[random_kris]

I don't know that either. I can be REALLY productive for 2-3 hours a day but rest is socializing with other devs, answering emails etc... I try to structure my day so that I learn some stuff in those 8 hours, do some personal stuff (pay bills, call doctor, arrange stuff after work). I am regarded as quite productive but sometimes I feel really bad for not putting 100% in all those 8 hours but I find it impossible. I have problems with my legs when i sit for long periods of time so I am must productive in the morning till 12:00 after that it just so I have enough hours clocked in

[UglyToad]

I think it's maybe partly that the jobs I've tended to work have no real socializing/email answering/meetings aspect. I've tried to get more onto that side just to preserve my sanity but it's been very much "go through tickets for 7-8 hours a day".

I can't remember the last time I needed to respond to an email.

And they've all been very different jobs/industries - consultancy, startup and large company. Maybe part of it is the tech (C# .NET) or the location (England) but from talking to my friends in the industry the experience seems to be similar.

[cableshaft]

Grass is greener...

I miss the days when I could just sit down in front of a program, and just program for 6+ hours out of the day. I did that when I worked for a small startup. I talked to a boss for 30 minutes to an hour sometimes, but otherwise I was left to myself to build software.

Right now I work as an Architect/Support/Developer combo, and it feels like I get nothing real done most days. I'll have meetings at random times throughout the day, half of them status meetings, I'll get pinged at random times in the day by the business side asking to look into various things (I maintain the phone systems for three call centers, and various things don't happen the way they expect and they need us to look into it...we used to have a dedicated support guy for this, but he quit and they won't replaced him, it's been six months now). And then I need to look into our codebase for any of seven different internal phone applications I'm responsible for, figure out how to add the new enhancement requested by the business, and then write precise instructions for our offshore dev team of else it won't be done correctly (might as well have done it myself, half the time).

There are some days in which outside of the meetings, I'll fix a couple of tickets requested by the business side, and then feel like I have no mental energy for anything else.

Every once in awhile I get a taste of what it used to be like when I was productive when I work on projects at home, but even that has lots of distractions between my spouse and attention seeking dogs. I don't mind those distractions quite as much though. Usually. :)

I probably should find a small developer to work for again, where I can just be expected to code, but at my age I'm almost afraid to do that, since I know ageism is going to start limiting the dev jobs I can get before too much longer, and I could make a lot more money just embracing the management roles....but my brain wants to build cool things, not people.

[random_kris]

I am working for a relatively small consultancy company. We are team of 5 programmers working on various small programs for government. It gets crazy coordinating between different people trying to get to know where to get data etc... I am changing to a pure backend java job next month. I can't wait to see how other programming jobs look like. (working at this consultancy is my 1st job as a programmer and I've been here for past 3 years)

[markus_zhang]

I think you achieve a lot being really productive for 3 hours and it's kind of difficult to increase that amount because your brain is used to that amount already. It's pretty good if you can put another maybe 1-2 hours of study into it. I find exercising helps me to enter the flow more quickly, but not necessarily INCREASE the time. The total amount is probably defined by genes and health condition in general. I see people who can be high productive for 6-7 hours WITHOUT stop back in high school but that's rare.

[boopk]

I agree. Usually from 9 - 12:30 is my most productive time. Once lunch hits and I start socializing I am just not nearly as productive. I may get an hour or two or productivity in between 1 and 6pm but it's not nearly enough as in the morning. The worst is the last hour or two of the day. I've checked out and there's usually not much work so I end up just sitting idly browsing the internet.