[goalieca]

Sometimes I find that instead of reading about tech and trying little hobby things at home, I'm better off trying to fit that into my work somehow. Even a full 8 hours of programming 5 days in a row can be enough to mentally drain you if you're actually working the whole time.

[beebs93]

Excellent point. If you find yourself at a job where they discourage programmers from reading tech blogs once in a while then RUN. FOR. YOUR. FKING. LIFE.

[cfontes]

Excelent advice. I have a mental list of companies that block the internet from their employees so they don't do that.

I think that is just stupid. If you hire people you have to at least trust them to do their work otherwise fire them and unlock the freaking internet.

[gauravpandey]

What if someone likes blogs to become entrepreneur more?

[mathattack]

It's self development, and very few folks have 8 hours of continuous concentration in them.

[bovermyer]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the average person can concentrate on one thing for a maximum of 30 minutes. After that, attention wavers and efficiency declines.

No idea where I read that, though. It might be rumor only.

[mattgreenrocks]

That can't be right. Concentration is not some magic ability only STEM professionals have.

[mathattack]

That seems low. I can concentrate for hours is the topic is compelling enough, and I'm not that atypical. But not 8.

[twstdroot]

I came to the same realization recently. I have a lot of flexibility at work to work on personal projects that relate to my job. Unfortunately work doesn't provide some of the infrastructure I need/want. So now I have a decent lab at home and a VPN connection in. Work gives me the time, I give the resources. Good balance.

[a3voices]

I work for a Fortune 500 company as a programmer and I've spent probably 70-80% of my time at work over the last four years reading random tech news.

[MAGZine]

Pretty bold statement for someone who has their full name + location + place of work in twitter handle in their profile ;-)

[twstdroot]

I don't think they are really outside the norm for corporate life. If people were productive at work, we'd need less web proxies to handle the load.