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Comment by ZephyrBlu | Hacker News Reader

I think being able to sit down and do work is more about removing distractions than improving focus.

Also, I'm curious about these statements:

> There's a growing perception that traits like work ethic, focus, and motivation are fixed attributes that one is born with (or without) rather than abilities that are developed over time

Really? Who believes this and why?

> but then turn around and tell me that they're only capable of coding for 2 hours per day as a sort of fixed upper limit

Do they give you a reason? This seems pretty odd.

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Experience? When I find that I have been focusing for many hours on a complex task, it is usually something I slipped into effortlessly, even accidentally. The whole experience is pleasant. On the other hand I have tried on many occasions to force this when it wasn’t forthcoming, and on top of being extremely uncomfortable, it’s never worked.

I don’t think I’m completely helpless about it - factors such as sleep, exercise, environment, schedule fragmentation, etc. do seem to be involved, and I can influence those. But it doesn’t respond to force of will in the moment.

I think this is pretty different to stating that you can't code for more than 2 hours.

I don't think anyone can instantly snap into being productive on command, all the time.

No it’s not. Speaking as someone who specifically has this problem: even eliminating all possible distractions does not do the trick.

Which problem exactly? Not being able to sit down and code for more than 2 hours?

It could be that he isn't productive. I have this problem, where if I sit and code for too long I end up just wasting time debugging or writing useless code.

Maybe I'm just another uneducated recent college grad, but I really don't see how you can work 7+ hours a day and actually be productive. Doing different kinds of work or taking frequent breaks, possibly. But not just sitting and staring at your computer for 7 hours.

It might be sustainable for some people, but not for me... the only time I put in those kind of hours of focused effort is in a FAANG interview loop, and that takes so much out of me that I lie down and stare at the ceiling until bedtime :)

> but I really don't see how you can work 7+ hours a day and actually be productive. Doing different kinds of work or taking frequent breaks, possibly. But not just sitting and staring at your computer for 7 hours

Ironically the only way I can be productive for that long is to do the opposite of what you're describing. Focus on a single problem or piece of work, take minimal breaks and sit at my computer for most of the day.

I've only ever done this for bursts of time before though (And never for a company, too many distractions), because how can you be spending so much time building without thinking? It has to be a large, well defined problem. But that doesn't really exist unless you're just copying something or you've already put in the work to define it.

In saying that, I don't think 2 hours is really long enough to make much progress on something. That would only leave me with about an hour of productive time.

Btw, if you're a recent college grad I'm probably around the same age as you.

Disclaimer: I'm not an IT guy nor I work for an IT company.

There is a third option. You are working and staring at the screen for the whole day, even without breaks, but you can't actually focus on a single problem or piece of work, because the manager keeps distracting you.

I work for a small company, and as a consequence, I have a quite wide area of responsibilities.

I can't really focus on the bigger tasks (like creating user's manual for the new company product) when I'm supposed to drop everything if there are any unanswered emails from the client.

And learning midday that "Hey, man, the newsletters have to be ready today! And the website content needs to be updated before you send the newsletters!" is a very likely possibility, too.

If I am working in an open plan office, on a multi-person codebase, with a half built back-end, 7 hours of coding is gonna be hard work.

Conversely, if I have full ownership over the codebase, built from scratch, 7+ hours will fly by. However, there generally always comes a point where it becomes hard work again.

>Which problem exactly? Not being able to sit down and code for more than 2 hours?

Yes.

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