"...I cannot trust employers to provide me with an adequate work environment."
This is becoming more and more the default position, especially in the contract market.
A recent contract I had, had quite poor office space - small old desks, old 17" monitors, no personal storage, chairs in poor repair, and a badly working hot-desk system (I have yet to encounter 'working' hot-desking). As a designer, I was expected to work on these 17" monitors (or 15" laptop screens) do multiple large document work, and loads of complex diagrams in Visio. Not a fun experience.
In comparison, my home office contains an executive office chair bought to my specifications, a large desk laid out just for me, and a nice 24" 1920x1200 monitor (soon to be replaced with a 27" 2456x1440 one). I have Skype for audio and video calls, and my kitchen has food and drink in it that I actually like.
When I'm in the zone, and working from home, my productivity is doubled compared to working in a poor open plan environment, so where I can, I request work from home arrangements in my contracts.
Like the author of the article, I too am not a morning person - people may scoff at this, but it's a real thing. Before noon I am almost useless, the proverbial bear with a sore head. Once the sun is past the yard arm however, my focus kicks in, and I can power through my tasks until about 8pm-10pm. It's a full working day, just offset.
I don't really know the point I'm making here... but I do empathise heavily with the article author.
In most engineering offices I've been into being a morning person would mean you have less overlap with everyone else, since coming in late and staying late is the norm.
In one company I consulted for, a morning person almost got fired when a regional manager noticed he left 2 hours earlier than everyone else. It was hilarious, in the saddest possible way.
Just curious, as I'm a morning person, when do you get non-work stuff done? I start work at 8 and stop at 5. From 5 to 8/8:30 I'm doing chores like cleaning up the house, running errands, making dinner, washing dishes. I get an hour or two of relaxation in watching a movie or reading a book and then I go to bed.
When do night people fit in the time for that sort of stuff? I would imagine that you could do that sort of thing in the morning when I'm working but my perception (perhaps false) is that night people sleep in later.
> Like the author of the article, I too am not a morning person - people may scoff at this, but it's a real thing. Before noon I am almost useless, the proverbial bear with a sore head.
Barely done an ounce of work before 11:00 in my entire working life. At home at least I can ease into it and work later comfortably. While I'm working in an office there is always someone super focused on how many bums are on seats at 9:30 every morning (even in places with flexible hours this always seems to inevitably happen at some point). So I'm forced to under sleep and just procrastinate for the first few hours of the day to keep them happy.
Not to mention get stressed while trying to fall asleep because I'm scared of oversleeping.
I worked exclusively from home for two years. The cabin fever was so bad I couldn't take it anymore. I may be in the minority for programmers but I need other people around and I need the energy of an office.
From a management standpoint. A good whiteboard session goes a long way to kill communication issues on projects that are creative or not 100% straightforward. Although, of course, you don't need to be in the office "every" day for that.
I work remotely and do end up going a bit crazy if I work from home 100% of the time, especially as I live alone.
A good compromise was going to a free coworking space for the afternoons which has been working out great. I don't have that rush to leave the house in the morning, I chat to some people, I can come/go as I please, I am not constantly interrupted like when I am in the office. It has the benefit of being 5 minutes away on my scooter, too.
For me it's a great balance. I feel way more productive and energised. Every 3 months I go work from the office for a week and the thing I notice more than anything is that I am absolutely shattered by the end of the week. Offices and commuting are incredibly tiring and pretty terrible for work life balance.
I've been working remotely for more than three years now. I've dealt with cabin fever a number of times.
Early on my initial reaction was to find a co-working space. My employer was more than willing to help out. I started looking around the city and eventually found one I thought I liked. After a few days I realized I hated it. I wanted to escape the office scene and here I was, given the freedom to do that, right back in an office.
The second thing I tried was going to more meetups. This failed mostly because meetups are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This clashed with my workout schedule. When I changed my workout schedule I found that going to meetups was a major chore. I rarely found any value in it and my networking skills are super shitty. I'd go, sit for an hour, not talk to anyone and leave. A complete waste of time.
The last thing I tried and something that has worked for me for over a year now is a combination of coffee shops, a co-working space, and my home office. I'm a man that needs options. I can't be tied down to just working at home, or just working at an office. Somedays I don't want to see or hear anyone. Those are the days I stay home. Other days I want the noise and movement of a coffee shop. So I'll venture out to the 100s of shops in my area. I meet more people there than I ever did at meetups.
> I am a night owl. You can tell me I have to have my butt in a chair within your line of sight at 8 or 9am, but that is very wasteful.
This used to be me and I used to believe it was just the way things were. I'd naturally sleep 10+ hours until noon on the weekends, struggle to wake up for work, and then struggle to fall asleep before midnight. I had little energy for exercise and always felt stressed trying to find the time to stay on top of all of my other responsibilities.
But the truth is, it's perfectly possible for anyone to adjust their sleep schedule and become a morning person. It just takes some conscious effort and the will-power to suffer through a week or two of re-adjustment.
1. Set your alarm for the same time every day, including weekends. Wake up as soon as it goes off and don't snooze. Yes, it's hard at first. But it's not inhuman, so just deal with it. It'll get easier.
2. You can have a cup or two of coffee as soon as you wake up, but no caffeine after noon.
3. Put down screens like phone, laptop, and TV after about 8pm. The artificial, bright light throws off off your body's natural instinct to get sleepy when it gets dark. Spend some time preparing for the next day so you aren't stressed in the morning, and then read a book or something until you feel tired.
Bonus points if you get a workout in sometime during the day. It'll help you fall asleep earlier which will make waking up early easier. Also realize that alcohol reduces quality of sleep, so cutting back or avoiding it altogether will make waking up easier.
> But the truth is, it's perfectly possible for anyone to adjust their sleep schedule and become a morning person. It just takes some conscious effort and the will-power to suffer through a week or two of re-adjustment.
That's not 100% true. I've done it, and deal with a couple of weeks of pain to realign my schedule.
I then went to bed late ONCE, and slept late the following morning. My schedule had the re-sync'd back to it's original form, undoing three weeks of work.
I can't really explain it, but it doesn't matter how much effort I put in, just staying up very late ONCE, screwes up my schedule, and I have to go back to two weeks to pain to realign my clock again.
There's a lot of misinformation here, so let's go 1 by 1. For the record, I'm a night owl, and I've been trying to change my schedule to a morning person for about 11 years now (with limited success).
1. Sure, that works, for a time, possibly even a few months. Until you begin subconsciously turning the alarms off or hitting the snooze. That leads to a self-reinforcing loop of "turn alarm off --> pleasure from sleep --> no mental block to turning it off next time --> turn alarm off".
Anecdotally, the periods where I've lasted longest as a "morning person" lacked any sort of alarms at all.
2. That's simply not true. Coffee takes about 5-7 hours to wear off, so if you're going to bed around 2100, your safest cut off would be 1400, but generally 1600 wouldn't be that bad either. I've also had coffee and had deep, restful naps just an hour later. If you're really, truly tired, coffee is not a significant inhibitor after 5 hours.
3. That is simply not an option for most people. Family members, roommates, gyms, all might have TV screens or people browsing their phones and talking loudly and doing various activities. You can't simple "escape" the digital world entirely at 8pm. This is realistic on vacation, and I can confirm it results in better sleep, but in day2day, you're bound to slip eventually.
4. Workout - working out can prevent you from falling asleep from all the adrenaline generated during the workout. Just like coffee, it's better to not do it within 3 hours of sleep but many people don't have the luxury of choosing when they go to the gym (if they go at all).
But what's the end result? You wake up earlier, and you get tired and sleepy in the afternoon, around 1-2pm. Most workplaces don't allow you to nap for an hour, so you keep feeling tired and unproductive for the rest of the day. Not to mention waking up early makes you feel really hungry if you don't eat a big breakfast.
>But the truth is, it's perfectly possible for anyone to adjust their sleep schedule and become a morning person.
You seem to be conflating waking up early and being a morning person. With a rigid schedule night people can adjust to an earlier schedule (i did for several years) but that wont make someone with later rhythms be as productive as they would be on a more natural (for them) schedule
I also find my sleep schedule to be flexible (although I'd be wary of your assumption that this is true for everyone.)
I find that the key ingredient is others' expectations. If I'm going to be arriving at a workplace with the person I report to sitting right opposite me, and sleeping in means arriving an hour or more after them, then I can get in gear, avoid pressing snooze, and catch the 07:33. At my previous job, the norm was to arrive between 10 and 11: I was rarely up more than 15 minutes before my carpool arrived, and the idea of getting up earlier regularly gave me headaches.
Edit: some stuff I've done for a while: no caffeine after 18:00, no blue light after 21:00. Falling asleep is much harder if I don't do these things.
What you're describing is called "Delayed sleep phase disorder" and in some cases, like yours, it can be managed. However this depends on the severity so just remember not to judge someone who has tried and failed to align themselves with society's clock.[0]
You were able to align yourself using a couple of techniques, but missed out on some of the most potent which include
[0]Here's a relevant quote from Wikipedia "Depending on the severity, the symptoms can be managed to a greater or lesser degree, but no cure is known."
> 3. Put down screens like phone, laptop, and TV after about 8pm. The artificial, bright light throws off off your body's natural instinct to get sleepy when it gets dark. Spend some time preparing for the next day so you aren't stressed in the morning, and then read a book or something until you feel tired.
I can confirm that this works, but this part's really killer if you have young kids since it means (very nearly) zero kid-free screen time, ever. Also hard if you have, say, friends over and want to watch a movie or play some Mario Kart or something, since most of that's going to be later in the day if you've got kids. Seriously restricts your solo or couple entertainment and unwinding options. Winters especially are incredibly tough since going out in the yard isn't even an option (dark too early). Basically books and tabletop games are all you've got, and yeah, people got by with that (or less) since forever and were basically fine, but you won't be keeping up with the various TV series or games your friends and coworkers are into, for example.
There are real costs to making your sleep schedule sane, and they mostly come out of free time for entertainment/side-projects/online-classes/100-other-things-that-require-a-screen.
> 3. Put down screens like phone, laptop, and TV after about 8pm. The artificial, bright light throws off off your body's natural instinct to get sleepy when it gets dark.
What I am supposed to do during four hours with basically no media? That sound a bit extreme. 90 minutes of that ought to do.
Oh, if you DO watch something (eg. movie), try an app like redshift, to reduce make the light blueish, which is what actually deprives you of sleep.
I'm an unapologetic night owl. I don't wake up before 10AM if I can help it, and I get a lot of productivity out of late night hours, both for work as well as personal endeavors. I enjoy my groove and would not change it. Were an employer to require me to be in the office early, I would refuse the offer or seek new employment. Given the nature of software work, I don't think this is at all unreasonable. As long as the team is able to rendezvous mid-day for several hours, it seems petty to hold individual actors to a universal schedule.
>But the truth is, it's perfectly possible for anyone to adjust their sleep schedule and become a morning person.
Quite false. Yes, the standard sleep hygiene rules[0] can be helpful to those not already following them but they're not effective for everyone, particularly if they have a complicating condition.
I have worked remotely for the better part of the last 15 years. I am now looking for a new job and am applying almost exclusively to positions that are several 100km away, if not on a different continent. The reason: the potential employer already understands that this will be a remote position. Any employer closer than 150km is just too likely to ask for "can't you just come in", and anyone 10 minutes from here will most likely not agree to remote work at all.
Allowing remote work is a good signal for process quality too. Distributed teams don't share code on thumb drives or assign undocumented tasks at the water cooler.
> I am now looking for a new job and am applying almost exclusively to positions that are several 100km away, if not on a different continent. The reason: the potential employer already understands that this will be a remote position.
It can also mean that the potential empolyer will expect you to relocate.
The "I cannot trust employers" statement struck me. I agree with it strongly, but react differently. Rather than dictate my working environment to people I do not trust to take care of me, I just say no. If I do not trust an employer, I am fortunate enough to have enough savings in the bank to be able to say no to the job offers and walk away until I find someone I can trust. It works well... It makes job changes take a bit longer, and the searches are difficult, but the end results are good.
> If I do not trust an employer, I am fortunate enough to have enough savings in the bank to be able to say no to the job offers and walk away until I find someone I can trust.
I call it "FU Money" - because when you want to walk away, you can tell 'em and leave. It's a great position to be in.
It's a comfort/environment problem, at its core. Just like was pointed out in the article.
Do you know what the most popular type of monitor stand is in a major corporation? Paper reams. In fact recently where I work they came around to people with these and asked they not do it because it screws up their paper ordering/estimation.
Why is this a problem? Because offices are super picky about the $100 equipment order but NOT about the $2000 plane ticket/hotel. One is considered a necessary expense and the other is "waste".
People are more productive when they are comfortable/have the tools they need. The building doesn't matter as much. Just an opinion.
You don't want to allow work from home? Cool, give me my two large enough monitors, my adjustable stand, a motorized sit/stand desk, and maybe something simple like free coffee/soda so I'm not spending $X/day on it. Let me come in at 10 and stay until 6 if it suits me.
At the office, make sure there are places I can go to escape from noise when I need to. What would even be MORE awesome is if you somehow worked it out if I could get a discount on noise cancelling headphones.
Pretty simple stuff, and really at the core of what is written here. The title is just meant to infuriate some of you.
>and maybe something simple like free coffee/soda so I'm not spending $X/day on it.
That always annoys me, because I don't drink that crap. Soda in particular is extremely unhealthy.
If you're going to offer free food/drinks, then give people an actual choice so people like me aren't feeling left out. Don't just assume that everyone likes Coke(TM), or Starbucks(TM), or nasty Folgers(TM) coffee. Try offering some healthy food or snacks, like yogurts or fresh fruit so employees stay healthy.
>At the office, make sure there are places I can go to escape from noise when I need to.
1000 times this! I once worked at a horrible place like this where there was no place to escape to. They told me I could go sit in the "break room" for a break; except that this stupid room was extremely brightly lit and had a stupid TV blaring CNN all day long. We were explicitly not allowed to go to other parts of the building and use the comfy chairs in the more dimly-lit common areas to relax for a bit, away from the noisy open-plan work area.
>What would even be MORE awesome is if you somehow worked it out if I could get a discount on noise cancelling headphones.
No. First, they should be free, but secondly, they simply don't work. I tried that at the above place. It was even worse than putting up with the open-plan environment, because then I constantly had people walking up behind me and tapping me on the shoulder, which was horribly disturbing and made me flinch badly. Maybe I should have just backhanded someone reflexively so people would have stopped doing it.
The fundamental problem with all this stuff is that employers simply do not give two shits about the happiness or comfort of their employees in the office, and are simply too stupid and shortsighted to see how this translates directly into both increased productivity and retention.
There's a much simpler reason that I only work remotely: companies are willing to let me.
I love being close to my kids, my wife, and the general comforts of a home office. There are many other reasons I prefer to work remotely. That said, if there were no companies allowing me to work this way, I wouldn't say "sorry, I only work remotely" and become unemployed.
I smoke weed to get creative, drink a lot of coffee and do a lot of online meetings, have some crazy hours, but I also get my work done before(better?) everyone else.
I would never fit in any workplace (tried a few but none fit), I have a big chair, 3 big monitors and a bong, also can talk with my team fellows every time I want, but we really don't need to talk too much, if you understand your product, understand your clients and your needs, that's just not too much to talk, just hard work to do.
You may be a wonderfully creative developer. But if youre addled with inability to focus or maintain a sharp memory then there are certain tasks where you should not be trusted such as administering a production environment. Also driving.
Do you take any supplements to help with the long-term cognitive effects of frequent weed? That's the one thing that concerns me about continuing to partake as a professional (vs just doing it in college while working on projects, which was enjoyable)
Some of my friends have said that citicholine has been helpful for them. Wondering if you have any techniques yourself?
Some of us have been making these arguments for decades to little effect. The manager either has discretion to let people work at home or he/she doesn't. And if he/she does it's very much their personal preference. Rock star devs can work at home if their managers are allowed to make that decision and the rock star demands it. Most of the time it feels like a whim of management.
The most incredible thing for me was avoiding getting sick. Been remote about 4 years now, the number of colds I get went from 2 per year to about 1 every 2 years. I shouldn't have said that.
Employers need to take folks like this into consideration when setting their workplace policies, such as to what degree to allow flexible hours.
There are always trade offs. Thinking specifically about workplace hours, having at least some amount of time everyday where you know everyone will be in the same place physically has some major benefits: knowing you'll have a chance to pair with someone, having some overlap where you get to joke a round while making coffee, perhaps eat a meal together, draw on a whiteboard (each of which have virtual alternatives that aren't as good IMO). But if having any such constraints at all means you miss out on 5-10% of really smart creative people, is that too large a cost?
For me spending 8+hours in the office never really worked well. I'm effective for a few hours in the morning (unless interrupted by someone) and then just sit out the rest of the day pretending to be busy. For me the best part of working remote is that I can split my work day into a 2-3 chunks, few hours each. IMHO this is absolutely the most productive way to organize the time, it really helps me to stay focused through out the day. Also to be able to finish other things in life, beside work.
Help I'm trapped in cubicle... and the programmer next insists on having a mechanical keyboard. (He is not old enough to remember real mechanical keyboards.)
If employers had to pay employees from the time they left their front door, instead of externalizing the cost to the employees, we'd find out pretty quickly just how "inefficient" remote working really was. That, and/or salaries would start to compensate for real estate prices.
I currently work from home, but before I also worked in an openspace and also in the cubicle with just 4 people. I still can't say openspace is worst... probably depends on one's own preferences. Yes, sometimes it gets noisy and productivity goes down, but if I was stuck on something, and could just immediately get up and walk 10 meters and ask a more knowledgeable colleague made up for that.
But if your work is clearly defined and you have easy access to all the information, then probably yes, being completely alone is most productive for me. But for example in the past I worked on a project with ~100 other developers, and not every information required to do the job done was readily available...sometimes it was acquired only by discussing with a colleague, and doing that in person is often the quickest way.
>but if I was stuck on something, and could just immediately get up and walk 10 meters and ask a more knowledgeable colleague made up for that.
Working in a cubicle environment is no different here. There's nothing preventing you from getting up, leaving your cube, and walking 10 meters to another cube to ask a question.
It makes sense that the nature of management work (over-communicating) lends itself to physically connected open office areas. Of course, the other half of their job is getting out of the way of the producers. Could a manager answer a few questions I have?
Can you describe to me the difference between the nature of work that requires group creativity and individual focus (or rather, which employee roles fit more into one or the other)?
How much of each do the various roles of your employees spend their time on?
How much control (or influence) do your employees have over whether or not they are in an environment that suits their need for focus (and when that focus ends)?
[+] [-] Jaruzel|9 years ago|reply
A recent contract I had, had quite poor office space - small old desks, old 17" monitors, no personal storage, chairs in poor repair, and a badly working hot-desk system (I have yet to encounter 'working' hot-desking). As a designer, I was expected to work on these 17" monitors (or 15" laptop screens) do multiple large document work, and loads of complex diagrams in Visio. Not a fun experience.
In comparison, my home office contains an executive office chair bought to my specifications, a large desk laid out just for me, and a nice 24" 1920x1200 monitor (soon to be replaced with a 27" 2456x1440 one). I have Skype for audio and video calls, and my kitchen has food and drink in it that I actually like.
When I'm in the zone, and working from home, my productivity is doubled compared to working in a poor open plan environment, so where I can, I request work from home arrangements in my contracts.
Like the author of the article, I too am not a morning person - people may scoff at this, but it's a real thing. Before noon I am almost useless, the proverbial bear with a sore head. Once the sun is past the yard arm however, my focus kicks in, and I can power through my tasks until about 8pm-10pm. It's a full working day, just offset.
I don't really know the point I'm making here... but I do empathise heavily with the article author.
[+] [-] gcp|9 years ago|reply
In one company I consulted for, a morning person almost got fired when a regional manager noticed he left 2 hours earlier than everyone else. It was hilarious, in the saddest possible way.
[+] [-] Touche|9 years ago|reply
When do night people fit in the time for that sort of stuff? I would imagine that you could do that sort of thing in the morning when I'm working but my perception (perhaps false) is that night people sleep in later.
[+] [-] intoverflow2|9 years ago|reply
Barely done an ounce of work before 11:00 in my entire working life. At home at least I can ease into it and work later comfortably. While I'm working in an office there is always someone super focused on how many bums are on seats at 9:30 every morning (even in places with flexible hours this always seems to inevitably happen at some point). So I'm forced to under sleep and just procrastinate for the first few hours of the day to keep them happy.
Not to mention get stressed while trying to fall asleep because I'm scared of oversleeping.
[+] [-] NTripleOne|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway2016a|9 years ago|reply
I worked exclusively from home for two years. The cabin fever was so bad I couldn't take it anymore. I may be in the minority for programmers but I need other people around and I need the energy of an office.
From a management standpoint. A good whiteboard session goes a long way to kill communication issues on projects that are creative or not 100% straightforward. Although, of course, you don't need to be in the office "every" day for that.
[+] [-] mcjiggerlog|9 years ago|reply
A good compromise was going to a free coworking space for the afternoons which has been working out great. I don't have that rush to leave the house in the morning, I chat to some people, I can come/go as I please, I am not constantly interrupted like when I am in the office. It has the benefit of being 5 minutes away on my scooter, too.
For me it's a great balance. I feel way more productive and energised. Every 3 months I go work from the office for a week and the thing I notice more than anything is that I am absolutely shattered by the end of the week. Offices and commuting are incredibly tiring and pretty terrible for work life balance.
[+] [-] ryanSrich|9 years ago|reply
Early on my initial reaction was to find a co-working space. My employer was more than willing to help out. I started looking around the city and eventually found one I thought I liked. After a few days I realized I hated it. I wanted to escape the office scene and here I was, given the freedom to do that, right back in an office.
The second thing I tried was going to more meetups. This failed mostly because meetups are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This clashed with my workout schedule. When I changed my workout schedule I found that going to meetups was a major chore. I rarely found any value in it and my networking skills are super shitty. I'd go, sit for an hour, not talk to anyone and leave. A complete waste of time.
The last thing I tried and something that has worked for me for over a year now is a combination of coffee shops, a co-working space, and my home office. I'm a man that needs options. I can't be tied down to just working at home, or just working at an office. Somedays I don't want to see or hear anyone. Those are the days I stay home. Other days I want the noise and movement of a coffee shop. So I'll venture out to the 100s of shops in my area. I meet more people there than I ever did at meetups.
[+] [-] mi100hael|9 years ago|reply
This used to be me and I used to believe it was just the way things were. I'd naturally sleep 10+ hours until noon on the weekends, struggle to wake up for work, and then struggle to fall asleep before midnight. I had little energy for exercise and always felt stressed trying to find the time to stay on top of all of my other responsibilities.
But the truth is, it's perfectly possible for anyone to adjust their sleep schedule and become a morning person. It just takes some conscious effort and the will-power to suffer through a week or two of re-adjustment.
1. Set your alarm for the same time every day, including weekends. Wake up as soon as it goes off and don't snooze. Yes, it's hard at first. But it's not inhuman, so just deal with it. It'll get easier.
2. You can have a cup or two of coffee as soon as you wake up, but no caffeine after noon.
3. Put down screens like phone, laptop, and TV after about 8pm. The artificial, bright light throws off off your body's natural instinct to get sleepy when it gets dark. Spend some time preparing for the next day so you aren't stressed in the morning, and then read a book or something until you feel tired.
Bonus points if you get a workout in sometime during the day. It'll help you fall asleep earlier which will make waking up early easier. Also realize that alcohol reduces quality of sleep, so cutting back or avoiding it altogether will make waking up easier.
[+] [-] hobarrera|9 years ago|reply
That's not 100% true. I've done it, and deal with a couple of weeks of pain to realign my schedule.
I then went to bed late ONCE, and slept late the following morning. My schedule had the re-sync'd back to it's original form, undoing three weeks of work.
I can't really explain it, but it doesn't matter how much effort I put in, just staying up very late ONCE, screwes up my schedule, and I have to go back to two weeks to pain to realign my clock again.
[+] [-] npsimons|9 years ago|reply
1) Multiple alarm clocks, strewn about the room where you have to get up to turn them off.
2) A sunrise alarm clock.
3) Exercise, hard and heavy, first thing in the morning, before anything else, and every day. You'll fall asleep much faster and sleep much better.
[+] [-] antisthenes|9 years ago|reply
1. Sure, that works, for a time, possibly even a few months. Until you begin subconsciously turning the alarms off or hitting the snooze. That leads to a self-reinforcing loop of "turn alarm off --> pleasure from sleep --> no mental block to turning it off next time --> turn alarm off".
Anecdotally, the periods where I've lasted longest as a "morning person" lacked any sort of alarms at all.
2. That's simply not true. Coffee takes about 5-7 hours to wear off, so if you're going to bed around 2100, your safest cut off would be 1400, but generally 1600 wouldn't be that bad either. I've also had coffee and had deep, restful naps just an hour later. If you're really, truly tired, coffee is not a significant inhibitor after 5 hours.
3. That is simply not an option for most people. Family members, roommates, gyms, all might have TV screens or people browsing their phones and talking loudly and doing various activities. You can't simple "escape" the digital world entirely at 8pm. This is realistic on vacation, and I can confirm it results in better sleep, but in day2day, you're bound to slip eventually.
4. Workout - working out can prevent you from falling asleep from all the adrenaline generated during the workout. Just like coffee, it's better to not do it within 3 hours of sleep but many people don't have the luxury of choosing when they go to the gym (if they go at all).
But what's the end result? You wake up earlier, and you get tired and sleepy in the afternoon, around 1-2pm. Most workplaces don't allow you to nap for an hour, so you keep feeling tired and unproductive for the rest of the day. Not to mention waking up early makes you feel really hungry if you don't eat a big breakfast.
[+] [-] gr3yh47|9 years ago|reply
You seem to be conflating waking up early and being a morning person. With a rigid schedule night people can adjust to an earlier schedule (i did for several years) but that wont make someone with later rhythms be as productive as they would be on a more natural (for them) schedule
[+] [-] tehwalrus|9 years ago|reply
I find that the key ingredient is others' expectations. If I'm going to be arriving at a workplace with the person I report to sitting right opposite me, and sleeping in means arriving an hour or more after them, then I can get in gear, avoid pressing snooze, and catch the 07:33. At my previous job, the norm was to arrive between 10 and 11: I was rarely up more than 15 minutes before my carpool arrived, and the idea of getting up earlier regularly gave me headaches.
Edit: some stuff I've done for a while: no caffeine after 18:00, no blue light after 21:00. Falling asleep is much harder if I don't do these things.
[+] [-] JamesBarney|9 years ago|reply
You were able to align yourself using a couple of techniques, but missed out on some of the most potent which include
1. Melatonin
2. Blue light therapy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
[0]Here's a relevant quote from Wikipedia "Depending on the severity, the symptoms can be managed to a greater or lesser degree, but no cure is known."
[+] [-] ashark|9 years ago|reply
I can confirm that this works, but this part's really killer if you have young kids since it means (very nearly) zero kid-free screen time, ever. Also hard if you have, say, friends over and want to watch a movie or play some Mario Kart or something, since most of that's going to be later in the day if you've got kids. Seriously restricts your solo or couple entertainment and unwinding options. Winters especially are incredibly tough since going out in the yard isn't even an option (dark too early). Basically books and tabletop games are all you've got, and yeah, people got by with that (or less) since forever and were basically fine, but you won't be keeping up with the various TV series or games your friends and coworkers are into, for example.
There are real costs to making your sleep schedule sane, and they mostly come out of free time for entertainment/side-projects/online-classes/100-other-things-that-require-a-screen.
[+] [-] hobarrera|9 years ago|reply
What I am supposed to do during four hours with basically no media? That sound a bit extreme. 90 minutes of that ought to do. Oh, if you DO watch something (eg. movie), try an app like redshift, to reduce make the light blueish, which is what actually deprives you of sleep.
[+] [-] sparky_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RandomOpinion|9 years ago|reply
Quite false. Yes, the standard sleep hygiene rules[0] can be helpful to those not already following them but they're not effective for everyone, particularly if they have a complicating condition.
[0] For those interested, a more complete list is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_hygiene
[+] [-] swerner|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] padobson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wolfgke|9 years ago|reply
It can also mean that the potential empolyer will expect you to relocate.
[+] [-] jlebrech|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cableshaft|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cr0sh|9 years ago|reply
I call it "FU Money" - because when you want to walk away, you can tell 'em and leave. It's a great position to be in.
[+] [-] supergeek133|9 years ago|reply
Do you know what the most popular type of monitor stand is in a major corporation? Paper reams. In fact recently where I work they came around to people with these and asked they not do it because it screws up their paper ordering/estimation.
Why is this a problem? Because offices are super picky about the $100 equipment order but NOT about the $2000 plane ticket/hotel. One is considered a necessary expense and the other is "waste".
People are more productive when they are comfortable/have the tools they need. The building doesn't matter as much. Just an opinion.
You don't want to allow work from home? Cool, give me my two large enough monitors, my adjustable stand, a motorized sit/stand desk, and maybe something simple like free coffee/soda so I'm not spending $X/day on it. Let me come in at 10 and stay until 6 if it suits me.
At the office, make sure there are places I can go to escape from noise when I need to. What would even be MORE awesome is if you somehow worked it out if I could get a discount on noise cancelling headphones.
Pretty simple stuff, and really at the core of what is written here. The title is just meant to infuriate some of you.
[+] [-] Arizhel|9 years ago|reply
That always annoys me, because I don't drink that crap. Soda in particular is extremely unhealthy.
If you're going to offer free food/drinks, then give people an actual choice so people like me aren't feeling left out. Don't just assume that everyone likes Coke(TM), or Starbucks(TM), or nasty Folgers(TM) coffee. Try offering some healthy food or snacks, like yogurts or fresh fruit so employees stay healthy.
>At the office, make sure there are places I can go to escape from noise when I need to.
1000 times this! I once worked at a horrible place like this where there was no place to escape to. They told me I could go sit in the "break room" for a break; except that this stupid room was extremely brightly lit and had a stupid TV blaring CNN all day long. We were explicitly not allowed to go to other parts of the building and use the comfy chairs in the more dimly-lit common areas to relax for a bit, away from the noisy open-plan work area.
>What would even be MORE awesome is if you somehow worked it out if I could get a discount on noise cancelling headphones.
No. First, they should be free, but secondly, they simply don't work. I tried that at the above place. It was even worse than putting up with the open-plan environment, because then I constantly had people walking up behind me and tapping me on the shoulder, which was horribly disturbing and made me flinch badly. Maybe I should have just backhanded someone reflexively so people would have stopped doing it.
The fundamental problem with all this stuff is that employers simply do not give two shits about the happiness or comfort of their employees in the office, and are simply too stupid and shortsighted to see how this translates directly into both increased productivity and retention.
[+] [-] mathgeek|9 years ago|reply
I love being close to my kids, my wife, and the general comforts of a home office. There are many other reasons I prefer to work remotely. That said, if there were no companies allowing me to work this way, I wouldn't say "sorry, I only work remotely" and become unemployed.
[+] [-] chukye|9 years ago|reply
I would never fit in any workplace (tried a few but none fit), I have a big chair, 3 big monitors and a bong, also can talk with my team fellows every time I want, but we really don't need to talk too much, if you understand your product, understand your clients and your needs, that's just not too much to talk, just hard work to do.
[+] [-] pweissbrod|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smonff|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edoceo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudosteph|9 years ago|reply
Some of my friends have said that citicholine has been helpful for them. Wondering if you have any techniques yourself?
[+] [-] chrismorgan|9 years ago|reply
Primary discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230508
[+] [-] labrador|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EleventhSun|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccvannorman|9 years ago|reply
>when I’m forced to be in a chair in your office at 9am:
> - I force myself to be up early and rush to work, feeling ill prepared
> - I try to focus and be effective in the morning, but struggle and the day is off to a bad start, killing my mood and momentum
> - I’m tired in the afternoon and cannot work effectively at my peak work time. I drink tons of coffee trying to kickstart my productivity
> - I go home when I’m finally starting to get going
> - I am restless in bed and can’t sleep because I drank too much coffee and I’m worried about getting up early
> - By the end of the week I am tired, frustrated, angry, and disappointed with my performance
[+] [-] EduardoBautista|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coding123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krosaen|9 years ago|reply
There are always trade offs. Thinking specifically about workplace hours, having at least some amount of time everyday where you know everyone will be in the same place physically has some major benefits: knowing you'll have a chance to pair with someone, having some overlap where you get to joke a round while making coffee, perhaps eat a meal together, draw on a whiteboard (each of which have virtual alternatives that aren't as good IMO). But if having any such constraints at all means you miss out on 5-10% of really smart creative people, is that too large a cost?
[+] [-] ivanhoe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chad_strategic|9 years ago|reply
Help I'm trapped in cubicle... and the programmer next insists on having a mechanical keyboard. (He is not old enough to remember real mechanical keyboards.)
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] npsimons|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greyman|9 years ago|reply
But if your work is clearly defined and you have easy access to all the information, then probably yes, being completely alone is most productive for me. But for example in the past I worked on a project with ~100 other developers, and not every information required to do the job done was readily available...sometimes it was acquired only by discussing with a colleague, and doing that in person is often the quickest way.
[+] [-] Arizhel|9 years ago|reply
Working in a cubicle environment is no different here. There's nothing preventing you from getting up, leaving your cube, and walking 10 meters to another cube to ask a question.
[+] [-] neogodless|9 years ago|reply
Can you describe to me the difference between the nature of work that requires group creativity and individual focus (or rather, which employee roles fit more into one or the other)?
How much of each do the various roles of your employees spend their time on?
How much control (or influence) do your employees have over whether or not they are in an environment that suits their need for focus (and when that focus ends)?
[+] [-] n0mad01|9 years ago|reply