tc7

Really seems like I should be better at golf, then. :tear

Is this (wage stagnation) true for tech? It seems a special case.

I wonder what the exec-pay/wage/productivity growth charts look like if we exclude tech. (Less disparity? More? Less productivity?)

Offering 4-day weeks: Do you see this often? Just curious -- I feel like it's rare, so my guess would be the opposite. (I do know several people that work 4 10hr days as machinists or window installers).

My intuition is also the opposite of yours on affordability :), at least in tech...

Woof, timely. I'm doing all of these bad-initial-traction-methods on my side project right now, and feeling quite burnt out, thinking about moving on to the next thing.

Perhaps especially when building on the side a couple hours a day, easy to get wrapped up worrying about what the max return on my time could be, and just default back to code... and writing these cold emails always takes me sooo long :D.

Does this work best if your work is well-planned by someone else? E.g., you have a list of prioritized tickets with requirements complete, and can just code down the list?

I work 32h/wk (mon-thu), and I feel happy with my productivity, but also recognize that I spend tons of time in meetings, clarifying requirements, helping other devs, etc. These aren't all really my role, so I could theoretically optimize them away and hope the invisible tasks get picked up successfully by someone else, but I know we'd have worse outcomes if I wasn't involved and "just" did my explicitly assigned tasks.

Can someone with team lead/management responsibilities optimize for 'job done' this aggressively?

Lovely writing!

In May, myself, my wife, our two kids (8, 6), are amtraking from Chicago to San Francisco in a family sleeper. I'm excited. We've enjoyed our (much shorter) amtrak trips from Ashland, VA to DC.

Hmm, I think I'm reading this differently.

There are fun and less-fun parts of programming -- building a new feature? Fun. Analyzing requirements, or doing code review, or spelunking through a crappy and undocumented 3rd party API? Less fun. But all can be part of the same 'job' of developing a feature.

The article is saying the amateur is the one who skims off the fun parts, and avoids the others, whereas the professional does the entire job -- gets to done-done, vs just 'it works'.

On golf: You are correct that Tiger Woods did not pick up the ball on the putting green when playing amateur tournaments. I don't think the article's making a point about the official USGA definition of 'amateur'.

Yep, this resonates a lot. Not fun.

I think it's something in those steps, starting with "What to do next", that leads down that rabbit hole.

Maybe try working backwards -- "what do I want my life to be like in a year/2 years?" I think working back helps narrow down the infinite immediate options - some things become obvious must-dos, others not so much.

Years go by really fast. This sucks on one hand, because anxiety and lack of direction can easily suck up a whole year with nothing to show for it. But it's also awesome to view things on longer scales, because you don't have to "be" anything next week, or next month, just slightly better than the week before, and at the end of a year, a lot has changed.

Best of luck!

Thanks very much! I'll definitely move this up. I've spent a lot of time rewriting/moving/mangling copy in the past few weeks -- reasonably sure I've made it worse. ;)

Yeah, agree there's a perspective shift there.

I also find that typing doesn't work as well as hand-writing for me. I think my brain is in a different mode (publish), so it's judging/editing things as I type -- vs handwriting, where maybe the mechanics are so unconscious the brain can mull the thought over instead of trying to edit it. Maybe talking out loud has the same benefit.

Thanks! I appreciate the comment, and the good wishes :).

Very valid, thanks ;). I just added links, should be updated momentarily.