In my 20s I regularly did 80 hour weeks. In my 30s it was probably 60 hour weeks, but I once did six back-to-back 100+ hour weeks to ship a feature. Took me a

In my 20s I regularly did 80 hour weeks. In my 30s it was probably 60 hour weeks, but I once did six back-to-back 100+ hour weeks to ship a feature. Took me a few months to recover from that. When I was in my late 40s I did a three-week reprise of those back-to-back 100+ hour weeks, and again it took me months to recover. I escaped that particular group just ahead of a year+ death march that I probably would just have quit in the middle of. Sure, you can crunch. There is a cost. I probably would have been a lot happier not working so much, but honestly I didn't know how. It's still easy to get sucked in, but I'm both too wise and too old to do heavy crunch hours, though I will happily spend the odd few late nights getting something out the door.