> You are (hopefully) focusing 8 hours "straight" during work _every day_.

I refuse to believe that 8 hours straight focus every day is common.

I have about 4 - 6 hours of really focused, deep work focus available. 6 hours if I am really interested in the project and 4 hours for normal days. The rest is doing low focus work like writing mail, planning ahead, attending workshops, reading up on updates for relevant libraries, reading documentation etc.

When I was around 15 I used to do 10 hours of x86 assembly programming, and then several hours every day after school for a month or so in a row. Parents would have to force me from the computer.

I attribute it to a younger brain, NO internet and NO fun distractions. At 42 I just don't see how I did it, and I know I could never be that focused. Just sitting still for 4 hours make me feel quasy now, and I need to use my physical body in some way.

I'd say 99.9% of the western worlds workforce doesn't focus for 8 hours straight in the work day - its not really eve possible to in a great deal of jobs where there's context switching (meetings etc)

>You are (hopefully) focusing 8 hours "straight" during work _every day_.

A single, continuous 30-minute stint of focus is probably a once-a-quarter event for me.

At most workplaces you are interrupted dozens of times per day and have big time blocks of stuff that prevents focus. Where do you work?

10 hours? Maybe not, 19? Yeah.

I've been excited on 10 hours for a long portion of my life. Getting older makes it harder though.