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by onemoresoop 1257 days ago
> I had a guy confess that those three hours between 7am and the end of our standup is the only time he works during the day. He was hard to work with because he would do everything to cover his ass should something go wrong.

Three to four hours of deep work could be enough to complete the daily workload. Maybe he was downplaying the other rest of time that didn't feel like he worked at all even though he was in meetings and doing other BS the company required him to do.

2 comments

His full statement was that he's doing house renovation later in the day instead of work.

Another situation: we were estimating tasks and I challenged the estimate for a task he was supposed to do.

His reply: "ok, if I'm going to reduce my estimate then you reduce one of yours"

Normally I wouldn't care about such things, but my work depended on his and it was hard to make him follow through on his promises.

> Three to four hours of deep work could be enough to complete the daily workload...

only if you make a case that six to eight hours of deep work is somehow not possible. Perhaps you make a good faith effort to get 6 to 8 but you can't seem to do it, or you're too exhausted after 3 or 4, but you can't simply demand that you should get paid for 8 but you're only going to work for 3 or 4 because that's enough.

Unless you are paid hourly I don't see why that should matter even remotely.
> only if you make a case that six to eight hours of deep work is somehow not possible.

6 to 8 hours of deep work is certainly possible but is it sustainable? I don't think so, minds need some slack time, enter a different mode of thinking, etc. For this reason work is chunked into workable amounts which it makes it sustainable as well.