Is the 8 hour work day a lie?

As the managing partner of Clevertech I talk with developers and designers daily about their client projects and their ambitious deadlines. I face questions from clients about when features will be ready for production. And I interview potential developers who want to join our remote workforce. Is the story of a standard eight hour work day a lie?

Potential developers want to make sure they are entering a positive, nurturing environment where the company cares about their ambitions which includes gaining mastery at their craft, but also includes having the time to devote to family or recreation.

Potential clients want a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And to achieve that, they demand world class developers that can work with them to differentiate their digital products to achieve that edge. Speed is always a requirement. Competition demands it.

Is the logical outcome that we will work to the limits of our biology ?

The Ideal Vision

When talking to potential developers, I talk about our values and our ideals. Some of the distinctions I make include:

Freedom, Mastery and Purpose are the guiding principles we follow that provide intrinsic motivation. Thank you Dan Pink for the surprising truth on what motivates us!

• Remote saves on the hours of unproductive commute time that allows you to live anywhere and supports the feeling of freedom. Often once someone has tried remote, they don’t ever want to go back.
• Working with sophisticated founders, entrepreneurs and VC backed organizations gives a developer an opportunity to master their craft at a high standard of care. We are told time and time again how this is the best project they’ve ever worked on.
• Purpose is often defined as being part of something that is greater than yourself. Some people find that outside work. Personally, I find that helping create the foundations in code that actually run these world changing organizations really excites me.

Our Core Values

• Ownership is a game changing attitude. If you have run anything on your own, you know what it feels like when it all comes together to satisfy the ultimate concerns.
• Mood owns you. Having a positive, enthusiastic can-do attitude creates the space where positive can-do things can happen.
• Always learning. And we showcase it in the newest tools and techniques we are trying to make things better
• Supportive. Friendly. Being there for one another. No crickets when asking for help.
• Prioritizing client concerns. Which requires that we know what the concerns are, set expectations and reach them.

I know that each time I think through these, I feel elevated, energetic and excited to get to work. But considering the perspective of the client, are these achievable? In the reality of the marketplace, aren’t 10 hour and even 12 or 14 hour days typical? Are the ideals just that, but practically, one should not expect that?

The business culture has weighed in on these challenges. One of the uber achievers of our generation like Elon Musk advises us to work hard. What is hard? Every waking hour. Sounds suspiciously like working to the limits of your biology. And look at the success. Hard to argue with success.

Others have focused on managing your energy, not your time. The idea is that as human beings we work on cycles. And the research shows that we can work about 90 minutes at a time and then need a 20 minute rest period. If you do not respect the renewal breaks, you will deplete your reserves. Some people use chemicals like coffee to amp up and end up making demands of your frontal cortex that will rebel against you.

Others tout the benefits of focus for a productive day. If you are bombarded with multiple stimuli and pride yourself on being a multi-tasker, your actual productivity declines. Only by turning off all your notifications, eliminate distractions and getting into flow will you be able to make productivity gains.

I respect the insights from these different viewpoints as each takes a perspective that is valuable. Are these techniques enough to allow a developer to work an eight hour day and maintain client satisfaction? Or, like an arms race, one must use all these techniques and work to the limits of your biology to achieve world class?

Building Background

When I started my career at Price Waterhouse, I would regularly spend at least 10–12 hours a day at work with the occasional all nighter to deliver on a client deadline. As I got more experienced, somehow I could get more done in less time.

What is it about an expert that can examine a situation and offer a quick resolution that others did not see? I want to suggest that building background in the relevant domain allows for speed that is not as dependent on the number of hours spent in the moment, but is the result of the many hours of practice that provides the breakthrough.

Building background in the relevant domain allows for uncommon speed. This is especially true in knowledge work. The entire lean movement is one that prioritizes learning over doing. Building background in a domain is how you get skilled and become expert. When you start to get a feeling about something, that’s the definition of learning in enough depth that your system 1 can give you feedback on what is happening.

So what does that mean for you, the potential developer? Beginnings are harder. Spending time to build background is important. Background in your development tools, background in the specific industry, background in the interpersonal relationship building. Overnight success takes a long time. But once you have that background, don’t let it go easily.

What does that mean for the style of work at Clevertech?

• It means that we take hard work seriously, and it is perfectly ok to go take a 20 minute walk in the middle of the day.
• It means that we demand expertise from our senior developers and we create opportunities to learn the newest attempts to solve hard problems.
• It means that we expect a work rhythm that allows for deadlines and we respect complete time off for recharging.

Defining Work

So is the eight hour work day a lie?

It might very well be. It depends what you are after and what you define as work.

If you have to commute 60-90 minutes each way in order to get to an office, are those 2–3 hours a day counted as work?

If you take time to practice and learn, whether it is reading a book or attempting to solve a problem you are curious about, is that work?

Ambition

Your ambition is your story about yourself in the future. Perhaps your story includes others you care about. And it may include a standard of care that you define. It is not just about the now. It is about doing something in the now that will create the future you envision.

Each person has to define for themselves how they interact with all the elements in their life including work to create the outcome they are after.

At Clevertech there are developers who work eight hours for a client but then continue to develop VR games in their ‘off’ time. They are devoted to the mastery of their craft for much more than 8 hours a day. Others work eight hours broken up in between children’s school drop offs and making dinner. We certainly see deadline driven late nights and we’ve also seen avoiding burnout with time spent disconnected from technology.

We are outcome and accomplishment driven. And we respect the tools and methods to best achieve those highly valued accomplishments.

We continue to search for and find world class developers that share our values and want to be part of a remote and dedicated team that is creating the future hand-in-hand with our sophisticated, game changing clients.