Empirically, people who succeed on a grand scale work their asses off because they love (or are addicted) to their work.
So no, you won't be as productive if you aren't addicted to your work, don't love it, and/or don't think about it all/most of the time. (aside: yes, you need to eat well and exercise and take a breather from time to time).
That said, productivity/achievement might be a bit overrated. Will your life be better and will you be happier when you achieve your goal? Will you ever achieve it? Most of us disregard the fact that wealth is not remotely correlated with happiness and still hunt for the big payday.
[edit: lots of folks are asking for data. FWIW, I founded and ran RescueTime, so I was hip dip in this world for a long time.
The data actually shows that, for line workers, hours worked have diminishing returns. However, when you look at people at the top of their game (executives, etc), they work extreme hours. Correlation does not equal causation, of course. But when you look at the most successful/productive people in your circles, how many of them talk about work/life balance, have lots of hobbies, etc? Maybe they're successful DESPITE their crazy work hours, for all I know.]
There are studies out there showing that productivity is proportional to days spent on the problem, not hours. It's likely that for a knowledge worker, sustained schedules with long workdays actually reduce average productivity.
Empirically, people who succeed on a grand scale work their asses off because they love (or are addicted) to their work.
So no, you won't be as productive if you aren't addicted to your work, don't love it, and/or don't think about it all/most of the time. (aside: yes, you need to eat well and exercise and take a breather from time to time).
Could you point me to that research?
Coz every time I've measured hours worked against productivity (with a few different dev teams now) insane hours do not correspond to more productive work.
Just coz people do it doesn't mean that they're more productive doing it.
One of the author's (more interesting) premises is that individuals with mild forms of autism like Aspberger's, who came to typify the sorts of personalities drawn to tech in the early years, may be able to effectively work excessive hours, but ordinary individuals will experience diminished quality of work, just like everyone else.
Running RescueTime is still no data, it is a claim of authority... Have you analysed it properly, was it peer-reviewed, can we see it for ourselves?
I don't believe that people who put in more than 35 to 40 hours of real work will be more productive. A lot of people pretend to work a lot, or are forced to be in the office 50 hours or more, but that does not make them more productive. It just makes them seem more productive, and have less of a life...
When I worked in the US I considered the whole startup-hours-macho culture of the SF-area to be quite pernicious both to productivity and happiness. In private conversation most people I spoke to had the same view, but nobody dared speak about it with the boss within reach.
I mean I loved coding, I was excited about the project, and was on a team I liked, but the forced nature of having to show this love by being there 10 hours a day just reminded me of the two hours a day Cubans had to volunteer (in addition to their day-jobs) to show love for their regime.
No data here either, but at least I don't claim empirically, apart from my own experiences.
Interesting point. I guess, as an extension of this, I have noticed I'm accomplishing the same amount of net work in fewer hours. I can safely say I love my work, and that's definitely a driver in -wanting- to work more, but because it's exciting and fulfilling. (Obviously still balancing my non-work/family life with this.)
Personally, my only goal in doing all of this is to create great things which are fulfilling for me and others to use, and that hopefully have some lasting/tangible benefit in my/their life. In a sense, I've already achieved that. The idea of great wealth is not a driver (and I think would only distract me.)
...and a good way to start hating your work is by doing too much of it for the wrong reasons. Working very hard to make somebody else rich, what's the point in that?
Agree with webwright. Found the article to be sorta silly. When you really love something nothing will stop you from doing/achieving. This seems self evident to me at least.
This isn't to be confused with the world full of different peoples, worldviews and personalities. Only some of us find satisfaction in a productive 14 hour day.
Another way to put it, is that if you can work 60 "productive" hours a week you will most likely be more successful than someone that can only work 40 "productive" hours.
I'm not necessarily unconvinced by this, but I too would like to see some research or stats proving that people who succeed mostly work more than 8 hours a day.
On this theme, I've found having kids has actually helped me be more productive. I don't have the opportunity to work crazy hours. I know I can't catch up in the evening so I have to make every day count. Because my hours are limited to a standard working day I never burn-out, and I'm motivated and ready to go each and every day.
When they were really young it was rough (no sleep, etc.) but now they're a bit older it generally works out well. (Modulo illness. They are both currently coming down with something and it's going to wipe out at least two working days.)
You can artificially create this limitation without having a child.
If you make arrangements at 7pm (e.g. dinner or sports), it forces you to finish everything during the work day so you can go out at night. This deadline can create an artificial sense of urgency to be more productive at work.
I find this too. Just recently had a kid, and when I get home I want to spend time with him/wife, so I know I wont get to work at home/won't want to. It allows me to go hard for 8-9 hours, get home and not spend a day. It also lets me rethink priorities and move my schedule. Its a great thing, really is. Makes you think of ways to be more productive too!
This times ten. Not only does having a kid force you to prioritize your time and truly be productive, but it often changes what you consider truly important and worth spending your precious time on.
Here's one way to think of it. Suppose you're working on a new product, and you have to decide whether to spend 30 hrs or 60 hrs / week on it, over the next two years.
If the difference is between failure in the first case, and success in the second case, then it's either a bad product, or you're bad at planning. If you work half as much, then maybe it will have less features, but a good product should still be viable. And everyone knows predicting how your software will adhere to a schedule is impossible, so the chances are good you wouldn't even get it to work at 60 hrs/wk.
Obviously, an order of magnitude difference in effort should produce a qualitative difference in your product. You can't replace ten good programmers' time with just one.
But picking startup ideas that require you to be working 80 hours a week, is just bad planning -- it's waaaay too risky. When you live in a first world country, and are doing this out of choice (not survival), it's insane to sacrifice your health like that.
If an idea is really good and really sustainable, truly a good business idea, then there are much healthier ways of finding success than working 80 hours weeks -- finding partners, networking better to get investment, etc.
I'm not advocating anything silly like a 4-hour workweek. I'm just advocating realistic expectations, realistic risk management, and realistic work-life balance.
You might get hit by a car two years from now. You don't want to have neglected all the wonderful things in life, like relationships and experiences with people, in exclusive pursuit of a startup over those two years. Even not getting hit by a car, there's a large chance your startup will fail. Don't throw away your life in complete pursuit of a single thing -- healthy balance is key.
I see this again and again and I just don't buy it in all situations. Say in my own company I take your advice and stop working at the 30 hour mark each week.
I am going to have to cut back somewhere, I program and take on support when stuff is thrown to me from other handling it full time. I also like to go through our support to keep a feel for how things are trending and what sort of issues we are having. I also like to stay in the loop on high level business decisions or strategy.
So in cutting back to keep development and the business moving I would probably have to get more hands off with support, which may negatively impact customer satisfaction and business direction at times. I also feel that hiring right now isn't the right option and running lean is somewhat of a competitor advantage for us.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don't feel that I could make it work right now with reduced hours and I assume a lot of startups feel the same.
In a legitimate land grab style business model you could be working lots of hours for a rather good shot at very large amounts of money. I don't see anything wrong with burning the candle hard for a few years on a well calculated risk for high payoff. However, those situations are quite rare and for the most part people are working themselves to the bone for an expected value payout of peanuts, IMHO. In the 90s software and internet booms there were lots of clear land-grab plays going on where among a handful of entrants first to market with a strong product was going to finish rich, and that was indeed ultimately the case.
After working on a few startups, my experience is that when you operate in crunch mode for a long period of time the line between "crisis" and "normal" blurs and you simply can't distinguish or effectively scale your effort to the situation. This is especially harmful for entrepreneurs when they have to deeply consider their strategic options or programmers when they are trying to refactor code.
I can't tell you how many hours of development I've wasted simply because I didn't want to spend an extra hour thinking through the implications and instead tried to "get 'er done."
I DON'T agree that this means you have to work less than 35 hours a week and take long walks on the beach. I've had really productive times working 100 hours a week. But when you feel burned out or stressed, when you have trouble prioritizing your efforts, when everything feels like it's "way behind" you are going to make mistakes and put effort in the wrong place. It's important to stay balanced, but "balanced" means different things to different people at different points in their career.
I agree, which will be much to the chagrin of the community. I spend less time working, and more time thinking. I find that I am able to get more things done in a shorter amount of time if I have fully thought through exactly what I am doing before I do it. I don't just mean the normal thought process, I mean the meta thought process (is what I am thinking truly accurate). It makes my work a lot better, and I often have to work a lot less to make something that is higher quality. I often out work the people who work twice as much as me, and my work quality is higher. Getting things done is important, getting things done right is more important. If this takes me more time, then so be it. The market doesn't go who gets done first, it goes to the person who does it best.
> The market doesn't go who gets done first, it goes to the person who dos it best.
Except when it goes to the first movers. If your product's success depends on a virtual land grab, it might be better to work those 100's of less productive hours, to get something out the door first.
My last semester of college, our capstone course saw me at the head of a team of 5 CS students building a video game. Some of the other teams frequently pulled all-nighters trying to meet the course's ambitious deadline, but the whole semester my team and I never did need to work through the night. We ended up doing better than most teams, too. In fact, the team that "won" spent even fewer hours working than we did.
Anecdotal, to be sure, but I found the inverse relationship between hours worked and quality of product quite interesting.
It might also have been that some groups were coming from further behind. They might have to first learn how to do something in their game then hack up an average first go which works but will need to be refactored later.
Another team with more experience might be able to do the same thing straight away and write it in an extensible way.
Intensity is certainly important and you can lose that if you push too much for too long.
This entirely anecdotal, but I probably wouldn't have graduated with if it weren't for the solutions i 'worked out' during naps. Maybe there's also something to be said for working while not working, not to be too round about.
My boss (Academic scientist) told us that we had to work a 70-90 hour work week to be successful in this business.
I found that funny as I don't count my productivity in hours work, but in the amount of "product" I produce. "Working hard" shouldn't be a function of time, and I think more people need to appreciate that.
This tends to be a little more difficult for people to do however, as it typically requires a lot of hard work up front. For example, it took me a month to figure out how I could make a 45 minute procedure turn into a 7 minute procedure while still maintaining the same quality. But I got it working and I can do 6 times the amount of work in the same amount of time.My free time can now be spent doing other things, such as working on a startup:)
People just don’t do this for some reason. Put the initial investment into what your working on, make it as efficient as possible, and then reap the benefits while being productive AND having enough time to post cat videos on facebook:)
At my current age (25), I don't necessarily agree with this. I do understand the philosophy behind "work smart, not hard", but when I come across these posts where someone is claiming "work less, do more", i question whether they're truly passionate about what they're doing.
My personal opinion as a startup founder, is that there is no such thing as work/life balance. Your startup is your life and your work should contribute to it.
That aside, the post is rather misleading. You're giving advice to others on working less hours and smarter but had you worked smarter previously, you may have a different opinion.
I prioritize my health, take a 5 minute break every 25 minutes (pomodoro technique), and get at lest 7 hours of sleep each night, all things which you seemingly didn't do.
For now, all I can say is that I hope my competitors are reading this and nodding their heads.
Why should you care about whether they are "truly passionate"?
It seems like in your working interactions with people, either they're delivering enough (and delivering what they promised) or not, and they can be judged on that, rather than on abstractions of feelings.
One of the things I quickly learned when I started working from home was that if I listened to my body, I was massively more productive when I was at my desk.
Tired? Go nap. Restless? Go run. Stuck in a rut? Go hang out with a friend or play a video game or watch a movie or find something to get your focus off your work.
I found that I could work more and be more productive simply by stopping working when my body(/brain) said "hey, quit". We're not built for 8-5 shifts.
hi HN, I'll take the opportunity of this thread to ask for some advice. My current employer (a billion $ startup, ~200 employees) is asking all of us to work Saturdays (on top of the 12-13 hours I already work daily).
I value my weekends, a lot. It's not that I don't want to work. I love work and on weekends, I still do. I have spurs of intense creativity and code productivity, but I want to keep those weekends for myself.
How do I tell my employer that my weekends are not for sale? What should I expect from them if I say no more?
Tell them that in exchange for 20% more time you expect a 20% pay raise. Talk about all the things you're going to have to give up if you take that extra time, and how that makes you unhappy. Since they're asking for something from you, they can't get mad at you for negotiating something in return. No one can call that unfair with a straight face. Most likely if you do this they probably won't actually give you 20% but will may offer you something much smaller. You can decide to either accept this, or, you can say that their counteroffer is not good enough for you, so you can't take the extra time. That way your reason to refuse is completely impersonal, and not because you don't care.
Regardless, start looking for another job in the meantime. The culture of where you work sounds completely inhumane.
I've been in the same position and it sucks a lot, especially when you aren't even being paid for the extra hours and you don't want to have to leave a company you feel invested in.
Please you need to stand up for yourself and likewise all of us, employers need to know that if they want quality engineers they need to treat them like quality human beings.
We cant let this become the new normal in our industry, the more of us that demand our right the less likely employers will be to try to take them in the future.
How do I tell my employer that my weekends are not for sale?
You could try selling him your weekends. And your nights.
Negotiate your position into a contract where you bill by the hour. That way he can have as many weekends as he likes. He can request you charge him for as many non-productive sleep-addled hours as there are in the week. Offer to "work" 24/7, so long as he's willing to pay.
The other way to pull this off is to get your entire team on board with the concept of "free time", "weekends", and "life". If everybody on your team were to slowly ramp their hours down to 40 per week, your employer would have but two choices: fire everybody or deal with it.
I've done both those things at various companies over the years. Both work nicely, provided you're prepared to land on the open market if things go south.
I'd expect them to show you the door. If you want to stand firm on this point, be ready to look for a new job. (I'd personally be looking for a new job anyway if I was asked to work weekends; there's more to life than work.)
"I'm sorry, that won't be possible." --Miss Manners
Also, if you're in the US and a normal software developer, and depending on your salary, your existing 12-13hr/day schedule may make you eligible for overtime and back pay.
He seems to present a polarized interpretation of work. Either one can race towards burnout by working 100 weeks or they can enjoy 6-hour days, frequent vacations, etc. Both of these are untenable for most people. The majority of people work fairly diligently and their jobs take up the preponderance of their time, but aren't necessarily working hours that are unhealthy. People who work 40-70 hours per week generally fall within this category.
He also doesn't confront the fact that many if not most time commitments are immutable. Most people have certain tasks and obligations need to be done periodically and take a relatively static amount of time. This time expenditure is stable and unlikely to change or disappear anytime soon.
For instance, I know that, between school, various scholastic obligations, and the occasional bit of freelance or personal work, I put in roughly 65-75 hours per week. Obviously, this takes up the majority of my time, but is not all consuming; and I don't believe that it is having any substancial adverse effects on my health. Moreover, these hours are unavoidable, and I couldn't circumvent them even if I wanted to.
In its essence, this post is advocating for the right things insofar as it is encouraging work-life balance and discouraging subjecting oneself to dangerous working hours, but takes a fairly myopic view of work and makes suggestions that aren't really tenable in many situations.
Too much argument over this. Yes, for the majority of individuals over working is going to physically, mentally and emotionally drain them as they're generally trying to balance a separate life. The individual who wrote this article stated that he has a wife. Perhaps spending less time with his wife had some repercussions associated to it. Perhaps he likes his business but isn't completely in love with it. You can't really speak for everyone, that's for sure. It all depends on your purpose, your motive. What's your driving force? Why are you conducting business to begin with? I myself am a business owner and have been working non-stop for the last 10 years (from 18-28). When I'm not working, I'm still mentally engaged. I don't unplug or clock out. To me, it reminds me of when I was a child addicted to gaming. I would blissfully spend 12 hours playing my Sega or Super Nintendo in pursuit to beat whatever game was at hand. When I was at school I was thinking of ways to beat the level that I might have been stuck on for a few days. This is called passion, it's rare but it does exist so although I appreciate the article, I must ask to not advise everyone this same idea.
This advice requires some serious caveats, so be very cautious about following this. I would go so far as to say that this some really bad advice. Here's why:
Once you reach a certain station in life, it's possible to sit back and think about being more effective while not working long hours. In fact, it's probably a great idea since it's easy to get addicted to working 7 days a week with very little sleep and that can wreak havoc on your health, relationships and happiness.
However, barring luck, people don't generally get to that station in life without working those long hours. If you want to be really good at something, it generally requires extreme dedication (yes, I know some people are just naturally talented, but I'm not talking about them). Unless you are one of those lucky ones, you _should_ be working really hard to master whatever it is that you need to master. Ignore people who are already successful trying to tell you to take it easy.
Also, unlike what Kyle says, people are not always working those crazy schedules to out hustle their competition. Often it's just passion and addiction to their own work and the desire to create something good (competition be damned)
Just because you really want to create a great product, why does it follow that you should work 7 days a week? What is this SV obsession with haste? If your business won't be as valuable if you bring it to market 28% slower than you were planning to, maybe it sucks.
Or maybe there's some other aspect to this trend I'm not seeing.
I think in the future companies will realize they can retain exceptional talent by implementing a four day work week. As more and more hackers get older and have kids they will be drawn to companies that support an actual work/life balance, as opposed to the status quo of "its startup life of course you work 60 hour weeks."
That's assuming that you are not expected to simply extend the hours in those 4 days so that your hours per week remain the same or decrease only slightly. . .as some companies currently do.
Just like this post tries to claim "The Hustle™ is bullshit" so is this post.
It's not work hard vs work smart. It's both.
For me, if I sleep less than 8 hours I'm brain dead => 0 productivity.
I am more productive at night than during the day.
I need to change regularly the project I work on, so I am always working on several things at once.
For instance, I am less productive 50hrs a week on the same project than 100hrs a week on several one.
And the list goes on and on..
It's up to each and everyone to see where you start loosing productivity and what makes you a better worker.
As a CEO, this ability of self improvement is something I am always looking for in my employees. (but it's rare)
The last thing I am looking forward to do, is checking the clock. When you pay someone the big bucks, it's not to be changing diapers.
The only thing that is for sure is that in term of productivity, there is no black and white truth or rule.
I can second that. I've been working 30 hour weeks since last year and am more balanced and relaxed since then. Working less also helped me downsize my depression and (as of lately) procrastinatory tendencies. It also gives me more energy to work on my own projects and interests.
If you know exactly what do to, be it writing a pitch the whole day or writing a new feature for a week, you can not shower for the whole week and only eat junk food.
The essence of the post for me however, is that you shouldn't just sit in front of the screen figuring out what to do next. If you arrive at that point, take a brake, hit the gym, reorder your brain. The best ideas come when you do something completely unrelated to your startup and you should do something like this at least 1-2/week.
There's no use in accelerating when you're going in the wrong direction and 5h spent on a great new idea that you just had, is much better than 100h that still won't work. :)
There are such things as "big days". If you have a degree to finish, a conference paper, a demo, a seasonal feature, a lucrative work project, etc. Those are the times when I might neglect my body for 1-2 weeks, sometimes up to 4. Sure, you do have to return back to a normal, stable life after that and maybe have a little break.
In all aspects of life, success is about performing at your peak at just the right time.
[+] [-] webwright|13 years ago|reply
So no, you won't be as productive if you aren't addicted to your work, don't love it, and/or don't think about it all/most of the time. (aside: yes, you need to eat well and exercise and take a breather from time to time).
That said, productivity/achievement might be a bit overrated. Will your life be better and will you be happier when you achieve your goal? Will you ever achieve it? Most of us disregard the fact that wealth is not remotely correlated with happiness and still hunt for the big payday.
[edit: lots of folks are asking for data. FWIW, I founded and ran RescueTime, so I was hip dip in this world for a long time.
The data actually shows that, for line workers, hours worked have diminishing returns. However, when you look at people at the top of their game (executives, etc), they work extreme hours. Correlation does not equal causation, of course. But when you look at the most successful/productive people in your circles, how many of them talk about work/life balance, have lots of hobbies, etc? Maybe they're successful DESPITE their crazy work hours, for all I know.]
[+] [-] neilk|13 years ago|reply
Citation needed.
There are studies out there showing that productivity is proportional to days spent on the problem, not hours. It's likely that for a knowledge worker, sustained schedules with long workdays actually reduce average productivity.
http://www.jamesshore.com/Articles/Business/Software%20Profi...
There may be some exceptional people who can defy this rule, and it's possible they are concentrated in startups, but I'm dubious.
[+] [-] adrianhoward|13 years ago|reply
So no, you won't be as productive if you aren't addicted to your work, don't love it, and/or don't think about it all/most of the time. (aside: yes, you need to eat well and exercise and take a breather from time to time).
Could you point me to that research?
Coz every time I've measured hours worked against productivity (with a few different dev teams now) insane hours do not correspond to more productive work.
Just coz people do it doesn't mean that they're more productive doing it.
[+] [-] bjhoops1|13 years ago|reply
Read this fascinating history of the 40-hour workweek and its demise: http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...
One of the author's (more interesting) premises is that individuals with mild forms of autism like Aspberger's, who came to typify the sorts of personalities drawn to tech in the early years, may be able to effectively work excessive hours, but ordinary individuals will experience diminished quality of work, just like everyone else.
[+] [-] wybo|13 years ago|reply
I don't believe that people who put in more than 35 to 40 hours of real work will be more productive. A lot of people pretend to work a lot, or are forced to be in the office 50 hours or more, but that does not make them more productive. It just makes them seem more productive, and have less of a life...
When I worked in the US I considered the whole startup-hours-macho culture of the SF-area to be quite pernicious both to productivity and happiness. In private conversation most people I spoke to had the same view, but nobody dared speak about it with the boss within reach.
I mean I loved coding, I was excited about the project, and was on a team I liked, but the forced nature of having to show this love by being there 10 hours a day just reminded me of the two hours a day Cubans had to volunteer (in addition to their day-jobs) to show love for their regime.
No data here either, but at least I don't claim empirically, apart from my own experiences.
[+] [-] kylebragger|13 years ago|reply
Personally, my only goal in doing all of this is to create great things which are fulfilling for me and others to use, and that hopefully have some lasting/tangible benefit in my/their life. In a sense, I've already achieved that. The idea of great wealth is not a driver (and I think would only distract me.)
[+] [-] dscrd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] junkilo|13 years ago|reply
This isn't to be confused with the world full of different peoples, worldviews and personalities. Only some of us find satisfaction in a productive 14 hour day.
[+] [-] shin_lao|13 years ago|reply
The trick is to know your limit.
[+] [-] thenomad|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] espinchi|13 years ago|reply
Thanks, and congrats, for RescueTime. Just got the e-mail "RescueTime alert for All Distracting Time", so gotta get back to work!
[+] [-] noelwelsh|13 years ago|reply
When they were really young it was rough (no sleep, etc.) but now they're a bit older it generally works out well. (Modulo illness. They are both currently coming down with something and it's going to wipe out at least two working days.)
[+] [-] wting|13 years ago|reply
If you make arrangements at 7pm (e.g. dinner or sports), it forces you to finish everything during the work day so you can go out at night. This deadline can create an artificial sense of urgency to be more productive at work.
[+] [-] kirinan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timjahn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crazygringo|13 years ago|reply
If the difference is between failure in the first case, and success in the second case, then it's either a bad product, or you're bad at planning. If you work half as much, then maybe it will have less features, but a good product should still be viable. And everyone knows predicting how your software will adhere to a schedule is impossible, so the chances are good you wouldn't even get it to work at 60 hrs/wk.
Obviously, an order of magnitude difference in effort should produce a qualitative difference in your product. You can't replace ten good programmers' time with just one.
But picking startup ideas that require you to be working 80 hours a week, is just bad planning -- it's waaaay too risky. When you live in a first world country, and are doing this out of choice (not survival), it's insane to sacrifice your health like that.
If an idea is really good and really sustainable, truly a good business idea, then there are much healthier ways of finding success than working 80 hours weeks -- finding partners, networking better to get investment, etc.
I'm not advocating anything silly like a 4-hour workweek. I'm just advocating realistic expectations, realistic risk management, and realistic work-life balance.
You might get hit by a car two years from now. You don't want to have neglected all the wonderful things in life, like relationships and experiences with people, in exclusive pursuit of a startup over those two years. Even not getting hit by a car, there's a large chance your startup will fail. Don't throw away your life in complete pursuit of a single thing -- healthy balance is key.
[+] [-] robryan|13 years ago|reply
I am going to have to cut back somewhere, I program and take on support when stuff is thrown to me from other handling it full time. I also like to go through our support to keep a feel for how things are trending and what sort of issues we are having. I also like to stay in the loop on high level business decisions or strategy.
So in cutting back to keep development and the business moving I would probably have to get more hands off with support, which may negatively impact customer satisfaction and business direction at times. I also feel that hiring right now isn't the right option and running lean is somewhat of a competitor advantage for us.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don't feel that I could make it work right now with reduced hours and I assume a lot of startups feel the same.
[+] [-] 13b9f227ecf0|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lubujackson|13 years ago|reply
I can't tell you how many hours of development I've wasted simply because I didn't want to spend an extra hour thinking through the implications and instead tried to "get 'er done."
I DON'T agree that this means you have to work less than 35 hours a week and take long walks on the beach. I've had really productive times working 100 hours a week. But when you feel burned out or stressed, when you have trouble prioritizing your efforts, when everything feels like it's "way behind" you are going to make mistakes and put effort in the wrong place. It's important to stay balanced, but "balanced" means different things to different people at different points in their career.
[+] [-] kirinan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Smudge|13 years ago|reply
Except when it goes to the first movers. If your product's success depends on a virtual land grab, it might be better to work those 100's of less productive hours, to get something out the door first.
[+] [-] readme|13 years ago|reply
Mistake! You need to count your thinking time as work, too!
[+] [-] bjhoops1|13 years ago|reply
Anecdotal, to be sure, but I found the inverse relationship between hours worked and quality of product quite interesting.
[+] [-] robryan|13 years ago|reply
Another team with more experience might be able to do the same thing straight away and write it in an extensible way.
[+] [-] tomsthumb|13 years ago|reply
This entirely anecdotal, but I probably wouldn't have graduated with if it weren't for the solutions i 'worked out' during naps. Maybe there's also something to be said for working while not working, not to be too round about.
[+] [-] omnisci|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbouw|13 years ago|reply
My personal opinion as a startup founder, is that there is no such thing as work/life balance. Your startup is your life and your work should contribute to it.
That aside, the post is rather misleading. You're giving advice to others on working less hours and smarter but had you worked smarter previously, you may have a different opinion.
I prioritize my health, take a 5 minute break every 25 minutes (pomodoro technique), and get at lest 7 hours of sleep each night, all things which you seemingly didn't do.
For now, all I can say is that I hope my competitors are reading this and nodding their heads.
[+] [-] mmagin|13 years ago|reply
It seems like in your working interactions with people, either they're delivering enough (and delivering what they promised) or not, and they can be judged on that, rather than on abstractions of feelings.
[+] [-] cheald|13 years ago|reply
One of the things I quickly learned when I started working from home was that if I listened to my body, I was massively more productive when I was at my desk.
Tired? Go nap. Restless? Go run. Stuck in a rut? Go hang out with a friend or play a video game or watch a movie or find something to get your focus off your work.
I found that I could work more and be more productive simply by stopping working when my body(/brain) said "hey, quit". We're not built for 8-5 shifts.
[+] [-] dgbsco|13 years ago|reply
It's a "factory production" mentality transplanted into the modern workplace - where our fruit is our creativity, not a number of units produced.
[+] [-] sageikosa|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trxblazr|13 years ago|reply
hi HN, I'll take the opportunity of this thread to ask for some advice. My current employer (a billion $ startup, ~200 employees) is asking all of us to work Saturdays (on top of the 12-13 hours I already work daily).
I value my weekends, a lot. It's not that I don't want to work. I love work and on weekends, I still do. I have spurs of intense creativity and code productivity, but I want to keep those weekends for myself.
How do I tell my employer that my weekends are not for sale? What should I expect from them if I say no more?
[+] [-] dyno12345|13 years ago|reply
Regardless, start looking for another job in the meantime. The culture of where you work sounds completely inhumane.
[+] [-] wavesounds|13 years ago|reply
Please you need to stand up for yourself and likewise all of us, employers need to know that if they want quality engineers they need to treat them like quality human beings.
We cant let this become the new normal in our industry, the more of us that demand our right the less likely employers will be to try to take them in the future.
[+] [-] jasonkester|13 years ago|reply
You could try selling him your weekends. And your nights.
Negotiate your position into a contract where you bill by the hour. That way he can have as many weekends as he likes. He can request you charge him for as many non-productive sleep-addled hours as there are in the week. Offer to "work" 24/7, so long as he's willing to pay.
The other way to pull this off is to get your entire team on board with the concept of "free time", "weekends", and "life". If everybody on your team were to slowly ramp their hours down to 40 per week, your employer would have but two choices: fire everybody or deal with it.
I've done both those things at various companies over the years. Both work nicely, provided you're prepared to land on the open market if things go south.
[+] [-] bstpierre|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|13 years ago|reply
Also, if you're in the US and a normal software developer, and depending on your salary, your existing 12-13hr/day schedule may make you eligible for overtime and back pay.
[+] [-] mattdeboard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kilroy123|13 years ago|reply
I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like I have a lot more energy left after the day is over.
I also notice no one really wasting anytime during the day, since there's one less hour to get work done. No hour of chatting, surfing HN, etc.
[+] [-] ruswick|13 years ago|reply
He also doesn't confront the fact that many if not most time commitments are immutable. Most people have certain tasks and obligations need to be done periodically and take a relatively static amount of time. This time expenditure is stable and unlikely to change or disappear anytime soon.
For instance, I know that, between school, various scholastic obligations, and the occasional bit of freelance or personal work, I put in roughly 65-75 hours per week. Obviously, this takes up the majority of my time, but is not all consuming; and I don't believe that it is having any substancial adverse effects on my health. Moreover, these hours are unavoidable, and I couldn't circumvent them even if I wanted to.
In its essence, this post is advocating for the right things insofar as it is encouraging work-life balance and discouraging subjecting oneself to dangerous working hours, but takes a fairly myopic view of work and makes suggestions that aren't really tenable in many situations.
[+] [-] jaytaylor|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PAULHANNA84|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alphakappa|13 years ago|reply
Once you reach a certain station in life, it's possible to sit back and think about being more effective while not working long hours. In fact, it's probably a great idea since it's easy to get addicted to working 7 days a week with very little sleep and that can wreak havoc on your health, relationships and happiness.
However, barring luck, people don't generally get to that station in life without working those long hours. If you want to be really good at something, it generally requires extreme dedication (yes, I know some people are just naturally talented, but I'm not talking about them). Unless you are one of those lucky ones, you _should_ be working really hard to master whatever it is that you need to master. Ignore people who are already successful trying to tell you to take it easy.
Also, unlike what Kyle says, people are not always working those crazy schedules to out hustle their competition. Often it's just passion and addiction to their own work and the desire to create something good (competition be damned)
[+] [-] JonnieCache|13 years ago|reply
Or maybe there's some other aspect to this trend I'm not seeing.
[+] [-] noahrsg|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RougeFemme|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] athiercelin|13 years ago|reply
It's not work hard vs work smart. It's both.
For me, if I sleep less than 8 hours I'm brain dead => 0 productivity. I am more productive at night than during the day. I need to change regularly the project I work on, so I am always working on several things at once. For instance, I am less productive 50hrs a week on the same project than 100hrs a week on several one. And the list goes on and on..
It's up to each and everyone to see where you start loosing productivity and what makes you a better worker.
As a CEO, this ability of self improvement is something I am always looking for in my employees. (but it's rare) The last thing I am looking forward to do, is checking the clock. When you pay someone the big bucks, it's not to be changing diapers.
The only thing that is for sure is that in term of productivity, there is no black and white truth or rule.
[+] [-] phryk|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wellboy|13 years ago|reply
The essence of the post for me however, is that you shouldn't just sit in front of the screen figuring out what to do next. If you arrive at that point, take a brake, hit the gym, reorder your brain. The best ideas come when you do something completely unrelated to your startup and you should do something like this at least 1-2/week.
There's no use in accelerating when you're going in the wrong direction and 5h spent on a great new idea that you just had, is much better than 100h that still won't work. :)
[+] [-] jgreen10|13 years ago|reply
In all aspects of life, success is about performing at your peak at just the right time.