

Working Too Much is Hurting Your Productivity - pselle
http://thewebivore.com/go-the-fuck-home-my-ignite-talk
Video from the "Go The Fuck Home" Ignite Philly presentation.
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jh3
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>)

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.

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RandallBrown
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
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.

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cgshaw
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.

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jsaxton86
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>

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

~~~
neilmiddleton
The trend of swearing needlessly is getting a bit old period. Regardless of
personal opinions it's not particularly professional…

~~~
famousactress
I love swearing. I also actually agree with the OP. It's getting a little old.
Some of the presentations I'm seeing really feel a little patronizing
linkbait. But you know what I _really_ can't stand? The word _professional_ ,
used in this context. What does that even mean? I find it such an obnoxious
term when used to suggest that the privilege of working comes at the cost of
subscribing to some universal etiquette.

~~~
neilmiddleton
Professional = something you'd say in front of your clients / customers /
potential employers etc.

~~~
mikeash
Why should that have anything to do with anything we do when not in front of
them?

~~~
hexis
What gives you the impression that the things you do and say in public are not
in front of them?

~~~
mikeash
If we're taking that definition, fair enough, but I don't think most of us
would accept self-censorship in _any_ public forum on the off chance that a
client or customer might see it.

