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Ask HN: How to Survive a Deathmarch?
Hey HN! It's very likely that in the coming months I'll be deathmarching, juggling a variety of projects, some in hours and some outside. I anticipate the load will vary from week to week but averaging around the 80-100 hour/week mark.
I'm at a point where my business is hitting critical mass - if I can achieve my workload until it cools off in ~July I'll be putting myself in a great financial position to effectively pay off a house loan and employ someone before the next rush, so I'm really keen on doing this as effectively as possible.
So far I've blocked timewaster websites (facebook, reddit, news sites, maybe HN, etc) and I'm looking at reducing non-fun load elsewhere in my life by getting decent pre-prepped meals and a thinking about a cleaner mostly so when I'm not working I can focus on relaxing.
What other strategies would you recommend?
- greenyoda 7y agoConstantly working 80-100 hour weeks for several months is how people burn out. Is there any way to defer some of this work or to hire someone (even part-time) to help out in the near term?
- burner324231 7y agoNot a great deal, the work is highly specialised and requires a few skills and qualifications that very few people I know have. Without going into much detail, putting somebody through the required processes costs about $10k but also requires them to be decently skilled to begin with. I'll be deferring work if I can, but not at the cost of losing clients - doing so would likely result in me losing them forever which will cost a huge amount more than not having a social life for the next six months. For what it's worth, I'm not someone who requires a great deal of pleasure time. I enjoy my job - it's problem solving, with constantly unique problems, even when I'm not working I'm generally spending time problem solving either by coding or playing simple strategy games with massive game trees, so 80-100 hours / week coding isn't all that far out of the ordinary compared to a regular week for me anyway.
- bradknowles 7y agoYou don’t. That’s why it’s called a death march. You might be able to escape before you die, but that’s a different question.
- Hydraulix989 7y agoExercise every day, no matter what.