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Comment by mywittyname | Hacker News Reader

There's a difference between reading the news at work or chatting about nothing with coworkers for a half-hour a day and working part-time while passing it off as full-time.

There are plenty of developers who work 7+ hours a work day, plus a little more at nights or on weekends during crunch times. I'm one of these people and every place I've worked has had these people. It's not like all of our work requires intense concentration - sometimes it's just typing or testing.

Sure, there are people who put in very little "real work" by their own admission, and think they are doing just fine. But that's not a luxury afforded to the entire industry

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The average office worker is productive for less than 3 hours per day https://www.vouchercloud.com/better-living/office-worker-pro...

That's normal across all industries. If there are people who are actually productive for 7 hours per day, they are extreme outliers.

I used to think that I worked 8-10 hours per day. That was until I measured my actual productivity.

I worked as a translator once. When I timed myself, I found that I can translate about 2,000 words in 1 hour. But in a day, I struggle to do more than 5,000 words, no matter how hard I push myself- even though that's just 2.5 hours of work! And if I do 5,000 words every day, I burn out within a week.

Exactly. I really like the empirical example. I find that solutions to work problems come to me at most random circumstances, shower, sleep, etc. Also a 15 minute break can unblock something that I’ stuck on for hours.

I think it’s important to realise that there’s that limit to productivity, so don’t force it if it’s not working. take a break, come back tomorrow, you may find that you’re far more productive even though you’re spending less time “bums on seats”. Somewhat employer dependent

Machines have a concept of duty cycle! Welding machines are rated to a maximum percentage of time that you can run them before they overheat and shut off. This is helpful for thinking about the importance of rest.

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