Hacker Bits, Issue 11

I’m working on a book: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek, a guide to how you can
achieve a saner, shorter workweek. If you want to get a free course based on the the book signup
in the email subscription at the end of the post. Meanwhile, here’s the first excerpt from the book:
• Are you tired of working evenings and weekends, of late projects and unrealistic deadlines?
• Do you have children you want to see for more than just an hour in the evening after work?
• Or do you want more time for side projects or to improve your programming skills?
• In short, do you want a sane workweek?
A
sane workweek is achievable: for the past 4 years I’ve been working less than 40 hours a week.
Soon after my daughter was born I quit my job as a product manager at Google and became a
part-time consultant, writing software for clients. I wrote code for 20-something hours each week while
our child was in daycare, and I spent the rest of my time taking care of our kid.
Later I got a job with one of my clients, a startup, where I worked as an employee but had a 28-hour
workweek. These days I work at another startup, with a 35-hour workweek.
I’m not the only software engineer who has chosen to work a saner, shorter workweek. There are
contractors who work part-time, spending the rest of their time starting their own business. There are
employees with specialized skills who only work two days a week. There are even entrepreneurs who
have deliberately created a business that isn’t all-consuming.
Would you like to join us?
If you’re a software developer working crazy hours then this book can help you get to a saner schedule.
Of course what makes a schedule sane or crazy won’t be the same for me as it is for you. You should
spend some time thinking about what exactly it is that you want.
How much time do you want to spend working each week?
• 40 hours?
• 32 hours?
• 20 hours?
• Or do you never want to work again?
Depending on what you want there are different paths you can pursue.
Some paths to a saner workweek
Here are some ways you can reduce your workweek; I’ll cover them in far more detail in later chapters
of the book:
Normalizing your workweek
If you’re working a lot more than 40 hours a week you always have the option of unilaterally normalizing
your hours. That is, reducing your hours down to 40 hours or 45 hours or whatever you think is
fair. Chances are your productivity and output will actually increase. You might face problems, however,
if your employer cares more about hours “worked” than about output.
38 hacker bits