| HN Mirror

Thanks for sharing. I agree with everything in the essay.

When it talked about the person effectively working 2 days, once on the managers schedule, and once at night to code on the makers scheduled, I thought back and that resonated with me. I spent a decade or so doing something like that. I’d typically work 12-14 hour days. The normal work day was full of distractions and interruption, and once everyone started to leave and the meetings stopped, I started making stuff and got a lot done. At the time I thought I was just avoiding rush hour traffic, but there was a much bigger side effect in terms of productivity.

With the situation I had in 2017, this essay may have gone a long way. With my current situation I worry sharing it would have a negative impact on my job. It’s not one person I’d have to convince and coordinate with, it’s at least 4, probably more. I have 3 “stand ups” most days, which are all 30 minutes and often run long. If I were to split my day into 2 maker blocks, my mornings are shot every single day with 2-4 hours of meetings. This is usually enough to kill my whole day. 3-4 days per week usually have a meeting (or 3) in the afternoon, which kills that block as well. Some teams have office hours posted to everyone. While I rarely go, simply having them on my calendar has an impact to my ability to see that my day is clear. And of course there are all the chats I need to monitor and respond to, which never stop and might as well be meetings.

A massive culture shift is needed and I don’t feel like I’m in a position to make it. We are getting a new CIO soon, so I can hope for some positive impact there. Right now all bets are off. In the current culture, if something isn’t getting done fast enough, the go-to solution is a daily meeting to talk about it. It makes the project managers feel good and gives the appearance we’re doing all we can, but in reality it slows everything way down.

I will keep the essay in my back pocket to share if the opportunity presents itself.