[susam]

I agree with this article mostly, although 3 hours a day might be too little to make good progress with work for some people.

This article reminded me of my previous workplace (about 7 years ago) where my manager discouraged engineers from working for more than 6 hours a day. He recommended 4 hours of work per day and requested us not to exceed more than 6 hours of work per day. He believed working for less number of hours a day would lead to higher code quality, less mistakes and more robust software.

Although, he never went around the floor ensuring that engineers do not exceed 6 hours of work a day, and some engineers did exceed 6 hours a day, however, in my opinion, his team was the most motivated team on the floor.

[charlesism]

It's another "magic short cut" article. They're like crack to HN. Fun to read; probably not wise to take seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2_snSkpULQ

[frozenport]

Yep, and just like crack, most people can't afford it!

[jqm]

I've found 6 hours to be about the right amount day in and day out.

[vldx]

Same here; I've build a system around this, i.e. 6 sets of 50 minute sprints. No pressure hitting this volume, it's not a goal, but more a data point.

[chris11]

Did he differentiate between more demanding work like writing code and less demanding work like going to meetings?

[susam]

No, he was not specific about what the 4 hours of work included. However, working on code consumed about 90% of our time. Meetings were held once a week for 30 minutes. The time spent on emails and updating bug tracker usually varied anywhere between 0 minutes to 45 minutes per day.

[Drdrdrq]

Less demanding??? I would gladly trade meetings time for hardcore programming work, anytime.