The remaining time, in my experience, is to coordinate meetings with management.
Managers at my company have meetings almost all day. I, however, only have a few meetings per week. They can do meetings for 8 hours just fine, but I can't code for 8 hours. I could go home after 4 hours and be just as productive per week, but I'd miss potential meeting hours.
And naturally, they are the ones whom we have to cater to when this kind of divide comes up.
Totally. I only have about 4-6 of focused mental energy before I'm just taking up space and feeling sleepy or antsy. So these days I head home after six hours in the office. Honestly I hope to eventually get to the point here that if I need a break, change of pace, or am just "done" I can do what makes sense... Take a nap, work from home, whatever.
Managers at my company have meetings almost all day. I, however, only have a few meetings per week. They can do meetings for 8 hours just fine, but I can't code for 8 hours. I could go home after 4 hours and be just as productive per week, but I'd miss potential meeting hours.
And naturally, they are the ones whom we have to cater to when this kind of divide comes up.
http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html