I'd argue that the majority of office settings don't have moments of slack, but rather moments of productivity. This same productivity can be achieved in wayy less time than the standard 40 hours/week.
I can only agree, depending on what you include in "productivity".
I'd say it's incredibly common for a modern office worker to be engaged in email, meetings and chat for some 4-6 hours per day.
Not only does this leave little time to do actual tasks, that little time is also highly fragmented across the day.
It's a point I've made repeatedly on similar threads: the problem with modern office work is too much collaboration. Pretty much we spent the vast majority of the day figuring out what to do when, instead of actually doing it.
Give me a project to work on by myself and it will be done in 2 days. Give me the same project with a team of people to help and it will take months, it might never get done.
Just recently I had to migrate a website to some new servers with a new OS. Server build, fully automating the post-build and deployment, code changes, and testing… done in 2 days. Working with other teams around networking, change management, etc…. 9 months of waiting and hell.
> Pretty much we spent the vast majority of the day figuring out what to do when, instead of actually doing it.
One could argue that we virtually never do actual work. Machines or remote workers do. All we are doing is defining, communicating and controlling others' work.
My point is collaboration (aka "figuring out what to do when") is pretty much the essence of our work. It is machines or remote workers that are "actually doing it", as I believe GP means it.
> I'd argue that the majority of office settings don't have moments of slack, but rather moments of productivity.
Absolutely. The complete lack of slack in the modern office drives a lot of my stress. I am transmuting that into an long-term win, however: it is driving me to seek flexible working arrangements, working for myself, setting up passive income streams (however small they are) and generally working less. I refuse to give my best years of my life to my work, and will work 2x as hard (for myself, obviously) to partially decouple time from income.
> This same productivity can be achieved in wayy less time than the standard 40 hours/week.
The nebulousness with which productivity is defined based on the context suggests it is not nearly as objective as some would have you think.
