How many hours are you productive per week and per day?

Posted by anupshinde on Monday June 16, 2014 @02:48PM
from the self-post dept.

How many hours are you productive per week and per day ? And how many hours at a stretch?

For me - I have difficulty doing it more than 20-24 hours a week on an average. I'm fast at coding and problem solving - but that also means my energy wanes off faster within the first 4-5 hours and I am better off not working the rest of the time. Just in case you are wondering - I never had any problems related to productivity at my 40hr/week job except that I had to endure the additional frustrating hours.

( 17 comments | 25 points | on HN )

Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by henrygrew on Monday June 16, 2014 @03:35PM (#7901002)

I can only do 3-4 hours in the zone per day, if i take a nap in the afternoon i'm able to get another 3 hours of the zone in the evening.Thus on a good day it adds up to 6 hours of quality coding.I try to do planning and meetings in the other hours.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by tmerr on Monday June 16, 2014 @04:38PM (#7901357)

Most good ideas I have surface after a break from coding, be it a walk, weekend, or night of sleep. Those ideas start depleting as soon my hands hit the keyboard, and once they're gone I enter full code monkey mode. When I'm conscious this transformation is taking place I usually hit up pen and paper or a white board, which can buy me extra hours. It probably comes out to about 50% of time planning, 50% coding, and as long as I don't spend too much time in the latter I can avoid getting burnt out. I figure if I have to try when coding I'm doing something wrong though it's sometimes unavoidable.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by MattBearman on Monday June 16, 2014 @04:21PM (#7901255)

This may interest you - according to a study[0] the average office worker is only productive for three hours a day.

I'm a freelancer working from home, and I find I work about 5 - 6 chargeable hours / day. Of course some of those hours are more productive than others :)

0 - http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/news/only-three-hours-of-p...

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by dajbelshaw on Monday June 16, 2014 @02:52PM (#7900764)

Interesting. I've been thinking about this recently and, yes, while I can sit in front of a computer screen for eight hours, I reckon I'm only productive for six hours. So I try and work in three 2-hour bursts.

It's worth saying that my situation's slightly different in that I work for a tech company, but I'm not a coder.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by antoinevg on Monday June 16, 2014 @04:04PM (#7901164)

30 minutes dropping kids at school & gym.

30 minutes breakfast, shower and HN.

3 hours of productive work.

Break for lunch and a hour's worth of random fun.

3 hours in the afternoon.

Done at 17h00.

Sustainable, and over a year it adds up to a frightening amount of code :)

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by saturngirl on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @12:25PM (#7905311)

I find that my productivity goes down 90 minutes into a task. However, a 15-20 minute break does the trick and I find myself productive once again. The trick is to weed out the distractions (especially if you work from home) - TV, family, news/shopping sites, HN...

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by alphagenerator on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @12:24AM (#7902830)

Code quality falls off dramatically after 4-5 hours. Unit tests are the last line of defense in crunch mode, but even TDD doesn't prevent the bug onslaught if people are tired.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by Avalaxy on Friday June 20, 2014 @06:28PM (#7923261)

At my dayjob I'm productive for around 7,5 hours per day (I work 8 hours per day) which is incredible in my opinion. Then I put in some more freelancing hours when I get home, usually around 2 hours per day.

I'm very bad at being productive when I work from home though. I could never work 8 hours per day when there are no colleagues around.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by analogmind on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @03:09AM (#7903204)

3/4 hours max per day. When I'm really interested, it tends to be a little more, but I can't hold that pace for to long.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by baristaGeek on Monday June 16, 2014 @11:38PM (#7902755)

In a regular week 12 hours (7am-7pm usually) from Monday to Friday and 4 hours on Saturday; for a total of 64 weekly productive hours. I spend this hours in college stuff, gym, volunteering and off course, coding.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by srpeixinho on Tuesday June 17, 2014 @02:49AM (#7903161)

Around 85hrs/week when I don't have anything else to do...

~5hrs/week when I do

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by garrickvanburen on Monday June 16, 2014 @08:37PM (#7902272)

Depending on the day, 2-3hrs/project. I usually work on 3 very different projects each day.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by lgieron on Monday June 16, 2014 @06:40PM (#7901882)

30-35 hr/week.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by khyryk on Monday June 16, 2014 @06:05PM (#7901753)

4-5 hours per day.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by atmosx on Monday June 16, 2014 @05:13PM (#7901510)

4-5h/day.

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by yulaow on Monday June 16, 2014 @06:48PM (#7901930)

no more than 5hrs/day

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Re:How many hours are you productive per week and per day? by enesunal on Wednesday June 18, 2014 @02:20AM (#7908755)

approx. 4 hours per day.

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