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Comment by lexandstuff | Hacker News Reader

For those that only read the headline, this is an important caveat:

"On the flip side, employees who work outside of standard hours by choice, to better suit their schedule or to pursue personal ambitions, report no negative impacts and even a slight uptick in their wellness and productivity scores."

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I personally do this a great deal. So many things that are not coding in life (from visiting museums to getting lunch with a friend to going to a government office to getting medical tests done) are far easier during normal work hours.

Coding can be done at midnight, when none of those things can be done.

I'm pretty much retired but I have zero sense of holidays. I always worked much more efficiently when everyone left the office, and 3 or 4 day weekends were always pure heaven. (I liked my work though.)

I read this as "who prefers to work non-standard workday" e.g. 11-7 which I used to do to avoid traffic. I really enjoyed it and the slower morning was really helpful for me. early morning stand-ups post-pandemic really killed my morning happiness.

I wonder if that means pursuing work-related personal ambitions (i.e. promotion), or outside-work personal ambitions (i.e. side projects)? Could side projects actually reduce burnout?

Yes. If you want to pursue them, but not if you add a side project just to battle your burnout.

A core part of burnout is lack of control, and a side project can give you that feeling back - if you do it for the joy of it.

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