
Things we learned by visualizing our work hours - grahammurphy
https://reflect.io/blog/three-productivity-hacks-we-learned-by-visualizing-our-work-hours/
======
Gratsby
I find the part about taking breaks actually increasing productivity
interesting.

Years and years ago, I worked as a blackjack dealer. We had 20 minute breaks
every hour. It seemed ludicrous to me at first, but the job has essentially
two main components - solving a lot of very simple math problems quickly and
without errors, and customer service. By keeping all of the dealers fresh, the
casino was able to ensure that problems were minimized. Adding cards up to 21
isn't exactly mental gymnastics, but do that at a rate of up to 280 times in
an hour and it's actually kind of surprising that more mistakes aren't made.

I've often wondered about how that kind of schedule would play in software
development. I find that my own code is better when well rested, but even
after all these years I've never been able to force myself to take breaks that
frequently.

The side effect of frequent and scheduled breaks was social interaction that
was usually work-focused.

~~~
justifier
fascinating anecdote

my best productivity comes from dividing efforts piecemeal and then allotting
an hour for each task

the relatable bit is that if the task takes me 15 or 40 or however many
minutes to finish the rest of the hour is mine to do with whatever i want

i could go for a walk, make some tea, pick up a book

if the task is unfinished at the end of the hour, i move onto the next task
and return to it at the next hour block

even though it creates my most productive circumstances, like you said, i
still find i rarely 'force' myself to follow it

------
JonathonW
The big thing that jumps out at me from these graphs is that, apart from a
couple break days (April 1st and April 8th, when they say they took the
ferry), these guys seem to be working 7 days a week, not taking weekends off
at all.

A hyper-focus on productivity metrics (like hours spent coding) plus no
regular, scheduled breaks seems like a recipe for burnout to me.

~~~
colbyaley
This is a really great point. I think it would have been useful to point out
that we're currently going through an accelerator (Techstars), so all this
data is somewhat atypical. Additionally, I wouldn't say we're "hyper focused"
on these metrics. Rather, it's something I check periodically in order to help
think about shaping my habits. Does that make sense?

~~~
JonathonW
Makes sense.

Still, it's something to be aware of. The accelerator's going to do your
company little good if you're all so exhausted that you can't work efficiently
afterwards.

(Note that I'm not necessarily saying you're going that direction; only you
know the answer to that question.)

------
wainstead
"Clearly, as an engineer, writing code is a productive use of my time."

Well, not if you're gold plating, but if you're honest with yourself about the
work you're doing then this shouldn't be a problem.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_plating_%28software_engin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_plating_%28software_engineering%29)

------
ilbonte
RescueTime is a very powerful tool if you want to understand better how you
spend the time on your computer and smartphone.

Unfortunately, they do not offer in-depth analysis of the data.

I build my own tool to print customized charts and I would appreciate hearing
your opinion on this..

Here is the repo: [https://github.com/ilbonte/rescuetime-
again](https://github.com/ilbonte/rescuetime-again) and this is an output
example: [http://i.imgur.com/PptwdMU.png](http://i.imgur.com/PptwdMU.png)

~~~
1123581321
Thank you for sharing this! Very useful.

~~~
ilbonte_
Thank you! If you have any feature suggestion let me know!

------
Void_
You can go so much further with these RescueTime data. I recently created a
simple vis showing how day was spent:

[https://medium.com/@vojto/fixing-rescuetime-
charts-458edd86a...](https://medium.com/@vojto/fixing-rescuetime-
charts-458edd86a52e#.ha8hsxiwe)

tldr: [https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*_IbFy8gq6Fqmu1ZZX...](https://cdn-
images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*_IbFy8gq6Fqmu1ZZXklYHQ.png)

And also keep in mind that hours spent being distracted isn't the only metric.
Another important thing is how often you interrupted your work for something
unimportant.

For that purpose we built a mini app:
[http://focuslist.co/escape/#](http://focuslist.co/escape/#)

~~~
matt4077
I believe the most benefit could be reaped by adding one two metrics that
RescueTime doesn't have. Possibly LOCs, or "emails written" for someone who
does that a lot – or maybe even a subjective assessment of your day's
productivity. Then you could find real correlations with, for example, taking
a day off or amount of sleep etc.

------
usloth
Good intentions, but the visualizations don't work for me (I get Invalid Date
errors) and I find the analysis to be shallow. If the amount of data which
they say was collected, was actually collected, I think that this dataset
deserves a much deeper dive.

~~~
coldtea
Also I see some values for "productivity". What's the metric?

~~~
colbyaley
The metric is pulled from RescueTime. It's the percentage of time spent on
applications that are classified as "Productive".

~~~
jredwards
That seems like a questionable metric.

------
patates
You invite us to try your product then when I click the link it says invite
only. I'm not a native English speaker but something is not right here :)

------
googletron
We have been doing something very similar over at Gyroscope!

Check this out!
[https://gyrosco.pe/myusuf3/2016/4/26/](https://gyrosco.pe/myusuf3/2016/4/26/)

~~~
colbyaley
I've been a paid user for quite a while and really enjoying Gyroscope! Would
love to get coffee and chat dataviz sometime.

------
k-l-s
b

