[lixtra]

Working nonstop is a natural state. Think of parents.

Of course you cannot code for 14h every day. You have to vary your work. Personally I can concentrate for only 5h if I want to maintain that for several days in a row. I felt very burnt out after 8h of coding. It took me a while to understand that it’s okay to just concentrate for 5h and use the rest for communication and socializing.

I also do solve personal problems during work time that would otherwise block my mind from working correctly. Just like let work issues spill in my free time if they are serious.

[froogie]

Although it is a natural state in some way (e.g. parenting, as you mentioned, but also day-to-day survival), the work many of us do today is very different from what we've biologically evolved to do.

Now lots of it is stationary thinking, whereas in the past practically all of it has been mobile gathering, hunting and building (if not just preparing for, and waging a war). Those who can't partake in those activities do other beneficial things. Refine resources, raise and teach children etc.

Is it not so that we humans can sustain better productivity over time in physical work than we can in mental work? It seems to be a fact, that physical activities stimulate mental ones. When you walk outdoors, your mind is more creative than when you sit still inside a building. Is it because of brain getting more oxygen? Is it because of psychological processes inside our brain react to different environments differently? Probably both, and then some.

I think there is more to things like ecopsychology[1] we tend to overlook. And understandably so -- from a profit-seeking perspective plants and animals are perhaps the last thing to seek help from to productivity problems within society, or a company.

It is all too easy to also dismiss it as mere idealistic hippery. I think if we were taught to explore this angle, some things we like to live in denial of would be laughably obvious to us.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecopsychology

[atlantic]

I think that what you mean is that being active non-stop is a natural state. Perhaps even being usefully active. But latching on to a single activity to the detriment of all other aspects of your life, and then collapsing on the couch for the remainder of the time, is anything but.

[zepto]

Working non-stop is not a natural state. Are parents ‘working’ or are they playing with their children? Perhaps you are so used to a world where parents have no time to play with their children because they need to get back to work.

Also it seems like you define socializing as ‘work’. If so, then why not define sleeping as work or even death as work, that way your statement that working non-stop makes sense.

[bitxbit]

I am sorry but that gave me a chuckle. So you code for five hours and socialize for three?

[badpun]

I think it's pretty standard in many corporate coding jobs, at least here in Europe. Often, if you include meetings in the "socialize" coulmn, the numbers are even switched.

[lixtra]

I wrote concentrate not code. Socializing was more a term for mails, calls and meetings plus the sometimes very productive coffee machine talk.

I can code without concentration but did you ever measure your productivity and and error rate over time? For me 5h is a sweet spot after that error rate goes up and productivity goes down. If the errors are significant they could cost much more time later on. If the job isn’t that sensitive of course you don’t have to concentrate.