I wanted to make a topic on this to see what other developers’ experience has been in the working world.
Since reading and applying ways of working from books like Cal Newport’s ‘Deep Work’ or ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’, looking at scrum and agile methods, and then being introduced to ideas like the 4 day work week or 6 hour days, I wanted to see if other developers truly felt that the companies they work for understand, or even have thought deeply about, how to most effectively structure a workday or workweek in which an RPA developer could get effective work done, gradually over time enhance and grow their skill set, but not fall into overworking/ workaholism, falling prey to the digital distractions of constant email/ slack/ skype/ teams type of messaging and avoiding burnout.
To give an example for myself I cannot code for 8 hours a day. After a few months of timing the actual time I spend coding and during those times eliminating any other outside distractions the most I can do is typically 3:30 to just over 5 hours in length. That being said given that I have other responsibilities at work and work an hourly 8 hour day much of my cognitive power is used completely on the development and I am fairly useless outside of that; possibly some superficial tasks may be done. The feeling at those points are I don’t need 3 more hours of work I need 3 more hours of rest so I can sustain high quality work on a week to week level.
This is where the idea of the 4 day work week or shortened work hours I feel is something that would more accurately prove beneficial to developers where the output is not tied to hours worked, but rather to the hours worked at a high cognitive function with little to no distractions, this state however runs out more quickly that the workday.
Just wanted to see other people’s experiences in the field.