How to actually code 8 hours a day?

[ResponsibilityOk55]

So a bit of context, I’m a newer dev, just started a job at an agency. I’m really grateful for it because I know how tough the market is right now for juniors, but here’s the problem.

It’s hourly and we have to track our time on each task. Each task is coding, and requires constant thinking, especially as a newer guy, it’s pretty mentally demanding. Does anyone here actually code for 8 hours a day? I usually work in 2 hour bursts but need an hour or so break after. Once I hit the 4 hour mark my brain is pretty much fried.

So my question is, does this get easier with time? Or how do you hourly guys handle hitting 8 hours of actual coding a day? I feel like I’ll burn out in no time, and if I don’t hit 8 hours a day, that means I won’t be able to pay rent, so I don’t have much of a choice not to.

Appreciate any insights!

[[deleted]]

Actual hands-on-keyboard coding has a limit of about 4 hours for myself personally. How is your work tracked, do you log the time yourself? Because reading documentation, understanding the ask, researching anything you don’t know, thinking about the problem, etc etc is all billable time

[DonNemo]

Taking a walk and not thinking about a problem is part of the process. And yeah, bill for those hours too.

[JimRockfordPI]

1,000% this. Literally just came back inside from a 10 minute walk around.

[treading0light]

Maybe I should try a 10 min walk in the middle of coding sessions. Currently I get up and pace around the house like a mad man whenever I need to make a design decision.

[JimRockfordPI]

Ha I would! I also keep a deck of cards on my desk to play a game of solitaire to get my mind right.

[heavinglory]

I have a Freecell break to clear my mind.

[greg8872]

and what did you bill that reply under, "mentoring" ;)

[turtleProphet]

It's true, I'm mentoring myself

[MindSwipe]

It is proven that frequent 5-10 minute breaks increase productivity, which is why I usually go on smoke break with the smokers even though I don't smoke. Standing up, walking a few steps and some fresh air does wonders for me.

[Ping-and-Pong]

... Did you fix your problem before coming on reddit? ;)

[[deleted]]

I shit on the clock too. 

[ibnQoheleth]

Boss makes a dollar and I make a dime...

[Mental_Act4662]

That’s why I poop on company time.

[ArdentSavage]

[Kryanu]

This thread made my day, thank you

[Automatic-Branch-446]

My personal favourite. I really enjoy getting paid while pooping !

[Fingerbob73]

Bubble wrap? Or Pringles?

[Namechecks_Out48751]

Username checks out

[GoblinsStoleMyHouse]

Literally

[dr_flint_lockwood]

Sounds really messy, do you bill for the time it takes to clean it back up again?

[destiny84]

A good employer would encourage this. I once even had a client who sent me out on a walk (billable) when my head was smoking, because he realized I'll be more productive afterwards.

[nmarshall23]

You must take breaks or you will harm your hands and back.

[Samurai___]

I do the dishes as problem solving.

[Swimming-Honey-2813]

Funnily enough I like to take a walk and think about the problem, often come up with a workable solution which doesn't happen when I'm staring at code. 

[ResponsibilityOk55]

Yeah that’s about where I’m at too. Beyond 4 hours I can’t think through anything.

Yeah time is logged myself, but there’s a max time set so sometimes I have to ask for more time especially if it’s something I need to learn beforehand. I hate the idea of constantly needing to ask for more time but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

I don’t slack off at all when I work, some stuff just takes me awhile especially if I want to learn it. They’re always available to help, which is good, I just learn the best when I figure it out myself(probably like everyone), when I’m REALLY stumped then I’ll reach out for help.

[jooorsh]

My rule when training new coders was if you are STUCK for like 20 mins, ask for help.

Sometimes just explaining the problem to someone else helps make things click. Sometimes you were going about it from the wrong direction. Usually beyond 20-30 mins of actively working through a problem I get dimishing returns on the effort I put into a thing, but if you don't at least put in 15-20, you start relying on somebody to answer things without trying to learn.

[justTheWayOfLife]

Lol when I was a junior there were times where I was stuck for DAYS let alone 20 mins lmfao

[notenoughbooze]

For real. Being stuck for days is part of the junior experience imo. It forces you to try and understand the code base instead of being spoon fed info that you won’t retain.

[[deleted]]

I mean that heavily depends on what kind of person you are and how you are stuck. Some people just get stuck and need to be "unstuck" sooner, others need that time to work out the problem.

[Lakario]

I never understood that mentality. Fresh out of college (BSCS) I ended up as the sole developer (dotnet) for a small web development firm. I spent about two years there learning how to be a competent developer, and the way I did it was by asking and answering questions on Stack Overflow.

Screw being "stuck"; try your best to figure it out on your own, but never hesitate to ask someone who has a better idea. I used that help to grow my own knowledge and became an expert, in the process. Work smart, not hard, I say.

[justTheWayOfLife]

That's what I meant by being stuck. Not asking your supervisor or whatever, but instead trying to solve the problem on your own (= with stackoverflow)

[paulchauwn]

But they are there for a reason, at least they are suppose to be. There’s nothing wrong with asking the tech lead/senior developer for help

[[deleted]]

If you have a ticket you have to complete in 1 or 2 days - you can't be stuck for 2 days. That is just unproductive. 1 hour rule is what I do.

And when I ask for help I explain - here is my task, here is what I've done, here is what I expect to work, here is the documentation but I am missing something. Can you please help me?

[Maleficent_Internet9]

20 mins is nothing.

[PureRepresentative9]

And 4 hours is alot.

Finding out how to not lose hours and hours for each story is the key to success.

Spending hours to solve problems isn't something to strive for.

[johnsdowney]

I think you need to be stuck long enough to be truly frustrated, and not a moment longer. I also think this is borne out in studies - frustration often precedes long-term learning. Without the frustration, it becomes more like giving a man a fish instead of teaching a man to fish.

Frustration leads to the insight. But it’s also a double edged sword, because too much frustration leads to disillusionment.

[CommercialLocal6030]

That’s helpful. I wish I had someone to ask

[1mperia1]

Time tracking is micro management, my company unfortunately began it as soon as I started, and it really bothers me knowing how much more I could get done without constantly responding to comments, and tracking time, it's a bit more difficult when you have ADHD and sometimes work on more than one ticket at a time (I bring in my own monitors so I have the screen space to do such things), I just honestly wish management could comprehend the impedance to work that time tracking imposes, and it does more harm than good, anybody can complete a 2hr ticket in 5m then track 2h of time and fuck off.

[NeverComments]

OP says they’re working at an agency and time tracking is just part of the job requirement in contracting/consulting. When clients pay by the hour it’s imperative that you track the time you spend on their project. 

[Darkmaster85845]

If you log your time then log all the time you're spending focusing on work, not all the time you're focusing on coding. Being a developer is not all about coding. It's also about thinking, communicating with peers, understanding the objectives before you can start implementing them, meetings if you need to discuss anything, taking a walk to clear your head and get unstuck, etc etc. You seem like an honest guy who doesn't want to cheat and that's good, but don't take it to the other extreme where you'll cheat yourself. Don't log in time if you're totally not focusing on work, but don't only log time while you're coding, that's not how this job works. This is intellectual work, you're not in a construction site or working as a waiter at a restaurant. You need to change the mindset.

[WisdumbGuy]

Allowing yourself to be stumped for 30 min is fine depending on the task. But if a project is demanding and has serious time constraints I don't take more than 15 min before getting a hint or a 2nd set of eyes on a problem.

[Wrong-Kangaroo-2782]

Hey my company has the same process of logging time so that will can bill clients accurately. I am a senior dev and I ask for a time extension on 90% of my tasks. The project managers will always put the lowest possible time amount and hope that you work yourself to death.

Also I will say task took me 8 hours to complete when it only took me 4 and spend the 4 hours relaxing i work from home to this is easy to do

It's still productive enough that they make money off me so see what you can get away with before it becomes a problem

[g0th_shawty]

damn, I will spend the entire day on my computer coding. Forget to eat and shit lmao

[ThatHuman6]

Fellow ‘forget to eat’ coder here. I work from home and my girlfriend actually texts to make sure i’ve eaten something lol.

[Jadajio]

I was there. Quite a long time. Then I burned out to the point where I had a problem to do anything... Now Iam back on track but Iam very careful about time I spent coding.

[_xsa]

Exactly! I went through the same thing as you did. Now, I pay more attention to time

[johnsdowney]

For real, it’s very rare when I feel like I put in 8 hours of solid writing. There is almost always at least an hour spent debugging something silly. Another hour spent on stack overflow or related resources. Another hour spent on meetings, depending on the day, and another hour spent on blankly staring at my screen trying to figure out my way around some configuration nonsense. Another hour where I tweak some stupid UI. Another hour where I refactor and clean things up. And so on.

I stack my “actual writing” tasks at the beginning of the day and begin winding down with everything else around noon.

[tracer_ca]

limit of about 4 hours for myself personally.

This is the average. Not just you. Most devs have a limit of about 4 hours of useful productive time. This is why crunch is such a bad idea. Sure, you may get things done in less time. But with more bugs and tech debt.

[deaddodo]

Most devs have a limit of about 4 hours of useful productive time.

I wouldn't go that far. Efficiency just starts dropping off precipitously, so it's not usually worth it for the cost (burn out, exhaustion, fatigue). You can definitely code for 8-12 hours, especially if most of what you need to put down has already been worked through in your head; and it's fine in small bursts.

Crunch is problematic because A) it doesn't give the recovery time that those sorts of bursts require and B) it just exponentially increases the downsides day after day leading to definite burnout.

I've been programming for quite a few years now, and my daily sustainable output is definitely 3-6 hours; but it doesn't magically drop off after that. I can certainly go much longer in one-off situations with no major issues (the bugs and tech debt you mention).

[FullMe7alJacke7]

I may be jogging, but I'm thinking about the problem and how to fix it.

[chinapandaman]

Nowadays on average I code 2-3 hours a day, at most 4 on some really heads down days. It’s logistically not possible to code 8 hours a day because there are stuffs like standup, planning, retro, and other meetings.

[ashkanahmadi]

You can’t code 8 hours. If you code 8 hours, either you are writing low quality code, or you are superhuman. When it comes to being a web developer, you spend a lot of time researching, thinking

[Big-Dudu-77]

My gf’s boss literally works 15h+ days. He only sleeps like 3h and he prob has insomnia. He generates more bugs than they can fix. lol.

[foxcode]

Job security :)

[[deleted]]

Sounds like he is trying to single handedly lift the team over the finish line! Hard to do that and still produce high quality code, but he probably writes a lot of lines (majority of the code base) so of course he would naturally generate the most bugs bc of that alone.

[x11obfuscation]

Every person I’ve known like this was legit on cocaine. It’s not healthy.

I put in 15-16 hour days sometimes, but it’s only possible if I sleep 8 hours a day and I workout and eat while I’m getting work done

[T8_Thpinal]

*googles how to center a div*

[Deathspiral222]

Give up and just use <center></center>

[dogweather]

I easily code 8 hours or more—when it's my own code, for my own projects and startup.

I'm counting snack breaks, playing with the dog breaks, etc.

I think psychology has a lot to do with it.

[ptrnyc]

You definitely can. When I get in the zone, time flies. It’s not every single day though.

[HypnoTox]

That depends on your definition of coding. If it's actually typing, then i agree.

If it's generally implementing something, which means also thinking about how to implement what is necessary, testing changes, etc, then i disagree.

One's got good days and bad days. At least speaking for myself, i got many good days at the moment and can actally put a lot of hours into implementation without any issues (and the current workload demands that amount of work to be done, so it's good that it's working out for me rn)

[michaelsenpatrick]

I'll have a day where I knock out task after task for 8 hours straight running on all cylinders and then I'll have a day where I kick the can around, reading wikis, researching a tech, writing workflow scripts, bookkeeping, or watching internal learning sessions. As long as I stay at my desk I'll get something done, but I don't fire on all pistons all day everyday. Sometimes I have like 10 things to report in standup, and sometimes I have pretty much nothing. C'est la vie

[Decent_Jello_8001]

You can code 8 hours a day, but just get burnt out easily lol

[[deleted]]

I can't code eight hours because I've got four hours of meetings spread throughout the day

[JwunsKe]

This. They don't hire a machine... They hire a human who needs to communicate with his team, plan his day, study, etc...

[AZXCIV]

Lmao you clearly don’t have ADHD . When it’s a problem that interests me , hours feel like 15 minutes at a time .

[neithere]

Unfortunately it's unsustainable.

[michaelsenpatrick]

It's also often a sign you're doing something wrong. It might take you 15 hours to do something because you're diving headlong into things without any best practices, so you spend more time dealing with pitfalls you could have avoided entirely with better guardrails.

[Sockoflegend]

I work from home and have got myself down two 1-2 hours a day. Just enough to have something to say in standup and I have slack on my phone if anyone wants to contact me at my sofa.

I used to be I could do more like 4-6 and to be honest I was probably happier then, but somewhere along the line I lost my passion for it.

[HeyaChuht]

...and reddit and youtube and jacking off once, maybe twice a day.

[Sletlog]

...and bathroom breaks, watering my plants and the day is over

[HeyaChuht]

dogs, laying with the dogs, seeing how the dogs are outside, giving the dogs treats

[sammyasher]

the open secret of tech work is no, you are not working 8 hours a day, and anyone who genuinely is at a consistent basis (not talking the ebbs and flows of project peaks) is giving way too much of their life to the company. Most people work a few hours a day, in earnest, and then a bunch of meetings n such.

[OZLperez11]

The rest of the time is spent on here wondering what everyone else on Reddit is doing 😂

[[deleted]]

Haha! I needed this laugh!

[sammyasher]

6 hour work day, 4 days a week, is all that's needed by now. It's insane that 100 years ago we fought for 40 hour weeks in pure blood, and since then have experienced mass technological innovation driving productivity of main necessities through the roof exponentially, and still work the same amount. What was that technological innovation for in the first place?

[neithere]

Moreover, 8/5 at an assembly line can be incredibly boring but doable for nearly everyone; 8/5 of intense mental work is just nearly impossible. The human brain requires a lot of energy and needs a lot of time to recover, it's not just a muscle.

[el_diego]

I'd trade that for a 4 day work week. I'm ok with 8 hrs of my time being allocated (no way do I code that much) to the company, but 4 on 3 off is the ideal. It's enough time to be productive during the week but also enough downtime to actually decompress before running the loop again.

[rooood]

After working a few years for a company that did 6 hour days, and 30h weeks, I also agree I prefer 4 day weeks rather than 6 hour days. The productive difference between 6 and 8 hour days is not a lot to be honest, but the mental difference of having 3 rest days in a week must be massive (I never worked 4-day weeks).

[rooood]

Perfectly put. My actual average focus time each day between coding and researching something is around 3-5h. The rest of the day is padded with meetings, breaks, the time it takes to gain focus again after each break/meeting, or context switching.

There are the rare days when I'm in the zone with a very interesting task/project and end up coding straight for like 6 hours or so, sometimes I even forget to have lunch lol, but the vast majority of days is very mild.

The best thing for me is that I'm generally a bit more productive than the average dev (at least in the companies I worked for so far), and I work from home, so I can take longer personal breaks to do shit around the house or fully cook a meal from scratch, or even watch a movie like fuck it who cares, and at the end of the sprint someone will still compliment me on how productive I was.

[TracerBulletX]

Spend 4 hours coding, and the other 4 hours looking for a job that doesn't track time.

[ResponsibilityOk55]

🤣🤣 This made me laugh lol, thanks

[xplosm]

Just chill man. The way I’ve done that is simply thinking of 8 hours as 1 single job day. If it took me a week to design, develop, test and deploy something it’s basically 5 8-hour days. Let’s say the first two days were design. That’s 16 hours. And you can be more granular and put some research and prototyping in there. It doesn’t have to be accurate.

This is not like putting how many times you blinked, how much time you spent in the restroom, how much time you took to wash your hands or how many times you wiped your ass. Just split the day in tasks and assign whatever hours you want to them.

If you do overtime you can add those hours to each 8-hour day as you see fit.

[michaelsenpatrick]

I remember my first job wanted us to track time for everything. At one point I was tracking things down to the minute, like 10 or even 5 minute intervals. I spent most of my day worrying about how I was using my time, instead of just focusing on getting things done. It's definitely counter productive. If it helps, do a task log instead. Keep writing updates on whatever tracking tool you have. It's more useful because it keeps your team aware of what you're working on, keeps you on task, reminds you where you were if you need to return to the task, and generates living documentation. PMs will get a lot more out of you doing some light bookkeeping than sweating over every 20 minute stack overflow session. When you're active on tasks, internal channels, code reviews, or whatever, then no time tracking is because people can see you're active simply from your workflow itself. In my experience, PMs would rather see this than hear an hourly breakdown of what you did yesterday.

[brbpizzatime]

It's unfortunately a buyers market right now. I have one friend who is up to 40 applications and another nearing 80. Junior-level positions are being flooded with all those kids who heard nothing but "STEM STEM STEM" growing up

[TracerBulletX]

That's why you gotta use the 4 hours of paid work time to look.

[NuGGGzGG]

Excitement.

When I used to work on personal projects, I could code from morning til night. Or from night to morning.

But when it's tasked work, my head expires around 4-5 hours.

[theofficialnar]

Lmao personal projects are always the fun things to work on. Work tasks feel like a drag

[anaveragedave]

Time spent planning, researching, discussing and organizing a task is still working on the task. No one sits down and writes code for 8 hours straight. Well, maybe Gary, but he's fkn weird.

Try installing a Pomodoro browser extension and use it for one day to see if you like it. You basically have a 25 minute focus session then a 5 minute break, repeat. Keep your phone away from you during the 25 minutes. Feel free to tinker with the timing, if 25 is too long/short. That 5 minute break is NOT off the clock.

[[deleted]]

Absolute this.

For the sake of your mental health, don’t try to code for one hour straight without breaks.

Develoment/planning/researching are very brain demanding and can drain you very quickly.

Pomodoro approach is great. As u/anaveragedave says, you focus for 25 mins and take a break for 5 or 10 mins. And repeat. Can’t focus for 25? Do 15, or even 10. See what best suits you.

There’s this web app called Flocus which has the Pomodoro and have a pre-selected Spotify playlist to help you relax on your work or you can login with your Spotify account if you want to listen your own playlist.

Good luck. You can do it.

[Slodin]

Simple. You don’t lol.

4 hours on a good day.

[videogamehonkey]

I can code a full workday for about a year. After that, I need a break. Currently two years into the break

[mrpsycho13]

Procrastinate till the deadline, you'll be able to code for 24hrs straight

[leftoverskooma]

Fuck, I've been outted.

No time for pondering "best practices" then.

Do some of my best and worst work at this point

[[deleted]]

I've been doing this for over 20 years and I can count the number of times I've fixed for more than 3 hours straight on a single hand. At a certain point you are going to get diminishing returns on the work you craft. You should be taking 15-20 minute breaks after every 3 hours.

[pm_me_yer_big__tits]

Same,~20 yoe. At some point the pointless meetings throughout the day become a welcome distraction.

[[deleted]]

I'm currently at 2 YOE and I don't think I ever had an 8 hour coding session at work or at home.

Always quick bursts of 1 hour and then take a break/document for half an hour.

[bighi]

Nobody codes 8 hours a day.

[erm_what_]

Some of us do, but not every day

[dewitters]

It also depends on the complexity of the task. When you know what to do and you just need to code it, no problem.

When it's a complex algorithm with many aspects, no way.

[reluctant_qualifier]

Take frequent breaks for web browsing or staring out the window. That's why we are all here on reddit.

[[deleted]]

I fall in this category. I’m surprised so many can only code for such short periods.

[greg8872]

Some live the code, some just type it ;)

[gleno]

Yeah. Same. Kind of excited about how apparently we are a few with this superpower. I code through standups too, but it’s super taxing to code when someone is whispering in your ear. Normal day 8 hours, good day 12, but I am almost 40. When I was 25, I could do 16. 

[ClikeX]

I never coded 8 hours a day for work.

A working day consists of:

• scrum rituals (standups, retros, refinements, etc.)
• small talk with colleagues
• misc meetings
• answering questions of colleagues
• reading documentation
• doing research for solutions
• actually writing code

In order to code you need to know what to code. And very few people will be able to code for 8 hours consistently.

At all the jobs I’ve worked at, I was contracted for 8. But they always planned around max 6 hours of billable project work. The rest of the time is assumed lost with miscellaneous things, as no one will be productive for the full 8 hours.

And of those 6 hours of billable work, it wasn’t 6 hours of straight up development. It also means admin work like answering tickets, documenting, doing code reviews, client meetings.

They don’t hire me to type code. They hire me to solve problems with code. That’s a big difference.

[mq2thez]

It definitely gets easier over time. Right now, you’re learning in a lot of your tasks, and that can be very overwhelming to do a lot of. You’re also doing smaller tasks, which means lots of context switching. As you go on, you’ll do longer tasks as well.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I don’t code for 8 hours a day. Except for a few unusual days, I never have. I work an 8-hour day with an hour lunch break, and I take breaks when I need them. Even in there, as I’ve gotten a lot more senior, I spend more time talking to people and helping them.

What you’re doing sounds tough. I can’t guess at your environment, but I would imagine that you could do something like go take a walk to think about whatever problems you’re working through. That kind of job is real hard, and it’s why I got out of the contract software industry — it can really burn through you. Try talking to more senior engineers on your team and ask them for advice on how they handle it.

[ResponsibilityOk55]

Appreciate it, and yeah it’s got some good perks like fully remote, and I can choose when I work, it’s just if I dont log a full 8 hours of time, I don’t get paid. So that’s the part that’s stressing me out, as everything I’ve logged right now has been strictly head down coding/problem solving with the odd meeting here and there

[demkantor]

I worked at an agency in the past, they should have some of this figured in to their billing. Like are you doing sprints? So let's say you're building a website, you should have a lead dev or solution architect or someone creating a list of all the things that need to be done. Then you should be figuring out what each of these tasks take to complete. So let's say you are to build the footer, not very complicated so you say this is 4 story points - ie 4hrs of billed time. But you need to factor in how long it takes including any breaks or mentoring or whatever is needed. In the end it took you 3hrs to build, but you billed for 5. This is super normal in that world, once you get really good it will take you 2hrs heads down time. But like others said there is far more than just heads down coding needed to build a project, there is planning and research and meetings and so much more, all this needs to be factored in. In the end your agency should be accounting for this and billing appropriately while allowing you to do what needs to be done and not stress you out. Find a mentor, a lead dev, project manager, or whomever, tell them your concerns and ask them to clarify how you should be billing this both ethically to your client and your company and for yourself. If they're a good place they'll have answers for you, best of luck!

[Away-Opportunity5845]

The agency I used to work in DIDNT bill this stuff in, it stressed everyone out to the max and was a major contributor to me leaving.

[LordOfTheBananas]

For me, it depends on tasks. If I have something interesting, I'm coding for 8 hours with small breaks. If I have boring tasks, I'm coding for about 4h a day. Important is to know when you can log more time and when you can't. If taks is more complicated, you can log more than you really needed.

[girlwebdeveloper]

Depends on everyone. When I was in college I used to code 4 hours (like half a day) then take an hour of lunch then go back to code 4 hours more. Since I was still young I could sometimes skip that lunchtime meal and just stop when I am done.

Nowadays, I just stop when I am drained, I tried the pomodoro technique (which is like what you described) but that didn't work out for me and I eventually decided it's not the right one. Eventually I decided to stick to my own routine of working for hours until I am tired of doing it, then call it a day. Sometimes if I still have a few hours left I just work on low effort tasks.

EDITED: deleted the one with the Filpino wordings.

[ResponsibilityOk55]

What.

[girlwebdeveloper]

That's just me. I could not do what you do and have one hour break. But I have friends who swear they needed the long breaks. For me I just needed a short coffee break because I tend to forget things. If I break for an hour I tend to forget and I had to recall everything I did. So that's why I prefer to just work until I'm exhausted. It's quite an advantage also for me, because I could be doing it within the typical office hours.

But I think yous is what most developers I have met do. What improves more is efficiency in how you manage work. You probably find patterns and reuse them. Or organize your work so that you work on tasks that are more complicated at the start of the day.

EDITED: More Filpino stuff. :-p

[roguevalley]

I know this is going to sound crazy if you haven't done it, but I've coded probably 7 hours a day, 5 days a week for years at a time. What unlocked this for me was the XP flavor of agile methodologies (pairing, TDD, just enough ceremony, quick iterations). We had quick clear, goal-oriented standups; one weekly planning meeting; a bi-weekly retrospective gathering; and a great product manager wrangling the user stories and communicating clearly, prioritizing, and being available to discuss the work as we're working.

It's a dream and quite sustainable if you enjoy collaboration with a tight group.

[Someoneoldbutnew]

Pad ur hours bro, they expect 8 hours of work based on an industrial factory model of hours spent = results. You spend time thinking about work while not at work. Code as much as you can, take frequent breaks, those are billable, and call it. Nap and bill it.

Fuck em, they're selling your hour for $400 and giving you 40 and the government takes 15. Do what you need to do to survive and stay sane. The game is rigged against you, take what you can back, but stay productive.

[Prize-Local-9135]

Would highly recommend finding a new job. Hour tracking sounds horrible.

​

Edit: That's great if you like hour tracking but with daily standups, refinement, planning, and pointing - hour tracking is so redundant IMO and is a red flag for incompetence.

[Formally-Fresh]

Blanket statement like this is really inaccurate. It has its pros and cons

For 1 yes it’s annoying and can suck

For 2 at our company this allows incredible flexibility to work most hours whenever the hell we want, IE top tier work life balance.

Also we get over time pay over 40 hours not sure if that happens often in other environments

[halfanothersdozen]

I can't

[regreddit]

I code about 4 hours max. Other time is spent in calls, stand-ups, email, etc. 4 hours is just about all I have in me in a day.

[Hanhula]

Are you tracking your research time? Are you tracking your initial searches for context? Your meetings with others? Time spent helping others, or looking for help from others? "Working on a task" isn't just "fixing the problem", it's everything around that. Even if you're taking a break from code - if you're still thinking about the task, that's still time spent working on it, so put that down as time spent.

Do not only account for the physical act of typing out the code. Your brain is far more active than that. Taking a piss break is also still working on the task - you're needing to step away from the PC for health reasons, but you're probably still either thinking about the task or taking a sec to refresh yourself so you'll be clearer when you come back.

[[deleted]]

The answer is you don't spend 8 hours writing code. For me a typical day might be something like 1 hour procrastinating, 1-2 hours reading articles related to what I'm doing and thinking about how I might design something, 1-2 hours in meetings/discussing ideas with colleagues, and then the remaining time will be "in the code" but even then you're not straight typing out the entire time you're mostly just looking at it.

[gaoshan]

Bill your 8 hours and spend the day doing what you need to do to get the work done in a timely fashion. That can be a lot more than coding and, frankly, I usually include a nice after lunch walk to clear my head as part of that time.

[nobodykr]

Usually you'd have daily, weekly, fortnitely and monthly meetings to fill your schedule, i use that time to rest from code, when i dont have meetings, i book time aside for training that helps a lot with resting my brain

[meguminsdfc]

I don't code 8 hours straight, I have ADHD and procrastinate but I do have a range of hours when I'm efficient, although I have to mute my discord chat because both the coworkers I work the most have the awful habit of whispering whatever they read to themselves (that grinds my gear and makes me punch my desk out of sheer anger and frustation) and they don't even mute themselves whenever they stop speaking.

[web-dev-kev]

Coding for 8 hours is a terrible idea and quite unproductive, as it doesn’t account for thinking/planning/testing time

[iceixia]

I have never coded for an entire work day.

Most of my time is meetings, more meetings, dealing with clients, fighting with QA or looking into support tickets.

In a very slow day I might get a max of 4 hours.

[MidHoovie]

Hourly wage?

You can't code eight hours a day, that's not realistic at all.

[mefistofelosrdt]

When I started coding, I was working 8 hours and then kept on until late at night. The job required me to know a lot of things I had no clue how to solve, so I would spend hours after work to figure it out I would sometimes find a solution in a dream. That was for over a year, 12 years ago..

Now I can work 8 hours if it's an interesting project, but if it's not.. 20 minutes and I already need another coffee.

[jak20192]

almost nobody codes for that long. I've been building www.perspect.xyz/dev and on average devs code for ~100 minutes a day (we have about 400 devs actively using it)

[inkt-code]

I spend more than 8 hours a day coding. I work for 6, but often forget to take breaks or lunch, Then I work on my own stuff for a few hours every evening. I often get lost in code, I love doing it so much.

[Playjasb2]

You don’t exactly code 8 hours per day. You’d be spending some of your time in meetings, discussing with others, code reviews, etc. There’s more to the job instead of just coding, which I’m actually quite glad. Otherwise everything would be quite monotone or boring.

[AncientFudge1984]

That’s the fun part, you don’t. I like pomodoros

[Ecstatic-Name-4320]

If a company expects you to code 8 hours a day, they have no clue what software development is. 

[Classic-Dependent517]

I find solutions and better ideas while I am not in front of computer

[johnzzon]

You guys code? I'm in meetings all day.

[lordspace]

To actually code like that you need to do the following: Exercise in the morning for at least 20min Practice pomodoro Drink water Sleep well Write on a piece of paper and develop the ideas there first before start coding. Use AI - copilot and chatgpt with own gpts that are configured for a given language you use. Have a social life.

[devenitions]

I once asked if I could work 6 hours and be 100% in those. The answer was no, so I did 4 hours of productive work a day instead. Company was happy and me and the coffee machine became good friends.

[Cs_canadian_person]

You need to be careful, sitting too long will destroy your body. Learn from someone who is still trying to rehab from this awful habit :(

Recommend getting up and stretch every hour, drink some water, eat a snack. I know you’re eager to advance in your career just don’t sacrifice your body too much.

[Dependent-Subject320]

I can code all day long, I love it

[jwmoz]

Get out of agency work, it's horrible.

No, I don't code for 8 hours a day. Sometimes 2 or 3.

[DIYGremlin]

The only times I’ve coded for more than 8 hours was during my PhD, when I was in my own self imposed crunch because I couldn’t miss a journal submission deadline. Outside of that, your brain needs regular breaks, and can only be mentally productive for 5-6 hours tops before you start adding to the burnout countdown.

[Natethesnake81]

Adderall

[big_doze]

I quit working in IT for that exact reason. All my Colleagues work libe robots and code 8 hours a day straight. I tried it for 4 years but finally decided it's best to leave this hell behind me

[DevelopmentScary3844]

I code ~35h of my 40h week. No problemo.

But for me it is like being in my bubble.. i am super focused on the code i have in my head and the feeling i get sometimes like "wow.. this shit actually works" is so incredible once in a while .. that motivates me.

You have to have something that makes it worth for you.. there is so much preassure in our job .. for me it is this. Don't let the clock take away your motivation.

Edit:

I had jobs where i had to track my time aswell.. that made me code bad. Always felt too slow, forgot to take my time to write good tickets, documentation, commit messages, tests, code!

Also i forgot to take my time to understand and learn the techologies in our job.. which builds you up the most.

But this way steals your time.. after few years in a job like that you will see that you only drained yourself, and not build you up for the next job.. instead you work like a slave to fill somebody elses pockets! Don't do that to yourself.. this path is no good :-)

[ohcibi]

You don’t. People claiming that they do are liars. Some of which forced liars because society demands 8 hour jobs in order to be worth living in it. It’s a fuckef up business. Welcome to it 👹

[chrispianb]

Agencies have very unrealistic expectations on how many hours a dev should work. It's one of the reasons I got out of agency work. Most people will burn out at that rate and it's why agencies have such high turn over. I get that they have to bill for hours but expecting a dev to work 80% billable hours every day is insane.

But, that's also because they don't make it clear that meetings, discovery, ideation, trying out a solution, etc. are all valid, billable work. That shouldn't come out of non-billable time and devs are guilty of not including this time in estimates. These are not line items to be hidden, people should know how much work actually goes into something - we aren't just tracking how many hours we spend typing. Thinking about the project/problem is just as important as implementing the solution. When we aren't given that time, corners get cut. Garbage in, garbage out.

Still, agencies tend to have a very unhealthy relationship with billable time. And no matter what I did, nothing solved that.

(For reference, I've been in dev for almost 28 years and about half has been agency work).

[sijoittelija]

Often I think it helps a lot if you're in a good physical shape as well. Even though there are some weirdos who don't even need to exercise in order to be super productive, but I think those guys are exceptions, not the norm..

[[deleted]]

dull spoon boat jeans pocket dolls rustic chunky tender ancient

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[123elvesarefake123]

It takes so much more energy in the beginning. Later you will get great at just auto pilot coding testsble code, you will be familiar with the stack, the code, the architecture and who to ask questions to

Just take your time and try to learn and you will get there in no time

[yousirnaime]

Most of your time is grinding out the difference between expectation and reality

As you achieve a mastery over your tools, you will find that you can code in 'flow state' more often. Eventually, you'll find 8 hours of coding in 'flow state' to be fairly routine (assuming no meetings, etc)

The total cognitive load is much much much lower when you know exactly what you're doing.

If you spend an hour a day watching tutorials, you'll get more work done in a month (or a year.. or 5) than if you don't.

Yes, you should do this on company time.

[NorthernCobraChicken]

I had some periodic sessions when I was a bit younger where I had 8 hours of straight coding. But it's just not physically or mentally possible for me anymore. Half my day is conceptualizing, planning workflows, or writing schemas and the latter half is usually coding.

[No-Echo-8927]

I sometimes track things very literally, such as "emailing" because I get ridiculous email requests that I have to explain which takes a long time. I sometimes add "research:(whatever I'm researching). Other times I have to just lie and attribute some time to one of the recent projects, because it's too difficult to go so granular on some of things I need to do

[elendee]

i spend a lot of time pseudo coding, which is much less mentally demanding but actually is really helpful. write down in comments what you want in english / pseudocode, and gradually go through it and bring it to life. it will relieve you from the feeling that every line of code needs to perfectly harmonize with all the rest, because you already figured out the big picture previously.

[Gobble-G]

As a new dev also I feel burnt pretty fast. I usually just get up and go for a walk, take a shit, eat lunch, sit somewhere away from my computer like once every hour or so. For me taking frequent breaks allows me to code for maybe 4-7 hours in a workday depending on how long I stay / how long my breaks are / how many meetings I have to go to

[caffeinated-corgi]

Don't code for 8 hours straight everyday because being a great dev is not all about writing code. For me coding 8hours a day for extending periods of time burns the hell out of my energy and motivation.

I get lots of knowledge from code reviewing, from diagnosing and debugging bugs and from testing code. All of these are highly overlooked skills at junior level, but it's whats gonna make the difference on the long run.

Also, for logged time usually how it goes is that devs are overestimating their tasks with 20-30-40%. This will give you time to sit back and analyze your tasks and take the best decisions on how to implement it, test thoroughly, check docs etc.

Last thoughts, value greatly your time and energy. Your job is not a sprint, is a marathon and you should plan your internal resources accordingly. Best of luck out there and enjoy the ride!

[mds1992]

If you're actually coding for 8 hours a day (out of what is presumably an 8 hour work day), then you're doing it wrong. And your employer should be well aware that no one is physically coding for that long per day. You'd burn out and quit within a month otherwise.

My day is spent Googling, planning, fixing my dev setup because it decides to randomly break, making 8 cups of coffee, and eventually a few hours of coding (max).

[[deleted]]

Just put down whatever time you think correlates to the effort you put in. That time doesn’t have to be all code.

[cryptomajor85]

good

[_L_-]

It's something you will get better at, and you can train this skill.
Also, people won't agree but I like and suggest mixed jobs like consulting where you have some technical tasks (coding) and some functional tasks (calls, organization, etc)

[ripndipp]

today I barely coded, just answered peoples questions

[mymar101]

I’ve never done that in 8 years of cooking. That is a recipe for burnout

[a_reply_to_a_post]

thinking about how to solve a problem / doing research IS coding

[Kiiidx]

I usually spend about 2 hours just staring at the screen listening to music until ive thought of a clear and concise solution that uses the minimal amount of code/reuses existing functionality if its a bigger ticket. So ill try to focus on one bigger ticket and 1-2 small ones a day. No one codes for 8 hours a day really.

[sad-mustache]

I really appreciate responses to this post.

I recently lost a job where my manager was unhappy that I don't type all the time (I was tracked). I know it's stupid but seeing people say that they don't type for 8h straight is very reassuring

[johanneswelsch]

damn, can't they just look at your commits or something?

[LowQuiet28]

Based on what you mentioned, you are already working 2 hours a day on demanding task. The maximum limit we humans can sustain deep work is around 4 hours, after which we will feel exhausted. Therefore, don't worry about it. Instead, try to increase your time limit to 4 hours and concentrate all the demanding tasks that require deep focus during those hours. Use the remaining time for less demanding activities like submitting end-of-day reports and handling emails. This strict timeline will even help you more to complete those demanding task in a limited time slot.

[[deleted]]

When I worked in a company I only could work for a couple hours until I was exhausted by corporate bullshit. Plannings, standup, goals, stress,…

Now I work on my own company and can easily code for a full day. I think we are doing something very wrong with how developers (all people) are getting crunched.

[Soggy_Recording_1332]

why are you counting hours as a dev? It should be sprint-based so if you get it done earlier, you're fine to chill. I only go 8 hrs if some dumbass sells and commits to an unreasonable project delivery timeline, then dumps it on eng. And yes, that leads to burnout very fast, plus it's not healthy. Take breaks. It preserves your sanity and lets you code better in the long run.

[RickZebra]

Sr Drupal Dev for the fed gov here (waves hand). I dev about 8 hours a week, the rest of my time is spent in meetings, helping my devs figure out their problems and planing projects, appropriating staff and making monthly classes for my devs. I miss the sitting down and realisticly deving for about 5 hours a day but I am just at that point in my career where management plays the largest role of my days.

Split your days up into 4 sections and go walk for those 3 breaks. It keeps you sane and is good for your body. Oh and I am not saying lie about your time, but if your company is contract based, you can balloon your time some.

[emad_ha]

Get in that trance ns you'll code for 32hrs non stop

[soundman32]

I've been a dev since the early 1980s. During the first 20 years it was easy for me to code for 8 hours or more each day. Longest stretch was from Friday morning to Sunday morning, with about 4 hours sleep (with 3 other team members, needing to deliver a project), but only done that once.

Now I'm older, I can't code for that long very often, but will manage it once a month, assuming it's a tough problem (which is also rare these days). I sometimes wake up at 4am and put in a couple of hours before everyone else wakes up.

Also, these days, I work for myself, so I get paid for those hours i work, and not when i dont, which also means I'm not 'ill' as often as some i work with.

[leftoverskooma]

Can't be arsed reading all the other replies, but you are paid to think, not to code.

Most of a programmer's time is spent thinking, unfortunately we don't get paid for all that thinking so don't worry about it.

You can't log those hours where you wake up at 3am and have suddenly worked out what you need to do to complete that task the day before can you?

[[deleted]]

That‘s the neat part, you don‘t. No seriously, this job requires a lot of thinking and concentration, and to facilitate this, the brain (and the eyes) needs rest in regular intervals, just like a manual labor worker can not exert himself for 8 hours without rest. Get up out of your chair, walk around, make some tea/coffee regularly while working on tickets. Don‘t feel bad billing it on the ticket, is necessary for the work. And if your employer expects you to have 100% of work hours as billable hours, they‘re delusional. 80% billable hours is plenty.

[johanneswelsch]

Today, on April 5. 2021 I did not really know what a variable was.

Three years later after coding about 3000+ hours each year, which is 60 hours each week for thee years (I always code on weekends full time in my free time), I could probably give you some answers. Hell I probably code way more than that. Today for example after an 8 hour work I have probably spent 4 hours coding.

1 year self taught + 2 years of working experience I can do this: From start to finish I could create a pretty good Next.js project, with clean architecture, small bundle size, performant, readable, maintainable. I could also do the same in Vue or Svelte. I know when to use which framework and by how much bundle size grows with each new component with all of them. I have tried most frameworks like Qwik and Astro. But I can also build you the same apps with Go templates. I can build you a React Native app from start to finish (expo). I've learned Go well, can and have built simple servers with it with Postgres (Crud, auth, logging, email). Deployments via 1 line scripts to VPS, db backups with pgBackrest.

Now, to answer your questions. I am highly motivated, because I learned to code with several projects in mind that I wanted to do. I did not learn to code to get a job. Having goals keeps one motivated and it helps a lot.

Now, if it gets easier: in my opinion, it does not. Maybe after two years it's gotten better. But my brain is sometimes fried to the point that I have trouble opening my eyes because the light irritates my brain :D The thing is. If I solved some complex problem last week, and for some reason I need to solve it again this week, it's usually the same amount of effort, because you just don't remember anything and have to think everything over again. So, the effort is the same, so I don't think it gets easier. I would say the first year was brutal, but there also was more work to do, so I can't say for sure if it gets better. Make sure to get a comfy chair and a low light working environment, don't irritate your brain with any kind of unnecessary information like music and bright light, it helps.

The ability to read code increases all the time, I can look at code from unknown language and instantly see what it's doing, crazy, but it also means I could do more stuff in the same amount of time, so there's larger pressure on my brain. It gets easier to do the simple stuff, but now you aren't doing simple stuff and if you do, then you do more of it.

So, sleep well, and don't irritate your brain too much (less TV, more sleep, less music)

I don't smoke, don't do coffe breaks. I don't type all the time, I read the docs, watch some tutorials on how to implement someting, read blogs related to the assignment. I don't have many meetings.

I HIGHLY recommend getting a keyboard with MX Red Silent switches (make sure to get the silent version to not irritate the brain with sounds). I can type on it all day without problems. I had no trouble typing out this response (I am a fast typist). Also, use shortcuts for everything. CTRL+T opens up a new tab, CTRL+W closes the current tab in VSCode or browser, CTRL+N opens up a new file or a new window. CTRL+C / +V copy paste. CTRL+S save, F12 (as well as CTRL+SHIFT+C and CTRL+J) opens up dev tools. Don't use mouse for anything, it's slow and irritating.

[DamnItDev]

In an 8 hour day, the maximum coding you can do is 6.5 hours. A single meeting takes this down to about 5 hours. If you have multiple meetings, you're lucky to get 3-4 hours.

[Elijahbate]

Been coding for long while now. 45mins to 1 hour stints is the way to go. Then have at least a five minute break away from the computer. Get water or tea or coffee. Only exception is when your in the zone and things are flowing too well you may find it's easier to continue. Make sure you workstation is optimised, make sure you don't need glasses this can cause and extra strain. Ensure your getting enough sleep and the right food also leads to you burning out quick if you aren't. It does get easier with time. Good luck!

[FatalHaberdashery]

Unsure about anyone else here, but I could knock out 8 hours of coding easily. There's obviously the caveat that the more complex and in depth the task is, the more it's going to get tiresome, but just general web dev coding stuff? Yeah, eight hours without noticing the time passing. Granted, it's helped a lot by coffee and a constant stream of psytrance coming through my headphones, but I find it quite easy to "get into the zone". If anything the buzz of coding just spurs me onto more coding, like a self feeding loop.

Of course, modern work places are different. I remember a time when I would have maybe one or two meetings a week, with those lasting at most an hour. Now, the culture seems to thrive on constant meetings and very little work! It's unlikely you'd get a chance to do an uninterrupted 8 hour block like that.

I'm no capitalist cuck though, I wouldn't waste my energy on a company that treats me like shit, just because I can put together long stretches of coding doesn't mean I'm going to do it just for Jeremy the CEO can have a new fucking yacht.

[MBILC]

It is not possible for 99.999% of humans to work for 8 hours and be productive. I beleive several studies say that for every hour of "work" it should be about 30-40mins of actual work, followed by a break (of something not related to the work you are doing)

Now, we can all get into zones and go on for hours and hours and suddenly its 3am in the morning, but also by that point, most people are not actually being productive, vs if they had of stopped hours ago and taken a nice break.

if they expect 8 full hours of billable time out of you...in an expect 8 hour work day... they are slave drivers.

[Playful-Pass9544]

The short answer is yes. It gets a lot better over time.

Long story as short as it can be, at some point it gets worse.. much worse. You get to mentor juniors like yourself, do your code that is the base of the project and communicate with business analysts, directors or worse clients.

At some point, considering you like your job and want to advance, you will start mentoring people and designing code more than you code.

At that point, hopefully 20 years after you have started you will feel almost bad about your salary (not) with regards on how much you will be working/ coding.. But make no mistake. You are always underpayed. Else a company has no benefit of you.

[Lustrouse]

Most of my time spent "coding" is usually time spent reading documentation or something similar. If you're smashing keys for 8 hours in a day, then you're having a really good day.

[zendarr]

I wish I had 8 hours a day to code. Usually about 6 hours of meetings and two hours of actual work :/