing? this trend of swearing as linkbait is getting pretty lame.

danielhunt 14y ago
I see absolutely nothing wrong with swearing. I actually have more of an issue with the automatic disapproval than a healthy spread of profanities.
- coderdude 14y ago
  I doubt it's an automatic disapproval. It's annoying because swearing is used as linkbait all the time.
  - danielhunt 14y ago
    Now, that argument I can understand. And if that is indeed the reason for the GP, then fair enough. But is it really any different than 'sex sells'?
  - j_baker 14y ago
    If it's used all the time, it must be easy for you to provide a few examples. I've seen a few cases where a post title used profanity in a way that's arguably unnecessary, but I can't think of any examples of outright linkbaiting.
    - RegEx 14y ago
      > I've seen a few cases where a post title used profanity in a way that's arguably unnecessary I think that's pretty much what he means, but you can't blame the author since it seems to work. People here are passionate, especially when it comes to articles related to the human side of software development. Profanity can tap into that emotion fairly well.
      - coderdude 14y ago

jh3 14y ago

Personally, I find it more annoying to see so many "my business I hacked up over the weekend" and "look at my startup that I created in 20 hours" posts. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I see way more of these kinds of posts than I do ones that contain expletives. In fact, I would prefer a page full of posts with titles that contain 'fuck' rather than an entire page of posts about copycat blogging platforms or 'my weekend project, now app, now "business," made with rails and coffebonemongodb.js'. Well, that came out of no where. Time to read the OPs post. /rant (which was supposed to be in reply to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771670 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3771670) Edit: I definitely agree with the video and wish everyone worked like that. The part about the managers leading the team by going home on time is true too.

jsaxton86 14y ago

To me, the most interesting part of this video was the graph of worker efficiency as a function of hours worked per week, which can be found here as part of a fascinating study: http://cmdept.unl.edu/drb/Reading/overtime1.htm http://cmdept.unl.edu/drb/Reading/overtime1.htm