My experience both tracking my own productive time at a high level of granularity, and my experience from managing like 10-15 different people over the last few years is that almost no one (though not literally no one) actually “works” this much, and especially not for a prolonged period of time lasting many months. When I’ve broken down people’s hours all kinds of time gets lost. People overestimate how reliably they start their work, how much time they spend on lunch, dinner, how much they get sidetracked by random non-work things and how much they work on weekends.
I would take bets that if we actually broke down your schedule, we would find a number at least 20% lower, so my disagreement vote should be taken as a more straightforward “I disagree with your self-report”.
I have tracked my hours on and off for a few months at a time and use a bunch of tools to do passive time tracking. When I first started time tracking I found that I was working something like 35% less than work hours number I would have quoted in this situation.
I do take breaks (around 5-10 minutes per hour) that could be take off the number off work hours and would explain some of the difference though I personally feel fine including this in my work hours. I also have something like 1 hour of meetings/calls per day which can feel less intense.
I feel like using things like complice where others can see your screen and check in with your regularly makes it pretty clear to yourself how much work you’re doing.
Oh yeah I’d be excited about making a bet on this if there’s a way to operationalise it that doesn’t get in the way of my work e.g. you can work with me on complice all day. The passive time tracking hours probably won’t resolve a bet here as it just says things like 8 hours in Google docs. I already go through my schedule quickly most days and then do weekly reviews so I’d be somewhat surprised if going through it with you made me update down on work hits but maybe you had something else in mind?
I use rescue time (pro?) for passive time tracking and think it’s pretty great—though I haven’t configured it as well as I’d like yet.
Cold Turkey and news feed eradicator keep me from using social media during work hours + being on a call where I share my screen and video with someone who is happy to tell me off if I slack off.
My experience both tracking my own productive time at a high level of granularity, and my experience from managing like 10-15 different people over the last few years is that almost no one (though not literally no one) actually “works” this much, and especially not for a prolonged period of time lasting many months. When I’ve broken down people’s hours all kinds of time gets lost. People overestimate how reliably they start their work, how much time they spend on lunch, dinner, how much they get sidetracked by random non-work things and how much they work on weekends.
I would take bets that if we actually broke down your schedule, we would find a number at least 20% lower, so my disagreement vote should be taken as a more straightforward “I disagree with your self-report”.
I feel like I’ve already made that adjustment.
I have tracked my hours on and off for a few months at a time and use a bunch of tools to do passive time tracking. When I first started time tracking I found that I was working something like 35% less than work hours number I would have quoted in this situation.
I do take breaks (around 5-10 minutes per hour) that could be take off the number off work hours and would explain some of the difference though I personally feel fine including this in my work hours. I also have something like 1 hour of meetings/calls per day which can feel less intense.
I feel like using things like complice where others can see your screen and check in with your regularly makes it pretty clear to yourself how much work you’re doing.
Oh yeah I’d be excited about making a bet on this if there’s a way to operationalise it that doesn’t get in the way of my work e.g. you can work with me on complice all day. The passive time tracking hours probably won’t resolve a bet here as it just says things like 8 hours in Google docs. I already go through my schedule quickly most days and then do weekly reviews so I’d be somewhat surprised if going through it with you made me update down on work hits but maybe you had something else in mind?
Can you share the passive time tracking tools you’re using?
I use rescue time (pro?) for passive time tracking and think it’s pretty great—though I haven’t configured it as well as I’d like yet.
Cold Turkey and news feed eradicator keep me from using social media during work hours + being on a call where I share my screen and video with someone who is happy to tell me off if I slack off.