

Tell HN: I work 3 hours a day and I am proud and productive - Maven911

I work 3 hours a day.<p>The setting: overloaded, taking on mulitple roles, work keeps piling up, people on the management side are not technical - but most of the tech workers don't complain and just what they got to do ...or they leave as some have done)<p>How I cope with it now:
I couldn't stop thinking about work..at night and even on the weekends. I felt I was going to have a (light) nervous breakdown.
But now...I tell myself that my goal at work is not to solve provlem xyz or get project xyz stamped as done.
My goal is to come in and do 3 hours of work.
Yes 3 hours that is it..but the hardest and best work that you can do while trying not to compromise quality...what ends up happening is that my 3 hours are sometimes better then my 8 hours of slow crap.
And if I don't do anything else or my productivity drops that is fine...
What ends up happening is that by working in this super fast pace, I can still continue on at a slower pace yet feel satisfied that I did my job and that I have something to report too for the next meeting (we have daily progress update meetings).<p>Have any of you used similar techniques ?
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lucisferre
I recall a post, I think it was here, that floated by me that said something
like the most productive people only actually do about 3.5 hours of solid
focused work a day. Now I wish I could find it.

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olegious
I think it was a story that studied gifted young violinists in Austria or
Germany- the study said that while average students "worked" all day from 9-5,
the gifted ones split work and play- they worked in spurts of a few intense
hours, followed by personal time.

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inetsee
I seem to recall that what was more important than the amount of time spent
studying, was that the students were engaging in deliberate practice; they
were putting in focused work intended to extend the boundaries of their
skills. I think the analogy here would be that three hours of focused work
(door closed, phone turned off, no checking email, no interruptions unless the
building is on fire or someone is dying) would produce more, better quality
results than 8 (or more) hours of work broken up by dozens of interruptions.

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Maven911
I still get distractions and end up doing filler non technical work during
those first 3 _high-speed_ hours, but I try to go at a pace as if the world is
coming to an end and I need to give my work its full and qualified attention
that it deserves...just like I use too when taking tests during my university
days

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md1515
I can't say that I do, but my uncle is a hardware engineer and he typically
accomplishes an entire day's work in a few hours a day so that he can spend
time with his daughter, go to the gym/do yoga, and generally be awesome (like
drive around in his Maserati etc..)

He has the life..

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Maven911
Is your uncle a freelancer ? As for me, I still have to be in the building
physically for 8 hours, but getting 3 fast paced solid hours each day feels
great

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md1515
No, he isn't a freelancer. He doesn't have to be in any building, just make
sure the work is done.

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chris_gogreen
About the same, 8 hours in the building, about 4 doing hardcore work, the
others working on lightermanagement type stuff, research, future project
planning, non deliverables

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Maven911
I have a lot of administrative _crap_ to deal with too, I end up doing those
in my 3 hour sprint along with the technical since they are easy wins and I
cant deal wuth the fact that I have 8 outstanding items to do, 5 of them are
non technica and can be done in 40 mins. In the past, i use to do one or two
and felt like I needed a break and just ended up being bogged down with all
the context switching

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devs1010
at a job I've had they actually told us that they expect 5 hours of work out
of us and the rest would just be wasted time, meetings, filler crap, etc so I
guess 3 hours is just taking that to the extreme

