How much Intellectually Demanding Work can you do Per day?
Discussion
That you can sustain over a long period of time, every single day without getting too tired/completely knackered the next day or in the long term.
Whether it be writing, coding or creation of anything else that requires all of your attention and critical thinking- Basically Operating at your Peak Performance doing stuff that really moves the needle.
If you do code for 3hours a day and spend another 2hours browsing the internet and casually planing something in your mind, That's 3 hours not 5.
Repetitive work that you do on auto-pilot even if it's semi-intellectual does not really count either.
I can personally sustain around 3 hours per day of extremely focused ultra-productive work spread throughout the day.
If I go past 4 I will pay for it the next day and will feel $hit and won't be able to do as much the next day.
That does not mean I work only 3hours per day, there are probably another 3hours that I will spend preparing & planning how to accomplish the stuff or do some auto-pilot stuff.
What about you?
Whether it be writing, coding or creation of anything else that requires all of your attention and critical thinking- Basically Operating at your Peak Performance doing stuff that really moves the needle.
If you do code for 3hours a day and spend another 2hours browsing the internet and casually planing something in your mind, That's 3 hours not 5.
Repetitive work that you do on auto-pilot even if it's semi-intellectual does not really count either.
I can personally sustain around 3 hours per day of extremely focused ultra-productive work spread throughout the day.
If I go past 4 I will pay for it the next day and will feel $hit and won't be able to do as much the next day.
That does not mean I work only 3hours per day, there are probably another 3hours that I will spend preparing & planning how to accomplish the stuff or do some auto-pilot stuff.
What about you?
Interesting question. I haven't coded full on for years as I'm now management.
Back when I did, if I got in the zone, I could turn and burn for 6 hours a day solid, but only for max a week.
When I do resource planning these days I take 60% of the available hours for a dev as actually productive.
Back when I did, if I got in the zone, I could turn and burn for 6 hours a day solid, but only for max a week.
When I do resource planning these days I take 60% of the available hours for a dev as actually productive.
Interesting question.
I spent ten years working as a Croupier and then a Gaming Inspector in casinos.
When it was busy, really busy, that could be a mentally taxing gig, especially if you were inspecting three tables with two ‘lumpies’ (trainees) on the tables you were watching.
You’d generally to 2.5-3 hours ‘on’ and 15 minutes ‘off’.
Your ‘on-time’ would be spent watching the Croupiers, watching the punters, watching for table maximums, push betting, top hatting, calling out cash bets, taking and checking call bets, making sure the correct number is dollied, watching table clearances, adding up the payouts before the Croupier, confirming the payouts the Croupier was making were correct, keeping track of spenders, updating your spenders list, keeping an eye out for for money laundering, accepting and checking ‘fills’ and monitoring and reporting table performance to the Pit Boss.
It used to take a while to switch off after work and doing 4-5 weeks straight without a day off would drain you.
Not sure I’d have the stamina to go back to doing that again.
So to answer your question, I could probably manage a week or two of intense mentally taxing work before it started to effect my well-being and blunt my performance.
I spent ten years working as a Croupier and then a Gaming Inspector in casinos.
When it was busy, really busy, that could be a mentally taxing gig, especially if you were inspecting three tables with two ‘lumpies’ (trainees) on the tables you were watching.
You’d generally to 2.5-3 hours ‘on’ and 15 minutes ‘off’.
Your ‘on-time’ would be spent watching the Croupiers, watching the punters, watching for table maximums, push betting, top hatting, calling out cash bets, taking and checking call bets, making sure the correct number is dollied, watching table clearances, adding up the payouts before the Croupier, confirming the payouts the Croupier was making were correct, keeping track of spenders, updating your spenders list, keeping an eye out for for money laundering, accepting and checking ‘fills’ and monitoring and reporting table performance to the Pit Boss.
It used to take a while to switch off after work and doing 4-5 weeks straight without a day off would drain you.
Not sure I’d have the stamina to go back to doing that again.
So to answer your question, I could probably manage a week or two of intense mentally taxing work before it started to effect my well-being and blunt my performance.
@ Toxic Nerve: I purposely block out time in my calendr so I can perform tasks during the day, and then my colleagues didn't / don't / can't block my agenda up for me. I'm not working to spend 9 hours in meetings THEN stanrt on Minutes / follow-ups and my real / actual work.
I also refuse to attend meetings then there isn't a clear agenda; a phone call will usually do.
Good luck getting back on an even keel.
I also refuse to attend meetings then there isn't a clear agenda; a phone call will usually do.
Good luck getting back on an even keel.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Hang on a minute!- PM - The person who ensures other people are doing work without doing any themselves
- Scrum Master - Just another term for PM
- PO by proxy for the client - So... the PM then
- A business analyst - Someone who occasionally looks at a spreadsheet
- Coordinating 3rd parties - The PM
- Getting dragged into technical and infrastructure discussions / decisions (which I actually enjoyed) - Like a PM would
bagusbagus said:
Repetitive work that you do on auto-pilot even if it's semi-intellectual does not really count either.
What about you?
For me that is the dream, a job you can do with minimal thinking that you can forget about the second you leave work. It's not just the intellectually demanding part, but the worry that goes with it.What about you?
For instance waking up at 3:00am in the morning worried that your overnight batch will not have completed. Checking it and finding it has failed because the service gets automatically restarted each night. A service that gets restarted because it is so poorly written it doesn't manage it's memory correctly and has to be constantly restarted.
So your job has been terminated and it takes 8 hours to run so even if you restart it now there is no guarantee it will finish and the customer needs it for 9:00am that day. Ultimately you will be the one in the firing line as nobody cares or understands that your work is reliant on several other systems that are utterly flaky and unreliable.
That's before we even get into the subject or remote access, licence keys, firewalls or bugs in other code that delays you can causes problems with no access or control over any of these systems.
Give me the nice auto pilot job any day.
Scabutz said:
Back when I did, if I got in the zone, I could turn and burn for 6 hours a day solid, but only for max a week.
Similar-ish for me - I could do more per day, but then I'd burn out earlier in the week.I think my number was roughly 30 - 35 hours a week. i.e. 5 x 7 productive hour days
But if I did 3 x 10 hour days, I'm basically done by Wed evening / Thursday morning and the end of the week sees productivity go through the floor.
fat80b said:
Scabutz said:
Back when I did, if I got in the zone, I could turn and burn for 6 hours a day solid, but only for max a week.
Similar-ish for me - I could do more per day, but then I'd burn out earlier in the week.I think my number was roughly 30 - 35 hours a week. i.e. 5 x 7 productive hour days
But if I did 3 x 10 hour days, I'm basically done by Wed evening / Thursday morning and the end of the week sees productivity go through the floor.
No, seriously, when I'm getting that "used up" feeling, I catch up on less demanding stuff that still needs doing.
AW111 said:
fat80b said:
Scabutz said:
Back when I did, if I got in the zone, I could turn and burn for 6 hours a day solid, but only for max a week.
Similar-ish for me - I could do more per day, but then I'd burn out earlier in the week.I think my number was roughly 30 - 35 hours a week. i.e. 5 x 7 productive hour days
But if I did 3 x 10 hour days, I'm basically done by Wed evening / Thursday morning and the end of the week sees productivity go through the floor.
No, seriously, when I'm getting that "used up" feeling, I catch up on less demanding stuff that still needs doing.
When I did contact centre support, and building / configuring machines, I could be balls deep in a number of command lines, hoodie and headphones on for days at a time, and friday would just come along very quickly.
Thesedays, I am constantly badgered via email and teams chats. Turn them off for concentration and people just ring find another way to get hold of you.
Thesedays, I am constantly badgered via email and teams chats. Turn them off for concentration and people just ring find another way to get hold of you.
Normally id say 3-4hrs max
I did a massive programme in China about 12mths ago though structuring a series of new hospitals and that was 10-12hrs/day really focused and intense, 5-6days a week, for 7mths - in a bilingual and very culturally different environment. It got to the point where I actually stopped being able to sleep for more than 30-60mins a night and was really taking its toll.
It took 2-3mths post-programme to recover from it. Im 7mths off it now and only just back on an even-keel.
I did a massive programme in China about 12mths ago though structuring a series of new hospitals and that was 10-12hrs/day really focused and intense, 5-6days a week, for 7mths - in a bilingual and very culturally different environment. It got to the point where I actually stopped being able to sleep for more than 30-60mins a night and was really taking its toll.
It took 2-3mths post-programme to recover from it. Im 7mths off it now and only just back on an even-keel.
FunkyNige said:
AW111 said:
fat80b said:
Scabutz said:
Back when I did, if I got in the zone, I could turn and burn for 6 hours a day solid, but only for max a week.
Similar-ish for me - I could do more per day, but then I'd burn out earlier in the week.I think my number was roughly 30 - 35 hours a week. i.e. 5 x 7 productive hour days
But if I did 3 x 10 hour days, I'm basically done by Wed evening / Thursday morning and the end of the week sees productivity go through the floor.
No, seriously, when I'm getting that "used up" feeling, I catch up on less demanding stuff that still needs doing.
Scabutz said:
I have a similar situation with my guys in India. They work to IST hours, but they will still be online end of day UK hours. I keep telling them to log off. It's not healthy and you can't tell me you are productive doing that many hours a day.
I think it is more a culture thing and trying to give the impression they are working and being productive. I suspect they are actually doing very little in reality.Gassing Station | The Lounge | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff