Comment by david-gpu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by david-gpu | Hacker News Reader

The years when I was at my most productive, in terms of outputting the most value for my employer (products, patents, etc), I was doing about three hours of "focus work" a day on average. I simply didn't have the energy to do more than that. The rest of my working hours were spent in low-productivity meetings, low intensity emailing, etc. My performance reviews were consistently top-notch and I was getting promoted at the maximum rate allowed by our organization.

My least productive years happened when I was working far longer hours, stressed out and miserable in a company with a "hustle culture" and very poor internal communication/documentation habits in my opinion.

My opinion is that you should prioritize your own wellbeing and if you feel that the company culture (or your manager) is preventing you from working in the way that you find most enjoyable, go find a different job.

Don't be pressured into working longer than you want or in ways that you don't like, thinking that it will help your career. Your quality of life is more important and you may actually be more productive doing things your way.

Working smart vs working hard. Also - optics.

Notice how even if you are an early bird and in the office by 9, you are a lazy slacker when you leave at 5? Then someone rolls in at 11 and leaves at 7 - same number of hours. HARD WORKER.

People are shallow, visual, and have no attention spans (especially now). You need to be aware of the optics and play them.

No, you are not gaming the system - you are getting to the even point of a stupid, unfair one.

Also - you need to just plain not take jobs in companies with hustle cultures if you can avoid it. If everyone on the team is 22, it's probably going to be hell, because they are still to learn the lesson the hard way.

Call it reverse agism or whatever, but it's a joy to work with professionals who have seen dysfunctional workplaces and who have lives.

> Notice how even if you are an early bird and in the office by 9, you are a lazy slacker when you leave at 5? Then someone rolls in at 11 and leaves at 7 - same number of hours. HARD WORKER.

So I generally agree with your post, but is this what constitutes early riser these days? I get having kids and missing the key 7-9am time slot, but is an 11am start time a Usual Thing?

11 or 12 EST is common for west coasters obviously… then if their boss is east coast and an idiot they value them being there “late”

Why does that make them an idiot? To see value in overlapping work hours?

Perhaps more coverage (by PST workers) in the later hours of the day (in EST.) “The sun never sets on the org’s productivity empire”

I’m saying if they favor the person who happens to be on later due to time zones, when everyone works the same hours.

And I don't see how that's not rational. Perhaps it's not fair, but such is life.

People regularly walk in from the street just in time for that 10:30 standup.

Then it's 11, then they get ready for the day, then it's lunch time. Then it's lunch coma. Then by 3PM they start gaining speed. By that time, I am already exhausted.

If I get in at 11 it usually means I’ve already done stuff at home, probably between 8 and 10. Getting in late doesn’t mean that they’re starting late.

It doesn't matter if you are working from home or from the office. If I am in the office before 9, many will not know how long I've been there.

VP of engineering who is not on top of the commit activity only sees me there 10 to 5, but they see the dude staying late with them.

To be fair some people have naturally different "peak hours" and sleep schedules. I naturally fall asleep around 1-2AM and wake up at 10. Going to bed earlier involves tossing and turning for hours annoying the SO. Staying up for 36 hours to "reset" works for a couple nights before the schedule drifts back to its natural state.

I practice sleep hygiene and have tried cutting out caffeine. Conversely, there's no amount of caffeine capable of facilitating deep work before 10:30-11AM, just end up frantically clicking around articles and wishing for sleep.

Maybe these people aren't trying to game the optics, they just are naturally at their most productive from 11-7. IMHO it's awesome that your company allows that kind of flexibility (and that the morning startup is at 10:30!)

Is “peak hours” a studied phenomenon? I have always assumed it is lifestyle habits and circadian rhythm/inertia. My experience with jet lag makes me think it is the latter.

Yes. I highly recommend the book When by Daniel Pink: https://www.danpink.com/books/when/

The racing mind. Welcome to my world. I assume you do not take medical Speed like Adderall?

The thing that saved me were these $35 acupressure mats. 20-30 minutes and I am out.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=acupressure+mat+spoonk

Wait, how do you use this?

People are different. I’m not a morning person and struggling through the first half of the day. Right after a lunch is when my most productive hours start.

Was thinking the same, early bird here (Western Europe) would be someone who’s in the office by 6 or 7 AM

Incidentally, I was wondering what having our 0-hour at 6am (equinox sunrise) instead of midnight would do to our average wake-up schedule.

Waking at 6, 7, 8, 10, seems pretty arbitrary, but waking up at 0-hour feels more significant to me.

For me it is amazingly slow how time seems to pass at 1, 2, 3, 4 AM versus 9-12 PM

I've never really thought about why that is, but just the relative difference between the numbers may be part of it

Yeah 9am is not early at all and way more into running late territory. Early risers to me means focused and productive at 730AM local time.

I’m usually ready to go full speed by 8AM, I wfh and kids are out the door to school by 7:35-7:40Am.

/in the US and work in consulting

In every tech workplace I've been, 9am start time is the early risers, and 10:30-11am is when people actually 'are online'. Maybe it's different in the consulting space.

I often treasure the ~7:30-9:30 chunk of my day when WFH because of this tendency. It's basically guaranteed focus time and always feels a pity to lose it commuting on the days I go to the office

Hats off to anyone that effectively works part time for a full time salary but don’t mistake your management’s incompetence for business as usual.

> Yeah 9am is not early at all and way more into running late territory.

I saw that on the east coast, which is partly why I moved away.

In silicon valley my norm (for ~25 years) has been to start around 11am which is much more tolerable.

> I’m usually ready to go full speed by 8AM, I wfh and kids are out the door to school by 7:35-7:40Am.

With somewhat younger kids (preschool), they too are out the door by 07:35-07:40, but it's me who's walking them to their facilities, which means there's no way I could possibly start working before 09:00, or before 09:30 if I don't want to start on an empty stomach.

Yeah I'm weirded out by that as well. On our platform engineering team, the "early rising" crew is usually up and working at 7 - 7:30. Some guy needed the afternoon hours for personal reasons and started working at like 6:30 for two or three months.

Personally I like to start working around 8, so I can triage the monitoring while the brain runs through the last boot processes and unit activations so I can use those (for me) very productive hours between 9 and 12.

11am is the best start time for me if I have to be on a set schedule. 10am being my wake up time. These aren't ideal personally but it is a workable compromise. Although I'd rather not have to compromise on my sleep at all.

> No, you are not gaming the system - you are getting to the even point of a stupid, unfair one.

You are also reinforcing the stupid unfair system. The game is created by playing it.

Not really. Sometimes the option not to play is not there. It's like romantic dating - you can complain all you want about how women do not see the "real" you, but if you don't take part in the dumb ritual and the vanity of it all, you will always lose to someone who plays the game.

That part I said about us being shallow and easily giving into the optics? This is not going to change, as trying to change deeply basic human nature is a fool's errand.

Odd, I always suspected it was the other way around, particularly when the management are themselves early-leavers.

Fully agree. On my last job interview, I sat in front of the committee (about 7 to-be colleagues) and the director. I said:

> I will only work maximum 30 hours a week. The reason is that I am not productive after 6 hours. It simply does not make sense for you to pay me after 2PM, because I will not do anything productive from 2 to 4PM and you are wasting money.

Everyone smiled. Except the director.

I still got the position, but the director is still hoping I will at some time upgrade to 100%. I said I will consider again after 2 years, but I doubt my perception will have changed by that time.

To be honest, I don't know if I would have said that. I think that employees in "creative" positions (e.g., you're not serving customers at a bar and need to keep the shop open and working) are paid based on the output they produce. Whether that output is produced in 2, 6 or 8 hours is not really their problem. Looking at it this way, they would have happily paid you 100% of your salary for the same output you're now giving them with a 20% discount.

Don’t worry, he didn’t actually say that either. Just another “and everyone clapped” internet story.

I work in academia and this was a tenure track position - these are quite rare and I have the feeling that only those will get these positions that can work 100% in 50% of time anyway (which accounts to 200% of work in a regular 40-hour job). I just wanted to make absolutely sure that I will have a limit of 6 hours a day and can take care of my body afterwards. Sitting 8 hours is just not doable anymore at close to 40, at least not for me.

When I started my new job a month ago I told the founder that generally I've worked 25-30 hour weeks. My references were good enough that he said "Well if that's what it took to make your references that happy go right ahead and continue working those hours".

Reasonable people understand that hours != output.

> The rest of my [5] working hours were spent in low-productivity meetings, low intensity emailing, etc.

That would feel very unproductive, to me. 3 hours of productive work is certainly better than 0, but I think I’d have a hard time ending the day with that much of my day consumed with unproductive meetings and email.

Granted, a lot of my day is spent on our internal chat tool (Slack equivalent), so I suppose that’s mostly equivalent to meetings/email. But I would consider that time mostly productive, and certainly don’t feel like it consumes 5 hours of my 8-hour day.

But I do agree with the last two paragraphs (and the general sentiment that a culture of overtime is never good), and to your point, if what you describe feels productive to you, that’s what’s important.

> That would feel very unproductive, to me. 3 hours of productive work is certainly better than 0, but I think I’d have a hard time ending the day with that much of my day consumed with unproductive meetings and email.

I hated every minute outside of the three hours of actual work I did every day, but I did it because I felt I had to maintain the appearance of being productive.

The simple reality is that after those three hours of intensive work I didn't have any mental juice left to do useful stuff. At that point in my career I would have given more if I had it, but I just didn't have the mental stamina for that level of focused work.

What I wondered during those years is: if I'm "slacking" most of the day, how can I be a top contributor? But I was, and not because I was particularly smart or good at selling myself. I suspect the answer is simply that most people don't actually work all that many hours a day either, either intentionally or because in order to go through the whole 8-hour workday they pace themselves accordingly.

A strategy I've used since covid is to go into the office in the morning for my focus work. My mind works best then and I can also satisfy our current requirements for being at the office some of the time. Then I go home at noon, or 1 if I had some momentum on something. Then the afternoon is spent in the mindless teams/zoom/etc meetings and emailing. It's a pretty productive arrangement for me. Though it does break down when people insist on morning meetings. Then I get nothing done.

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