Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'
I’ve started to think about working hours recently. The main question I’d like to ask is - how many hours do you actually work?
You may go into an office from 9 - 5pm, but how much of that time is spent working, vs Facebook, a kitten video, making tea, or having a chat. None of these things are bad of course. The purpose of this blog is a focus on how to use time most efficiently vs the illusion of getting work done by just being in an office for a set number of hours.
Recent circumstances working with a remote game studio have meant that I’m working from home a bit more than I am used to. I’ve personally never been a big fan of this, and felt that there were too many distractions. I’ve traditionally liked the discipline of going into an office, and worry that I get less work done from home. Working from home is also something that’s generally frowned on by managers for various reasons, possibly including this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk
What I’m writing about here can apply to being in an office as well, but working from home has allowed me to focus differently without the general office distractions, so it’s a good testing ground for this experiment.
Some of this may depend on the line of work that you do. For me, I’m a computer programmer, and most of the time I’m programming or thinking about programming. It also depends on the project I’m on which could mean more emails than usual, designing a solution, or debugging a problem. Either way, the focus is on the time working through any of these areas, and making a clear distinction between what is work and what is not.
I started timing myself. If I make tea, it doesn’t count. If I take a bathroom break it doesn’t count. If my mind starts drifting, or I have an impulse to watch a kitten video then it doesn’t count.
I try and break my day into sessions that last a minimum of an hour. During these sessions I focus purely on work, and usually have a quick break after. This is easier in the morning than the afternoon, where the sessions become shorter and the breaks longer.
I’ve never enjoyed working through the night, or even in the evening. I know a lot of programmers who do this, but it’s never worked for me. Instead I start working from as early as possible. Currently I wake up at 5.45am, and always start working before 7am. If I’m behind with something, I get up at 5am and start from 6am. I don’t love this part, but I know I can crank through stuff this early, and it’s a reliable method. It was a trick I learned when I was a student studying English literature. Most of my essays were written on the morning of the deadline, after trying to stay up late the night before. I wouldn’t recommend this, but it was actually a good example of when my mind works best.
The period between 7 - 12pm is the critical golden time for me. I can get a day’s worth of work done here, and don’t need as many breaks. I’m also a bit tired during this period, but drinking a pot of coffee gets my mind working at its best, and I don’t get too hyperactive. If I tried this in the afternoon when I’m more awake, my mind would drift and I wouldn’t sleep at night. It’s usually Twinnings Earl Grey for the rest of the day, then something with no caffeine after 5pm. I also match each cup of tea and coffee with water.
I can remember in my first job, I was writing code to process data from the London Metal Exchange. The amount of work was seriously underestimated, and had to be done for customers by a precise date. I just made sure I was in the office from 7am for about 3 weeks, and it made a massive difference. I recall leaving at about 5 - 5.30pm each day. I also had the luxury of being able to cycle to work in about 5 mins. This is harder if you have up to an hour commute to your office, which I was doing for the past couple of years, which can seriously disrupt this critical period. Trying to work on a bus isn’t fun.
So, back to the timings. I aim to get 4 hours under my belt before having lunch, and as mentioned, these are 4 hours of pure work, split into around 4 one hour sessions with some breaks. This is where it starts to get interesting. Most people are in an office for around 8 or 9 hours a day. But there is no way on average, that 8 hours of work is done. Absolutely no way. I would even hazard a guess that on many days, barely 3 hours gets done.
The most inefficient period for me during the day is probably from about 1.30 - 4pm. Often I’ll feel sleepy after lunch/gym, or I just want to be anywhere else other than my desk.
To counter this, I try and work as effectively in the morning as I can. I try and hit 6 hours a day as my average. If this sounds low, I’ll raise my point again that there is absolutely no way most people in my line of work are doing 8 hours of pure work a day. Some days I find it’s a push to get over 5.
I’m also very particular about what I eat for lunch. Eating something with excess starch or carb can give you a blood sugar spike, causing a crash (test this with a baked potato). Also, eating something with a load of sugar in the sauce such as some Chinese food or Korean BBQ can have a similar effect, even if you skip the rice. In my last job, I ate sashimi nearly every day for about 3 months, and never felt particularly tired.
Here’s an example of Friday’s work, and an eating breakdown. I was working with someone else’s code for most of the week, which was quite tricky. But by Thursday/Friday it was much clearer, and I was happy with the amount of progress I made. I hit just under 6.5 hours. This shows me that I can use this critical period to attack most problems. It doesn’t mean I’ll solve it on the first day, but it means that the consistency of attacking it each day during the golden period, will win out in the end.
Eating breakdown (for the past week)
6am - grind coffee beans, and make an 8 cup jug of coffee. My wife has one, and I drink the rest over the next hour or so
6.05am - make a smoothie with frozen avocado, frozen blueberries, coconut milk, protein powder and green vegetable extract powder
10am (or thereabouts) - Prepare 3 hardboiled eggs in my egg cooker (egg cookers are amazing), eat them with some Sauerkraut and fruit such as a fig
1.30pm - chicken, celery, and garlic stir fry on a bed of lettuce
To sum up my current thinking:
I believe there is an over obsession with having people be in an office for the sake of it
Most people don’t measure how much they are actually working vs being in the office. Without actually measuring the time (AT the time), this is not possible without guesswork. This is a common occurrence in an agile style sprint, where hours are marked against a task at the end of the day, which is often a rough estimate
I can get loads done early in the morning. An office can prevent this due to commutes and meetings. I like the morning stretch to have no obstacles or surprises. A 15 minute standup call is fine
Micro timing yourself is an interesting experiment, and has really opened up my eyes to some of the realities of coding efficiency. It may seem to border on the anal, but I don’t like wasting time, and enjoy living my life outside of work as much as possible
I would recommend trying to time yourself. A spreadsheet is the easiest way. A good tip is calculating the total hours you have worked each time you end a session. This lets you see your progress. It also lets you see what the distractions are. This is potentially useful in an office environment, to measure the amount of time given to distractions vs actual work
If you’re feeling sleepy in the afternoon, it’s probably due to something you ate
Timing myself has made me feel more at peace when working. If I want to take a guitar break, I know precisely how much work has been done, and how much time I spend playing the guitar
