Third Time: a better way to work (2022)
lesswrong.com
lesswrong.com
I need to get into some lower level programming job or a tool programming job.
Do the programming tasks anyway. I have found that being productive will not get you fired, even if it makes a power-junkie mad that you're not on their leash.
I have worked at places where people are competent and have slightly different priorities than I do. This is very different.
I guess if you have a tendency to automate yourself out of a job, it's inevitable that you'll end up somewhere so dysfunctional that it's impossible to do so.
think of a handyman that works so efficiently that he effectively has no margin.
Software developing is so much more than web programming, oh boy!
however i disagree that an interruption at the door, or going out for errands counts as break time. it depends on what exactly happens, but dealing with an interruption, or driving a car, paying attention to catch a bus or train, are not relaxing. personally i try to combine errands with going for a walk, so that partly counts as a break. but dealing with other people can be stressful (especially for introverts) so that's not a valid break.
for a break you need an activity that you enjoy and that allows you to relax.
when i am dealing with people a lot, then hacking on a side project for fun becomes my break.
when i work alone on the computer, socializing with others can be my break.
but after a day of working and socializing i need some alone time to unwind.
I think there's two ways to look at this:
1) The breaks are relative to the work. If you're doing a given "job" for all the tasks that entails, anything you're doing that isn't the "job" should be included in the break calculations. Certainly this is how any employer would treat the situation. It doesn't matter that taking your car to the mechanic isn't fun, it's also not part of your job so your employer is going to count it as PTO. Likewise, when allocating your own time to a given job, you should view it the same way.
That certainly makes quite a bit of sense to me. If I'm dreading some contract work, but trying to manage my schedule, allowing myself to procrastinate by choosing an even less worse task (like scrubbing the toilet, or doing yard work) and then also taking additional pleasure breaks is going to drastically reduce the time I'm spending getting paid, and if I'm trying to manage my time that's probably not a good thing.
2) Some people (myself included) can definitely get a "break" from work, even if they're doing a chore. In fact, I did this just last week. I'd spent the entire day beating my head against a task that just wasn't going right. At a certain point, I needed a break but I knew if I hung around I'd keep trying to come back to the task. So I went out and did the grocery shopping for the week instead. That took me away from the task and out of the mindset of being focused on it long enough to come back and tackle things fresh. Was it truly a break in that I got to unwind and relax? Not really. But it was a break in that it served the purposed to give me an escape from the work I was bogged down in that was frustrating me.
Whether something is a break or not in this view is less about "work" vs "leisure" and more your own mental state. If I switch off doing some work task to spend some time on my skunkworks project I'm doing at work, if that re-charges me and gives me the mental capacity to go back to the real work I'm doing, that could be just as much of a "break" as reading a book, even if I was still doing stuff that was for "work".
let me address your points:
1) we are not discussing legal or contract breaks, but breaks that help productivity. in germany a legal break is 15 minutes per 3 hours, and a single break must be at least 15 minutes to count as a break. so clearly, what counts as paid work has no bearing on breaks needed for productivity.
breaks for chores and errands can't be avoided, whether they are stressful or not. however, when a family weekend trip is so exhausting that i can't focus on work on monday then this is something i need to take into consideration when planning my free time.
and if i need 15 minutes of break for every 45 minutes of work while in the office then i have to be careful and may need to find a work related task that i can use to get that break effect, and hope that i don't have a micromanaging boss that doesn't allow that skunkworks project you mentioned.
2) of course. i fully agree with you here. it is all about the mental state. which means for each activity i have to consider how it will affect me. an activity that helps get a break for you could be adding more stress for me. it always depends. on some days grocery shopping actually does help me unwind and relax. on others it doesn't. that skunkworks project is also a good example. absolutely.
> Instead of half-working all day, it’s better to work in focused stints, with breaks in between to recover
Yes! Super true. Strong agree.
The discipline to actually do this I find harder to muster however. When you're tired it can be difficult to realize that you're tired and unproductive. Even when you do realize this, it can be harder still to muster the activation energy to stop what you're doing and take a break. I haven't found a solution to this.
I have also found that for creative work especially (in particular for writing), I will often have long unsatisfying stints of working-but-not-working followed the next day by an amazingly productive burst of activity. That burst does not happen without the working-but-not-working period.
Then there's the other problem of how you apply this third time idea to a workday. I would love to take a 20min break after every 1 hour meeting. There are not enough hours in the day to do this.
Parkinson law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"
Horstman’a corollary: "Work contracts to fit in the time we give it"
I used to give myself only 5 hours of work a day in given hours. My productivity was surprisingly better than with full 8 hours, my stress was lower, and I had so much free time.
I really should get back to doing that
The ability to take a minute or thirty when I need it and not wonder what the perception of those around me is. Some of my best ideas come to me as I load the dishwasher.
I tend get more done when I can bounce between ideas, projects, states of mind, locations, etc than when I'm powering through something at a desk for hours at a time.
When I worked in an office I'd get up and go on walks, or move to a sofa and let the problem simmer a bit, several times a day. I've been fortunate to work in companies which seem to, I think, recognize these are productive activities
I have had a lot of success with this. I was also a stressed-out wreck the entire time.
Turns out sprinting through all your work is exhausting. Who knew
Ultimately I think the solution is to stop having more work than fits in a day. But my personality really really dislikes that reality.
the important part is to set things up in a way so i don't have to think about it.
However forcing myself to take a break every hour helped a lot with chores, and with eating and hydrating properly.
Divide your time in communication and focus work. After 3 units of work, do 1 unit of communication. Or any other ratio.
Work from home for x days l, then work at the office for y days.
Work for five units of time, then don't work for two units of time. We can call it week and weekend.
This is what school classes do? Not sure if that can be called hard.
Background: I'm a musican and programmer, now doing a Phd between both fields. I've been reading about practicing and learning techniques and talking to experts about this for about 30 years.
The whole point is that you take a break BEFORE you feel like you need to. This is basically universal across disciplines. That's the secret. If you wait until you "feel like it" you are likely already past the optimal fatigue point. You can get way more training/learning/work done if you keep yourself away from that point, and for most people doing serious training, 25-30 minutes on followed by 5 to 10 off is good. This is used in sports and music extensively. I could see other fields using something longer, but the principle still holds. If you stop way before fatigue and rest, you can get about 2 to 3 times more in in a day than if you train to fatigue.
In addition to making sure you aren't fatigued, it also keeps you in the right head space, which is calm and focused, NOT obsessive and agitated. If you can't make yourself take a break every half hour, then that likely means you've crossed into obsessive-compulsive land and are no longer focusing optimally.
Doing this does not feel natural. It takes practice. But once you get used to it, you can definitely do more. And it needs to be a BREAK. One of my university music teachers swore by literally lying done on the practice room floor for five minutes every half hour, and that guy was a beast on the bass, one of the best in a city of two million.
Proposing something else because it feels nice... is almost exactly wrong. I mean, do what you like, but comparing it to a timed training regime is way off base.
There is a link on the word research. That seems like a justification to me. I prefer just to casually take it into account though.
Per the comments someone made a web app for this already
18 + (18/3) = 24it's 12 hours of work and 8 hours of sleep.
and suddenly it all makes sense. while your mind takes a break from work, your body isn't, and that's why it needs those 8 hours of sleep.
yes of course!
scrambles off to look for a brown paper bag