[pc86]

I work 8-5 as a software engineer (incl. lunch so only 40 hours a week) plus a short ~15 minutes highway commute each way. If there's an accident though that could easily be an hour, it's a congested area and there aren't many alternative routes. It's a crap shoot unfortunately but rarely an issue. My SO is a resident physician so averages 80 hours a week Mon-Sat. My "family" time is largely dependent on her schedule and I work in other things as I'm able.

For health, gym at 5:30am 4 days during the work week and an occasional Saturday workout. I try to eat healthy but not to the point where I'm not looking forward to a meal. Cooking for my SO is also a big stress reliever after a long day or if she's about to start a 24 hour call shift or something.

Productivity wise, I'm personally a fan of the "Nike" approach: just do it. If you're at work, do work. Don't sit on HN or Reddit or Facebook. If you need to use RescueTime or change your hosts file or whatever, fine. But just doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're supposed to be doing it is about as crucial a piece of the puzzle to your success as you'll ever find.

[throwaway123x2]

What kills me at work is down time. Better to be on HN than just watching a half hour build ...

[justaguyhere]

This is an easy problem to solve. Keep a to-do list for down times - small tasks that are not too urgent/important, but can save time in the long run.

If you absolutely can't find anything to do in your task list, then you could do one of these two - first : find a colleague who needs help and help them. Second, keep a diary (or text file) and learn something new that is specific to your job/company. In my case, I work on a mid sized webapp, I know probably 30% of the application - so I make it a point to learn something small here and there, and it adds up over a period of time. Yes, I am aware that this knowledge is useless if I leave this job, but until then it is very useful.

[antoineMoPa]

Spend time investigating how you could make the build faster. (tweak makefiles, compile only some parts, divide the app in shared libraries, stop using too many templates, move slow parts with lots of templates to a utility library, etc...)

[jammygit]

There is always so much to do, or to learn how to do, that I never really have downtime... except foosball

[pc86]

There's an important distinction between "taking a break" (e.g. playing foosball for a few minutes) and true downtime (I wouldn't be doing work right now even if I wanted to, because I don't have anything to do).

[mcv]

Get a drink, take a walk outside. That will also recharge you without leading to a permanent distraction.

[stronglikedan]

Unfortunately, the Nike approach isn't one-size-fits-all. I always arrive at work with the just-do-it attitude. Now, here I am, pondering that while reading HN. Although, I am proud to say that I have narrowed down my daily work-reading to HN exclusively (since mid-December now), so I'm working on it!

[klyrs]

When I got my current job, I chose a desk where my screen is visible to the room deliberately. I'd been stuck on a slashdot refresh loop since 1998, and the visibility of my screen broke the habit cold

[droobles]

I like that, the Nike approach. I feel the same way.