
The Productivity of Working Hours (2014) [pdf] - luu
http://ftp.iza.org/dp8129.pdf
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jvdh
The best information is at the very end of the report where all the tables and
graphs are. They show that munition workers are at peak production at around
50 hours or so. There are many many caveats for drawing conclusions from these
results:

    
    
      * The collected data is from 1915-1920
      * The collected population is very very small 
        (most sets are less than 50 individuals, one is ~100)
      * The work performed by the population is extremely repetitive manual labor
    

With these caveats, it is safe to say that most of the audience of HN has
nothing to gain from the results of this study.

~~~
78666cdc
I'll respectfully disagree.

The fact that the data is from 1915 - 1920 does not invalidate it unless you
want to suggest that human nature in 1915-1920 is different than it is now -
which would seem a strange point to defend. And the sample sizes are quite
decent.

I know that the HM userbase had a tendency to dismiss studies that are
incorrectly conducted, but I don't think that this is one of those cases.

~~~
jvdh
The life and the work back then is very different from the life and work that
we have now. A big factor is that there is no war to motivate people to work
hard. Another is that labour circumstances are very very different now than
what they were previously.

Finally almost nobody who reads HN does repetitive manual labour. Manual
productivity is very different from mental productivity.

From my own experience, I'm not even productive for 40 hours per week. Let
alone working 50 hours consistently every week.

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mastermojo
TLDR: Productivity per week is a linear function of time spent working, up to
48-49 hours, where it starts to fall off.

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georgeecollins
It is TLDR. But I am up voting it because it shows how long people have known
that human productivity declines after 50 hours of work a week.

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philmcc
I'm curious as to the effects of extending past the 40-49 hours in week one,
on _subsequent_ weeks.

That information I think would be more compelling to an employer (or self-
employer), because without it, you're simply saying 'You'll get more out of
overworking people, you just won't get as much more.'

Which still reads like "more."

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yunque
Repetitive manual labour seems as good a proxy as any for productivity. It
would be nigh on impossible to find such a robust index for software
development work, but other modern professions, particularly repetitive ones,
e.g. administrative positions, may be an interesting population to study
today.

Software specifically is too variable to accurately measure productivity. It's
too subjective. Not only from a personal point of view, but also dependent on
the task. Given the tendency towards automating the boring tasks, it seems
that conducting such a study in the software development world becomes less
and less likely.

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dolzenko
In other words, our typical working hours are supposed to get most out of us,
or close to :)

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pbhjpbhj
I've found I can be productive for around 4 years then I get bored of my
surroundings, agitated, can't focus, etc..

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awinter-py
ok but this is before modern worker amplification technology like intermittent
wifi outages and slack.

One can argue that frequent interruptions from these sources gives workers the
opportunity to 'micro-recharge'.

~~~
namenotrequired
Or to lose focus for the rest of the hour/day.

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cma
How is it that some people can spend e.g. 100hours a week in an MMO getting
all kinds of things "done."

~~~
xchaotic
It is also less productive past the initial 50-60 hours

