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For me, I think I can achieve 8 hours if:

- I'm working on something I'm interested in

- I feel like there's upside for me if the project succeeds

- I can work in different places throughout the day, like my desk, my sofa, in another room, etc. Not really possible in an office

- It's a quiet area where I won't have people interrupting my flow state

- I'm not blocked on things I need to know

- I'm working on something that's been de-risked. I know what I need to do and I know how to do it



> - I can work in different places throughout the day, like my desk, my sofa, in another room, etc. Not really possible in an office

> - It's a quiet area where I won't have people interrupting my flow state

It's amazing how much an office fights against productivity.


That's why I stay home when I need a long stretch of productive time on one or two things.

But the office has upside when the task is not well defined or I work on a lot of small stuff. At home, my brain will wander around more easily between context switches.


> I'm working on something that's been de-risked. I know what I need to do and I know how to do it

Thanks for including this one. I think the biggest stresses in my dev career have come from times where I didn't really know what needs to be done or when I was way out of my depth. I believe this reason alone was a huge driver of my procrastination in the past, especially when I was the lone programmer on the project.


That's why I hate doing interviews and always procrastinating when I need to find a new job. Once I talk to an engineer I know if the job is a good fit for me or not, till then I fell HR/recruiters just wasting my time.




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