Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcus_holmes | Hacker News Reader

When I was nomadding around SE Asia, I worked 5 hours a day, 6 days a week (so I had time to do all the cool stuff in the places I was travelling through). That worked really well - I was at least as productive as I normally am in a standard 40-hour week.

A decade ago I was working 5 days a week from an open-plan office, and mentally clocked out around 2pm each day. Office culture meant I was just moistening a chair from then until it was acceptable to leave around 6pm.

For the last few years I've been working 35-45 hour weeks from home, especially during COVID, and that was fine productivity-speaking.

I'm currently working 4 days from a co-working space, and 1 day from home. I know my productivity drops when I'm at home, but I'm not sure why this changed in the last year or so.

I think a 4-day week would probably work well for me at the moment. But I'm not sure - I could end up with Tuesdays looking a lot like Mondays do at the moment. Or the extra day to do all the other stuff would be amazing and I'd really focus on the other four days. shrug

Developer productivity is a strange beast. Can't measure it. Can't control it directly. I know it when I see it, but I couldn't explain why or how.

I was nomadding in Istanbul, working 4h per day, whenever I wanted to. This was the perfect setup. Unfortunately, as one gets older the classical developer role is not really possible anymore. Now I work 8 to 9 hours, 2 days in the office per week, 3 days at home. While it is better than the normal 9 to 5, quality of life really suffers. But I think it is mostly about that the 4 hours I could do whenever I wanted without human contact, just deploy and make it work. Now I have more of a management lead role. Maybe I should switch back to pure development... But I am afraid, because I saw it, at least in Germany, this means it is going downhill career-wise with age.

I'm in my 50's, was nomadding around SE Asia when I turned 50. So yeah, age isn't it ;)

Getting into management is definitely more of a hours thing. But manager productivity is different; it's about talking to lots of people and not maintaining focus on one thing for hours. It's a shit-load easier to do from anywhere. But at the same time, it's definitely time-intensive. When I was CEO of a 200+ organisation I worked 10+ hours a day. The hours were a lot easier, though. Less hard thinking and focused concentration, more half-hour meetings which seemed to be mostly about listening to other people tell me why they decided to do something.

I was in Germany for COVID - I can see why you say this. But that's still only true if you stay in large organisations. In smaller orgs you get more flexibility, even in Germany. You can still become an expert developer and get the decent money without getting into management. Having said that, it is easier to climb the salary ladder if you get into management. But you can never go back; it's very hard to get back into a developer role if you've been a manager. Beware of what you wish for.

Thanks for the comment, this sounds actually kind of great. This year I'll enter my 40s so maybe in the next five years I'll start to switch to smaller companies. I really miss the builder schedule.

For me personally, when no commute, even 6x4 hours is much better than 4x8 hours ( 1 hour spent at lunch etc, effectively 4x7 maybe 4x6 anyway )

Of course for you personally 6x4=24 hours of work is better than 4x8=32 hours of work.

The math is so simple, obvious and scewed that I don't understand why you wrote your comment, what is the informational value.

I think the intention was to convey that 6x4 is more productive than 4x8.

Ok, this explanation might actually be plausible. Thank you for writing.

Sorry I could write it more clear I suppose; I meant 4 hour daily work 6 days almost has the same productivity (if not more) as 8 hour daily work for 4 days.

If you consider time for lunch and productivity decline in long working hours; having usable free time everyday without spending all your mental energy has huge benefits.

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