How much do you [really] work a day

Question

I started a real work just 2 months ago as a developer and I discovered that working 8 hours a day non stop is impossible. I mean I pass some time reading email, discovering Internet and doing some other stuff along with coding!

Is that normal for a developer or developers just code for at least 7 hours a day.

please share your experience so n00b guys (including myself) can see more clear about their efficiency.

[Edit]

what's the average of work you do in a day, I know there is no measure for that, but generally speaking, what can you accomplish in a week?

Answer 1

Right now, I have tried to be somewhat active on sites like this during my breaks between coding. I am learning new little tips and tricks and helping out other people. I may not be coding when I am doing this, but I am learning how to do my job better. I try and keep my breaks productive.

Though I do wonder sometimes about some of the really really active people on SO and related sites and managing thier work and answering/helping people on the sites all the time. I find it amazing how much time some people spend on here. It is a fun site to spend time/learn at though, so I understand to a degree.

Answer 2

It's not possible to maintain programming effort for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 48+ weeks a year.

As you mention there are always e-mails to answer, research to do and even just chatting about a problem with colleagues. None of these should be regarded as counter-productive. Your mind needs regular breaks from work so you can assimilate what you've just learnt, ponder about it and hopefully come up with a better solution.

Depending on the problem I expect I get 5-6 hours development done in a typical day, but this will vary and some days you look up and realise that you're almost alone and it's getting late while others you don't seem to get anything done.

Answer 3

For (some) calculations, in our team we use the approximation that "day == 6 hours". (Even though we're at the office for 8 hours on average, of course, minus lunch break.)

Obviously the real amount varies. And it isn't usually even worth thinking about, as long as you get the job done in the long run :)

Answer 4

What do you mean by coding. I just get paid to surf the internet all day

Answer 5

I agree with you when you say you break up your day by reading email and other things. However I sometimes do things like that because you need to take breaks from looking at code. Especially when I find myself stuck after spending 30-60 minutes and not finding a solution to a problem I will get up and walk away from my screen. I'm still thinking about my problem, but not having the code in front of me allows me to think about different solutions instead of having the single narrow focus of the code in front of me. Occasionally I will dream about a tough problem and end up writing code in my dreams. If I dream up some good code, I'll be in a good mood that day. If I was just dreaming crap ...

Answer 6

There is this nice free software that tracks you computer usage. It can track your day start and end, how much you spent on visual studio, chating on msn or browsing. I find it pretty nice to track how much time I'm working or goofing around. http://www.manictime.com/

Answer 7

I don't, I'm a wonderful product of the recession....I'm on unemployment

Answer 8

Its impossible to work striaght. You need toilet breaks, food and of course your daily tech news digest.

Answer 9

Nobody has seemed to mention external factors here, but I think they're pretty important.

How much work I have historically been able to do during the day is proportional to how awesome my coworkers are. If they're really excited about the work and there's a nice symbiotic relationship with everyone contributing to solving problems, then it's so much more motivating and my work level increases -- both quantity and quality. Similarly, it's often hard to stay as motivated without that external stimulus, and my output suffers.

Answer 10

For our Scrum projects we always assume 5 hour capacity a day (unless you know it will be less due to big meetings and PTO)

It seems to work fairly good for us.

Answer 11

At the organization where I currently work, workitem tasks are defined as what you can accomplish in up to 5 hours, based on the assumption that people have to do other randomizing tasks throughout the day. If a task will take longer than 5 hours, it is broken up into 2+ tasks, each with a 5-hour max.

As I am telecommuting, I shoot for organizing my day into 2 3-hour blocks of uninterrupted development work. I'll also do the sending and responding to e-mail, sketching out diagrams, etc. during other parts of the day.

Answer 12

Now that i have just met StackOverFlow, i will be adding 1 or 2 hours to that "doing interesting things" time