Life in Balance: Amit D. Chaudhary’s Blog
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Chapter 27: Eight-Hour Burn ‘or’(my alternative title) Work less hours with more focus

from My Job Went to India And All I Got Was This Lousy Book: 52 Ways to Save Your Job by Chad Fowler.

Excerpts from the chapter

• Bob Martin renamed 40-hour workweek to “eight-hour burn.” The idea is that you should work so relentlessly that there is no way that you could continue longer than eight hours.
• When it comes to work, less really can be more. The primary reason cited by the Extreme Programmers is that when we’re tired, we can’t think as effectively as when we’re rested. When we’re burnt out, we aren’t as creative, and the quality of our work reduces dramatically. We start making stupid mistakes that end up costing us time and money.
• Most projects last a long time. You can’t keep up the pace of a sprint and finish a marathon.
• You get to work and think, I’ve only got eight hours! Go go go! With strict barriers on start and end times, you naturally start to organize your time more effectively. You might start with a set of tasks that need to get done for the day, and you lay them out in prioritized order and start nailing them one at a time.
• Budget your work hours carefully. Work less, and you’ll accomplish more.

My notes and comments

• I believe and try to follow this philosophy in my career. it is also been a crucial reason that I did not burnout when we had our baby and that I can explore spirituality and other areas of life.
• However, I do not deny that productivity is a multiple of ‘output rate’ and ‘hours worked’ and also thay given age, priorities and motivations, some engineers will work long hours for a longer time without a burnout. And that compensation and promotion should be based on productivity and impact.
• It will be good to have more companies including startups with this philosophy, kind of like the Patagonia ( Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard)

Summary: I agree completely with the premise of the chapter. Move towards balance.

Final verdict: Agree

Comments, Thoughts?

Rest of Entries and Main Post: My Job Went to India, 52 Ways to Save Your Job: TOC, Notes and Comments