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Comment by thenewwazoo | Hacker News Reader

Did it really double, or did boundaries erode? My company has been very clear in that they are measuring our productivity and also our working hours. Managers are being instructed to be very clear about establishing work/life boundaries (with the specifics being based on individual need). We similarly saw an increase in productivity, but the increase was far smaller once normalized for hours worked.

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I'm surprised this perspective is not made more often. It's now much easier to work past 5 or 6pm or whenever you would normally end. Needing to return home to your family is no longer an excuse to stop working because you can be with your family while at work. All it takes is one developer on your team working evenings or weekends for the other developers to feel like they need to be working late too. There's also the fact that managers right now are more concerned about whether their team is working enough, rather than being concerned about their team working too much.

I find myself doing the opposite. It's much easier for me to step away at 6pm sharp knowing that if anything happens I can jump back in an instant, vs the worry of being the first to leave the office, and being stuck in a train for a half hour.

Funny how different people are on this.

When I worked in an office I never worried about being the first to leave, and didn't even realize other people do.

For me, the biggest downside of working from home is how easy it is to get distracted by non-work. I go grab a coffee and end up putting dishes away, cleaning up, etc. and next thing I know an hour's passed by so I'm working late or feeling guilty.

I've been working on my time management, in general, and that's helping.

> For me, the biggest downside of working from home is how easy it is to get distracted by non-work. I go grab a coffee and end up putting dishes away, cleaning up, etc.

Sometimes taking a short break like that is the best way to make progress on a difficult problem though. Realistically we probably get 2 or 3 hours of actual work done in a day. Everything else is a bonus and it comes and goes over time.

I've been running rescuetime on my computer for most of a decade, and "my developer time"(time on terminal, few documentation sites like SO, editor etc...) goal was initially 1hr 30 minutes, but nowadays it is stuck at 3 hours.. and been not filled except for rare days.

> When I worked in an office I never worried about being the first to leave, and didn't even realize other people do.

A lot of it is scarcity vs abundance mindset. Many people are quite scared to lose their jobs. I know people making six figures who would be in deep shit if they had a month of no paychecks while switching jobs.

Completely agree. It helped that I have a recurring meeting in Outlook that starts when I leave work, and goes for an hour. I find that this block prevents people from scheduling surprise last minute meetings, and keeps me from working longer than 8 hours a day (I start at 8 AM and go until 4 PM).

I've seen both responses from people I know. One person has always been a bit of a workaholic, and used work as sort of a coping mechanism for anxiety. As one might imagine, they started working much much longer hours. Another person I know got in the habit of working from about 10 to 3 or so, to the point where I was worried for their job. I think the lesson is that people's relationship with work is just a highly individual, and people will have very divergent outcomes.

Both of those are rational responses to the modern work culture.

The two extremes are: 1. Working as hard as possible to get a promotion over the next person working as hard as possible. 2. Doing the bare minimum to not get fired.

Anything in between is, logically, irrational, because you're doing more work than necessary.

Luckily, companies have found the levers for most humans and tend to get them working in between the two extremes.

> knowing that if anything happens I can jump back in an instant

That’s the unfortunate part.

WFH at large can only sustain if that hard line is drawn - end work day for good, disconnect, connect back tomorrow morning!

No fluid working hours and being ready to “jump back in”.

It's just the feeling of not making yourself unavailable during what are still working hours for others, not about being available after say 7pm. And I haven't actually needed to do that more than once or twice.

I liked the fact that when I left the office it virtually impossible for me to jump back into anything until I got back to the office the next day. Now all my work is just sitting there in the next room just waiting for me to jump back in any time 24/7.

As someone who has done full time WFH for more than 5 years one skill you need to pick up is the ability to shut down around 5-6pm and avoid work on the weekends, which actually takes some self-discipline.

And that needs

1. Understanding colleagues

2. Sane boss and sane company

3. Similar culture - company wide

Otherwise you’re just buying another recipe for stress and in some cases confrontations as well.

In other words, things you should probably expect at a place you would want to work?

Well yeah if the whole company is doing remote first, everyone is going to be in exactly the same boat, problem sorta solves itself.

"Needing to return home to your family is no longer an excuse to stop working because you can be with your family while at work."

If you have young children or infants you can spend your time caring for them and worrying that those with older kids (or no kids!) will judge you.

> It's now much easier to work past 5 or 6pm or whenever you would normally end

It is much easier but I also believe it's something people will get out of the habit of (or at least I hope). It really isn't a difficult habit to break.

Since working from home I do exactly the same as I would in the office: At the same time every day I close the laptop and put it away.

It's actually easier for me to get away because no one is stopping me on the way out to ask me some questions or to just have a quick chat.

Your family must be very different to mine, because when mine are around my productivity is strictly zero.

Same here. That is why my wife's office is on a main floor of the house and mine is in the basement. She's been remote for at least 10 years I think and I ran my own product development business since 2000.

its only an issue for my girlfriend and I when we're both on calls at the same time. I use a wireless 2.4Ghz headset so I can go outside on the patio - solves the issue nicely :-)

Productivity at my workplace went significantly up (and stayed up), but management has been clear that personal time is sacred, and I hardly ever see anyone on slack after work hours.

Honestly, the biggest impediments to productivity at my workplace have nothing to do with where we work and everything to do with management style (heavy-handed Agile/Scrum, micromanagement, the works).

Well then the flip side is that we're also no worse off working remote.

Would anyone like to expound on how productivity is being measured? What metrics are used? What unintended consequences come up from the metrics? Can they be gamed?

It's pretty easy to game "working hours" when you're remote. Even an always on camera probably isn't enough and I wouldn't want my team to work under those conditions.

I'm also curious what productivity measures are being watched, especially for developers.

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