Viral News: September 2018

Ask HN: How do you decide when you've done enough work for the day?
84 by zzaip | 38 comments on Hacker News.
I'm a relatively junior software engineer, a little over a year out from university, with a cushy remote job working for big-co. And I never know how much work to do on a given day. Right now, my daily rule of thumb is to try to have my butt in the seat for ~8 hours. I clock out at 6 and stay disciplined so I don't end up overworking as many remoters do. The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it just doesn't align with the reality of the job. Some days I work on something complex and want to work more hours, while others I'll knock out a few small things and want to call it early. Strategies I'd like to use but can't: - Show up and leave with my coworkers. We're a remote team, and have a few serious workaholics on the team (not to mention the issue of timezones). - Leave when I've done my tasks. This might work if we had actual sprints. Our reality is an endless stream bugs and features for us to work on before we launch our product, and we just grab tickets as they come. Hopefully this improves after launch. What do you do? I want to do enough work to feel good about myself, without burning out. I have very little supervision from management, my coworkers seem to respect and like me, and I am generally productive. Help me, HN.

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