How many hours do you work?
Dustin King

Dustin King @cathodion

About: Python. Webdev. Music. Also, other stuff.

Joined:
Jan 29, 2017

How many hours do you work?

Publish Date: Oct 13 '18
31 44

How many hours do you normally work per day? How many days do you work per week?

Comments 44 total

  • Dustin King
    Dustin KingOct 13, 2018

    Professionally, though I'm curious about the latter as well if you consider it part of your professional development.

  • George
    GeorgeOct 13, 2018

    Always depends really, on days that I'm at university on something I'm being paid for 4-5 hours a day. Whereas when I'm not at uni I'll prioritise course work and labsheets to be done, those days I can usually do up to 9 hours a day.

  • Vinicius Brasil
    Vinicius BrasilOct 13, 2018

    It really depends on the week, but ~10-11 hours per day, 5 days per week. Where I work we set our milestones by quarter, so in the end of the quarter we normally work more, ~14-15 hours per day, 5 days per week.

    For personal projects I try to find time on weekends, ~3 hours per day.

  • Txai
    TxaiOct 13, 2018

    Normally 8h per day and 5 days a week. But when we get closer to the deadlines, that can increase to 10h day. Sometimes 13h in a day

  • Ben Halpern
    Ben HalpernOct 13, 2018

    I work about 8 hour days during the week, occasionally stretching to 12 in some situations.

    Then I do some weekend work pretty much every weekend. The extra time is mostly "startup founder" duties. It is what it is. On some days I'll cut it early at 5-6 hours which helps refresh from the longer weeks.

    • Shaiju T
      Shaiju TApr 27, 2020

      😄 Nice, But do you work all 8 hours ? Or this 8 hours include break, lunch, idle time etc. How much hours are you actually productive like before the computer window coding etc ?

  • Lindsey Kopacz
    Lindsey KopaczOct 13, 2018

    I spend 40 hours a week on my day job unless there is an emergency. If you count blogging/promoting my content/social media though...gosh I don't know. Probably 10-15 hours a week for that

  • Fran González
    Fran GonzálezOct 13, 2018

    The usual 40 hours per week, though of course that includes the multiple coffees per day, some time losing on the internet... I’d say what’s really really work around 25-30 hours per week.

  • Motlib
    MotlibOct 13, 2018

    Officially I have a 40 hour week, but usually work ca. 50 hours. Overwork is registered, so sometimes I can take a day or half a day off. Private projects get time on weekends early in the morning, ca, 2 to 3 hours (until my wife wakes up).

  • James Turner
    James TurnerOct 14, 2018

    8 hours a day during the week for my main job with an additional 2-3 hours each of those days for my business. On the weekend, I probably do 4-8 hours a day (depending how I feel) on my business.

  • TVT
    TVTOct 14, 2018

    ~18 hours a day and 7 days per week. :D

    • Dustin King
      Dustin KingOct 14, 2018

      👆 I found the robot. 😅

      • TVT
        TVTOct 14, 2018

        lmao 😅

  • Nick Karnik
    Nick KarnikOct 14, 2018

    I’ve worked very long hours in the past between 12-20 hours when employers took advantage of the fact that I was on a work visa. Things got much better after I joined Microsoft. Lately, I’ve found a better balance with consulting. When clients have to pay you hourly, they try to limit the hours and are cognizant of your time overall. I’m doing between 2-6 hours a day these days working from home and I get to spend a lot of time with my kids and then on side projects. In addition, I’ve moonlighted on several projects at any given time for the past 20 years.

  • buphmin
    buphminOct 14, 2018

    I have the luxury of being in a very flexible job. I leave work when I get to a good stopping point. Typically this means 7-9 hours a day ending the week at 40-42. Occasionally I will have a day when I have an appointment or slept bad and leave early then come in and make up time on the weekend or just work extra on a day.

    For side stuff it depends if I have anything interesting to work on. So some weeks zero hours and others many.

    Honestly most people should aim to work about 40 hours per week and do whatever you can to make those 40 hours as productive as possible. Burnout is real and ideally we want not only to have long careers as developers but to also not dread going to work. Here is an excellent talk on the topic I attended awhile back: recallact.com/presentation/how-i-c...

  • Jon Randy 🎖️
    Jon Randy 🎖️Oct 14, 2018

    Around 35 hours per week is normal

  • Dustin King
    Dustin KingOct 14, 2018

    I'm mostly asking about how much time is spent at work, not how productive it is.

  • Chris James
    Chris JamesOct 14, 2018

    Most people here are working too long

    In the office 8ish hours a day.

    Dont do overtime, it's done when it's done. In pretty much everyone's experience and study working long hours is not honourable or good, it just produces bad work and sets unrealistic expectations of project work

  • Ashutosh Mimani
    Ashutosh MimaniOct 14, 2018

    8-10 hours per day is quite normal during the week. And another 5-6 hours per weekend sometimes. So between 50-55 hours per week. While it may be more than the "regular" 40 hour work week, if you like what you're doing its not bad at all...

  • Jared Meakin
    Jared MeakinOct 14, 2018

    Standard 9-5 at work, and a couple hours afterward for my side business/projects. It varies widely though.

    I get the “hustle” mentality, but I have a family and I’m working for them. So, some weeks I’ll put more time in. While other weeks I put no time in. Just have to remember to find balance in your life—that means different things to different people.

  • Adrián Morente Gabaldón
    Adrián Morente GabaldónOct 14, 2018

    8 hours per day, 40 hours per week; but I have no problem adding some extra hours if the company needs it on a special ocassion.

  • Jacob Colborn
    Jacob ColbornOct 14, 2018

    I put in a lot of extra hours since I am still in the learning phase of becoming a developer. I work my normal 9-5 (but it is still in IT Systems so sometimes it's 9-9 or more) and then probably 8-12 or 8-1 on learning and projects for my portfolio. On Saturday, I take a break and Sunday I get back into the rhythm. That probably won't be my story for forever, but we'll see.

  • Ido Shamun
    Ido ShamunOct 14, 2018

    During the week approx. 9-11 from the office and weekend is usually a few more hours as Ben said, "startup founder" duties.
    I have a side project as well that adds up to the work, 10 hours a week sometimes can get even to 15-17.

    Sleep is a luxury, just kiddin' :P

  • Luděk Novotný
    Luděk NovotnýOct 14, 2018

    8 hours per day. If I need to finish something, then 9 hours. Some days, I need to leave sooner so it depends. But I'm paid for 40 hours per week. I can't really complain because our work schedule is flexible and we had only 3-4 crunch days during 2 years.

    In general, I'm trying to put a big boundary between my work and free time. This is my first job and I don't want to burn out so soon. I also work on my pet projects during the weekend. It still requires coding but they are so different that I see them as fun, not as work. I guess this is how pet project should feel.

  • Lauren Days
    Lauren DaysOct 14, 2018

    72 work hours, not including travel time. Nor does it include coding or children's sports. Whew I'm tired 😩

  • Hudson Burgess
    Hudson BurgessOct 14, 2018

    I'm at work for 35-40 hours / week; I'm getting stuff done for 20-25 hours / week. Critical distinction.

    I can write high quality (read: test-driven) code for 5-6 hours / day, occasionally 8 if I'm having a good day. Anything beyond that and the quality of my work takes a nosedive.

  • Christopher Payne
    Christopher PayneOct 14, 2018

    I used to work five 12 hour days (8 in office, 4 at home) and was consistent in putting in 8 hours over the weekend. It was destroying me slowly. I've reduced my hours to only 45 hours a week and yet, I feel more stressed now but no one at work has commented on a difference of quantity or quality of work. I get the important stuff done in the 40-hour week and all the hours on top of that may impact sales but don't seem to me expected or noticed by my employer.

  • Kasey Speakman
    Kasey SpeakmanOct 15, 2018

    I average 8ish hrs a day, Mon-Fri. Generally I finish the week with 40-41 hrs. My schedule is actually pretty variable from day to day. I work 7 hrs some days and 10 hrs others. The whole office leaves early on Fri (everybody works an extra half hr the other days of the week to be off 2 hrs early on Fri). I guess my schedule is a bit chaotic.

    Sometimes I need to work after hours when we have outage. We have a primary admin, but I am the backup/escalation. If I work extra hours, I usually get to take them off another day.

    In all, it's a pretty good work life balance with the number of hours.

  • Peter Davidsen
    Peter DavidsenOct 15, 2018

    About 6-7 hours, 5 days a week. And then I spend some time time for personal projects, reading articles and trying to keep myself up-to-date on a few things - on company time.

  • Ju 🔗
    Ju 🔗Oct 15, 2018

    7h à day. Never one minute more

  • Quentin Sonrel
    Quentin SonrelOct 15, 2018

    Professionally, I'm at work 7 hours a day, 35 a week. I actually can't do more, as consultant, that's what the client paid my employer for.

    I talk about "being at work" because 7h at my desk doesn't mean 7h of actually working (meaning: "producing something useful"), obviously. I'd say I'm productive for about 4-5 hours a day.

  • Brian Greig
    Brian GreigOct 15, 2018

    I set expectations with my staff that they work 40 hour weeks. If a manager is expecting you to work more than that (with the exception of maybe when you are in crunch mode before a release) then they either:

    • aren’t properly staffed. They should bring in some contractors or hire more staff
    • don’t understand the amount of effort that goes into deliverables.
    • Are generally mid-managing their projects.

    If you find yourself in this situation I strongly encourage you to break this cycle. It is bad for your health, sets a poor precedence within the industry, and leads to burnout.

  • philippe Marc MEYER
    philippe Marc MEYEROct 15, 2018

    About 10 hours a day and I'm getting tired !

  • Dian Fay
    Dian FayOct 16, 2018

    8-9 hours a day five days a week on the clock, of course including time it takes things to percolate. Occasional evening or weekend time given that I'm partly in operations, but then I can also run errands or what have you in the middle of the day if nothing's going on.

    For reference, in 1965 a Senate committee predicted the American work week would comprise fourteen hours by the year 2000.

    • Dustin King
      Dustin KingOct 16, 2018

      Can't wait for the year 2000 to usher in this glorious future.

      Conan O'Brien, lit by green light, with a futuristic collar with regularly spaced hemispheres protruding from it

  • Michael Salaverry
    Michael SalaverryOct 16, 2018

    At work by 10:00 and leaving at the natural end of a task after 18:00, up to about 19:30 in bad cases. During those hours, I cycle between breaks and coding so that I get better work done when I do focus.

    I also try to get an hour of learning time in per day, not directly project related, during the work day or right afterwards on my own time.

    The weekends are for fun, side projects, or learning, I try not to touch production code unless it's on fire. Life is too short to not take breaks along the way too smell the roses.

  • Dustin King
    Dustin KingOct 17, 2018

    Thanks for your answers, everyone. I made this post because I saw a couple people posting about working 10 hours every day, and wanted to reassure myself that it wasn't the norm for it to be required.

    I'm currently on sabbatical, so I've been working between zero and negative hours except when I get excited about a project for a little while. In which case it's probably a max of 12 hours a day, but only for one or two days at a time.

    My last job was for a government contractor, and we were required to bill 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (or the equivalent of 8 per day times the number of days in the pay period, but you could vary it from day to day). Lunches were unpaid (but mandatory 30 minutes at least) and I also liked to take an (unpaid) walk in the afternoon, so my work day was usually 9am to 6 or 6:30pm. The good part was that overtime was pretty rare (and eventually not allowed without approval).

    A lot of people did what they called RDO ("Recurring Day Off" or something like that), where they would work 9 hours most days but get a day off each pay period (of which there were two per month).

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