Personally, I have been observing my own technical work habits a lot recently. What I have noticed agrees with your narrative but disagrees with your point. Here's the rundown:
* I can sustain hard mental labor (including but not limited to work) for about 50 hours per week total
* I don't know when I'm going to be in the best state to do that work, and it depends on a lot of factors
* Some of those factors are external, some depend on the project, etc.
* Sometimes, that mental labor needs to go somewhere else, and that subtracts from my overall work budget. That includes things like weird social situations, fixing something around the house, etc.
* I also spend a lot of time passively daydreaming about the last thing I worked on. This is often productive, but also often isn't.
* My productive output also varies a lot on those factors: some weeks, I can produce 60 hours of work, and others only 15-20
I think if you have bursty work patterns like this, it is actually beneficial to have more office days rather than fewer, to "catch" as much productive time and daydreaming time as possible. However, it's an even better argument for remote work, because that minimizes other forms of mental labor, like driving.
* I can sustain hard mental labor (including but not limited to work) for about 50 hours per week total
* I don't know when I'm going to be in the best state to do that work, and it depends on a lot of factors
* Some of those factors are external, some depend on the project, etc.
* Sometimes, that mental labor needs to go somewhere else, and that subtracts from my overall work budget. That includes things like weird social situations, fixing something around the house, etc.
* I also spend a lot of time passively daydreaming about the last thing I worked on. This is often productive, but also often isn't.
* My productive output also varies a lot on those factors: some weeks, I can produce 60 hours of work, and others only 15-20
I think if you have bursty work patterns like this, it is actually beneficial to have more office days rather than fewer, to "catch" as much productive time and daydreaming time as possible. However, it's an even better argument for remote work, because that minimizes other forms of mental labor, like driving.