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I continue to be amazed at the number of people who don't get the whole "after 40-50 hours, you're less productive" thing. In a very selfish way, I'm rather th

I continue to be amazed at the number of people who don't get the whole "after 40-50 hours, you're less productive" thing. In a very selfish way, I'm rather thankful for it, though. Being able to outcompete your competition by working less than them is ... nice. As a side-note: I'd argue that the 40-50 hour thing is even more important for founders. The primary thing that goes pear-shaped if you overwork seems to be decision-making ability. Having a decision-impaired founder is not optimal, to put it mildly. (I speak from personal, recent experience. Normally I stick rigidly to a 40-50 hour workweek, but last year I decided to crunch for a month to release a film. Looking back, it's pretty obvious that a) my productivity barely increased from what I'd expect of a 40-hour week and b) my ability to make effective strategic decisions took a massive, calamitous plunge. It's entirely possible the film would have been monumentally more successful if I'd stuck to my guns and done one week of crunch at most. ) I'd love to see some research on 20-hour weeks, incidentally. The productivity curve is definitely non-intuitive.

lordnacho 11y ago
>I'd love to see some research on 20-hour weeks, incidentally. The productivity curve is definitely non-intuitive. I think you'd find that you'd get useful ideas for work. I think most of the time spent in software is NOT the bashing the keys to make the code. It's spent thinking about what to write, and spending time going down the wrong path. I at least have a certain clarity when I'm rested that gives me the solution to last night's problems.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  I know more than a few people who could do with understanding what you just said.
- thenomad 11y ago
  Very true. Incidentally, that feeds into one thing that I found about 20-hour weeks when I tried them: in many ways they're harder than doing an 80-hour week, because you've got to be so disciplined about always doing the most effective thing in the most effective way. Often that also means going "what's scaring the crap out of me? Right, let's do that", again and again.
  - gambiter 11y ago
    > "What's scaring the crap out of me? Right, let's do that." I love this. I think this is going to be my new motto.
sreitshamer 11y ago
Being overtired can have 1 positive effect: you get out of your own head and come up with creative solutions that you wouldn't have dreamed up otherwise. Works for me sometimes.
- lberger 11y ago
  Not a positive effect. Creative solutions are one thing, but the best creative solutions come when you are thinking clearly, not overtired and just trying anything.
jazzyk 11y ago
"I continue to be amazed at the number of people who don't get the whole "after 40-50 hours, you're less productive" thing." Yes, it is a stubborn remnant of the industrial era, where the more time was spent producing widgets, the more widgets were produced. Software is a completely different animal (that's why I love it)
- fluidcruft 11y ago
  It's probably more a consequence of framing compensation as "$/hr". But on the other hand compensation based purely on performance doesn't work well either because it can feel unfair to workers particularly those can't control the input for their output. [ For example, I've worked with a radiology department where the hospital requires technologists to meet performance metrics based purely on scans/hour or they are sent home early before their shift is complete. This would seem to be more directly performance based, but the problem is that the rest of the hospital fails to do pre-scan screening questionaires correctly and doesn't get patients to the scanners on time. It's extremely demoralizing to the staff and more importantly it leaves very expensive hardware sitting around doing absolutely nothing. And the most talented staff actively avoid doing complex proceedures because they take longer. The "bean counters" somehow don't care about the big picture--expensive hardware is left unused and patient care suffers--hardware purchases and staffing are managed by different administrators and overall things are just... not holistically integrated. Anyway... it's complicated. ]
- bonaldi 11y ago
  It's not that different. The original research into productivity is from that era, and that's where the 50 hour max came from. Yes, you can keep making widgets, but you need a new shift of people to do so. That would be an interesting thing for software to explore — a night shift that came in and hacked on your code overnight. Like pair programming, only not.
  - bpyne 11y ago
    I read an article from the early 2K's about Oracle developing its 10g database line. It had development teams strategically positioned through the globe so that development could continue 24 hours/day. I never saw a followup article about the effect on the database quality or issues around handing off a code base from team-to-team multiple times a day. I also have to wonder if Oracle still develops its software that way.
jkot 11y ago
Under good conditions one can easily work 70 hours/week and stay productive. But traditional open-office sweatshop with 2 hour commute does not work that way.
- bonaldi 11y ago
  The research contradicts you, and if you're going by your intuition you're likely wrong, even about your own performance. It's exactly your sort of thinking that means the industry keeps working the way it is
  - jo909 11y ago
    While I totally believe the research is right, and see the same results and draw the same conclusions for myself, I don't think the research can tell anything about one individual. The way studies work is to measure the average of a large group. Most people I assume (I don't have data to back that up) work in jobs that do not have what jkot meant with "good conditions". So the research finds that _on average_ longer work hours do not result in more work done, and that is good advice for every employer. For a motivated individual or small group that can be different, so I believe such personal accounts and would not tell them they are wrong. I can totally see how founders, special personalities, people with what I call the "perfect job" can work much longer than 40 hours without being wrong about their own performance. The wrong thing is only to expect that from others or to create an environment that makes others believe it would be true for them too.
    - thenomad 11y ago
      Covered at least in part in http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-worked/ http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-work... - including perception vs reality of productivity in crunch time. He has a graph on that: http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-percieved-productivity-daniel-cook-working-overtime-eric-dodds-productivity-hacking-blog-series.jpg http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-per... It's possible that some special individuals can work longer hours than average without productivity loss. However, without hard data to prove you're one of those individuals, given the above, it may be inadvisable to simply assume you are...

lordnacho 11y ago

>I'd love to see some research on 20-hour weeks, incidentally. The productivity curve is definitely non-intuitive. I think you'd find that you'd get useful ideas for work. I think most of the time spent in software is NOT the bashing the keys to make the code. It's spent thinking about what to write, and spending time going down the wrong path. I at least have a certain clarity when I'm rested that gives me the solution to last night's problems.

rorykoehler 11y ago
I know more than a few people who could do with understanding what you just said.
thenomad 11y ago
Very true. Incidentally, that feeds into one thing that I found about 20-hour weeks when I tried them: in many ways they're harder than doing an 80-hour week, because you've got to be so disciplined about always doing the most effective thing in the most effective way. Often that also means going "what's scaring the crap out of me? Right, let's do that", again and again.
- gambiter 11y ago
  > "What's scaring the crap out of me? Right, let's do that." I love this. I think this is going to be my new motto.

sreitshamer 11y ago

Being overtired can have 1 positive effect: you get out of your own head and come up with creative solutions that you wouldn't have dreamed up otherwise. Works for me sometimes.

lberger 11y ago
Not a positive effect. Creative solutions are one thing, but the best creative solutions come when you are thinking clearly, not overtired and just trying anything.

jazzyk 11y ago

"I continue to be amazed at the number of people who don't get the whole "after 40-50 hours, you're less productive" thing." Yes, it is a stubborn remnant of the industrial era, where the more time was spent producing widgets, the more widgets were produced. Software is a completely different animal (that's why I love it)

fluidcruft 11y ago
It's probably more a consequence of framing compensation as "$/hr". But on the other hand compensation based purely on performance doesn't work well either because it can feel unfair to workers particularly those can't control the input for their output. [ For example, I've worked with a radiology department where the hospital requires technologists to meet performance metrics based purely on scans/hour or they are sent home early before their shift is complete. This would seem to be more directly performance based, but the problem is that the rest of the hospital fails to do pre-scan screening questionaires correctly and doesn't get patients to the scanners on time. It's extremely demoralizing to the staff and more importantly it leaves very expensive hardware sitting around doing absolutely nothing. And the most talented staff actively avoid doing complex proceedures because they take longer. The "bean counters" somehow don't care about the big picture--expensive hardware is left unused and patient care suffers--hardware purchases and staffing are managed by different administrators and overall things are just... not holistically integrated. Anyway... it's complicated. ]
bonaldi 11y ago
It's not that different. The original research into productivity is from that era, and that's where the 50 hour max came from. Yes, you can keep making widgets, but you need a new shift of people to do so. That would be an interesting thing for software to explore — a night shift that came in and hacked on your code overnight. Like pair programming, only not.
- bpyne 11y ago
  I read an article from the early 2K's about Oracle developing its 10g database line. It had development teams strategically positioned through the globe so that development could continue 24 hours/day. I never saw a followup article about the effect on the database quality or issues around handing off a code base from team-to-team multiple times a day. I also have to wonder if Oracle still develops its software that way.

jkot 11y ago

Under good conditions one can easily work 70 hours/week and stay productive. But traditional open-office sweatshop with 2 hour commute does not work that way.

bonaldi 11y ago
The research contradicts you, and if you're going by your intuition you're likely wrong, even about your own performance. It's exactly your sort of thinking that means the industry keeps working the way it is
- jo909 11y ago
  While I totally believe the research is right, and see the same results and draw the same conclusions for myself, I don't think the research can tell anything about one individual. The way studies work is to measure the average of a large group. Most people I assume (I don't have data to back that up) work in jobs that do not have what jkot meant with "good conditions". So the research finds that _on average_ longer work hours do not result in more work done, and that is good advice for every employer. For a motivated individual or small group that can be different, so I believe such personal accounts and would not tell them they are wrong. I can totally see how founders, special personalities, people with what I call the "perfect job" can work much longer than 40 hours without being wrong about their own performance. The wrong thing is only to expect that from others or to create an environment that makes others believe it would be true for them too.
  - thenomad 11y ago
    Covered at least in part in http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-worked/ http://ericdodds.com/research-and-the-realities-of-time-work... - including perception vs reality of productivity in crunch time. He has a graph on that: http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-percieved-productivity-daniel-cook-working-overtime-eric-dodds-productivity-hacking-blog-series.jpg http://ericdodds.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/graphing-per... It's possible that some special individuals can work longer hours than average without productivity loss. However, without hard data to prove you're one of those individuals, given the above, it may be inadvisable to simply assume you are...