4 ms·

John Carmack is just right on this. Its non-sensical to claim more work gets done in 32 hours compared to 40. You dont have to be pro overtime to recognize this

John Carmack is just right on this. Its non-sensical to claim more work gets done in 32 hours compared to 40. You dont have to be pro overtime to recognize this obvious truth. Sure, there are diminishing returns. And being tired can make a negative impact. But the “actually a 4 day, 8 hour work week is more productive“ claims is completely self serving bullshit. Just imagine working 4x 8 hour days. Now ask yourself if you can output anything except negative work on that Friday.

christophilus 3y ago
I’ve found that 5 x 6 is roughly as productive for me as 5 x 8. 4x8 would be a drop, no doubt. I’ve got approximately 6 good hours per day, and then I’m just not bothering. When I’m really in the flow, I can pull 10 hour days, but that’s fairly rare. Also, the long term impact on my happiness and well-being can take a while to measure.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  I agree that the limiting factor is more about hours per day. Than days per week. So when working 8 hours instead of 6, there are 2 additional hours where you accomplish nothing? What are you doing? Also consider that even if you aren’t accomplishing anything it doesnt mean you’re getting less work done. Like I said I recognize there are diminishing returns. But it doesnt make sense to claim you’re actually getting less done.
  - spiderice 3y ago
    You’re making some incorrect assumptions. Why do you find it impossible that you can be more productive with 5x6 than 5x8 because you’re more well rested? If you do 10 work units per hour at 5x6, and you do 6 work units per hour at 5x8 because you're worn out, then 5x6 is more productive. Your mistake is thinking that the first 6 hours of 5x6 and 5x8 are equally productive. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it isn’t. But to claim that it definitely is and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t have common sense is just silly. Edit: to further clarify, are you claiming that 5x10 is definitely more productive than 5x8? What about 5x16? What about 5x24. Or 7x24? Your confidence that you’re definitely right that 5x8 is better than 5x6 makes me wonder where you know the ideal line is and how you know that.
    - nonethewiser 3y ago
      Help make sense of this. If you work 6 hours a day and produce 10 work units, does working an additional 2 hours really just reduce your previous work output 40%?
      - christophilus 3y ago
        You have to look across a span of time. Day 1: 16 hours, 16 work units Day 300: 16 hours, 2 work units Burnout comes in when your pace is unsustainable. We are debating where the sweet spot is. Maybe it's 8 hours a day for you. Maybe it's 10 for Carmack. Maybe it's 6 for me. I don't know, but I doubt it's as obvious or linear as you seem to be thinking.
satysin 3y ago
Would you also say it is non-sensical to claim more work gets done in 40 hours compared to 48? Or perhaps 56 hours? Why is 40 some magical number to productivity? What if 40 hours leads people to padding out their day with extra bullshit like meetings or needless admin that ends up sucking away more of the time they could spend on their actual work than if they never had to pad things out by only working 32 hours? For transparency I live in [redacted] where the standard work week is 35 hours. Also I've never found the [redacted] with their 35 hour work week are less productive than our friends in Asia with 45+ hour work weeks. Regardless of time worked the productivity output is roughly the same for any given week.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  > Would you also say it is non-sensical to claim more work gets done in 40 hours compared to 48? Or perhaps 56 hours? Absolutely. Because all you have to do is not produce negative work beyond 40 hours. You can literally do nothing. As I said, there is a balance to be struck and diminishing returns are a real thing. But in order for a 4 day work week to be more productive than a 5 day work week then that means your work output on the 5th day is negative.
  - metabagel 3y ago
    > But in order for a 4 day work week to be more productive than a 5 day work week then that means your work output on the 5th day is negative. You are assuming equal productivity (per working hour) in both scenarios. However, it just might be that the worker who just came off a 3-day weekend, and knows they only have to work for 4 days before their next break, will be more productive per hour than someone who just came off a 2-day weekend, and who knows they will need to work for five days before their next break. Basically, you are assuming that people are robots and get a certain amount of work done per hour regardless of circumstances.
  - satysin 3y ago
    As metabagel said you seem to be basing this on every hour in a persons working week being equal which is obviously not how things really work out. Do you not find yourself more mentally and physically fatigued at ~35 hours compared to ~25 into the work week? When do you do your best work? At the start of the work week? Middle? End? Do you feel you do better work after you've had more down time to let your brain "decompress" or whatever you want to call it? As far as I can tell we stumbled into the ~40 hour work week a long time ago due to physical exhaustion and that exhaustion led to more mistakes and productivity impact due to assembly lines being held up to correct those mistakes, etc. This makes sense to me and seems like a pretty understandable and reasonable upper limit when it comes to physical jobs such as assembly lines and such. Why do we just assume that ~40 hours transfers over to knowledge worker jobs? We all know how mentally fatiguing it is after several hours of debugging a tricky issue or trying to design a modern scalable architecture. Whereas a mistake on an assembly line from a fatigued worker at 40+ hours into the week may put the assembly line out of action for a few hours it that is usually it for the negative impact. Mistakes in a platform design or a silly bug can easily lead to constant productivity impact and huge costs down the road if that mistake makes it into production. We see it all the time with technical debt. In your opinion how many hours per working week strikes your balance? How did you get to this number and do you think it is specific to you or more of a general figure that should be the standard?
tayistay 3y ago
Assuming equal productivity for the first four days of the week overlooks the duration of the previous weekend’s rest interval.

christophilus 3y ago

I’ve found that 5 x 6 is roughly as productive for me as 5 x 8. 4x8 would be a drop, no doubt. I’ve got approximately 6 good hours per day, and then I’m just not bothering. When I’m really in the flow, I can pull 10 hour days, but that’s fairly rare. Also, the long term impact on my happiness and well-being can take a while to measure.

nonethewiser 3y ago
I agree that the limiting factor is more about hours per day. Than days per week. So when working 8 hours instead of 6, there are 2 additional hours where you accomplish nothing? What are you doing? Also consider that even if you aren’t accomplishing anything it doesnt mean you’re getting less work done. Like I said I recognize there are diminishing returns. But it doesnt make sense to claim you’re actually getting less done.
- spiderice 3y ago
  You’re making some incorrect assumptions. Why do you find it impossible that you can be more productive with 5x6 than 5x8 because you’re more well rested? If you do 10 work units per hour at 5x6, and you do 6 work units per hour at 5x8 because you're worn out, then 5x6 is more productive. Your mistake is thinking that the first 6 hours of 5x6 and 5x8 are equally productive. Maybe that’s true. Maybe it isn’t. But to claim that it definitely is and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t have common sense is just silly. Edit: to further clarify, are you claiming that 5x10 is definitely more productive than 5x8? What about 5x16? What about 5x24. Or 7x24? Your confidence that you’re definitely right that 5x8 is better than 5x6 makes me wonder where you know the ideal line is and how you know that.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Help make sense of this. If you work 6 hours a day and produce 10 work units, does working an additional 2 hours really just reduce your previous work output 40%?
    - christophilus 3y ago
      You have to look across a span of time. Day 1: 16 hours, 16 work units Day 300: 16 hours, 2 work units Burnout comes in when your pace is unsustainable. We are debating where the sweet spot is. Maybe it's 8 hours a day for you. Maybe it's 10 for Carmack. Maybe it's 6 for me. I don't know, but I doubt it's as obvious or linear as you seem to be thinking.

satysin 3y ago

Would you also say it is non-sensical to claim more work gets done in 40 hours compared to 48? Or perhaps 56 hours? Why is 40 some magical number to productivity? What if 40 hours leads people to padding out their day with extra bullshit like meetings or needless admin that ends up sucking away more of the time they could spend on their actual work than if they never had to pad things out by only working 32 hours? For transparency I live in [redacted] where the standard work week is 35 hours. Also I've never found the [redacted] with their 35 hour work week are less productive than our friends in Asia with 45+ hour work weeks. Regardless of time worked the productivity output is roughly the same for any given week.

nonethewiser 3y ago
> Would you also say it is non-sensical to claim more work gets done in 40 hours compared to 48? Or perhaps 56 hours? Absolutely. Because all you have to do is not produce negative work beyond 40 hours. You can literally do nothing. As I said, there is a balance to be struck and diminishing returns are a real thing. But in order for a 4 day work week to be more productive than a 5 day work week then that means your work output on the 5th day is negative.
- metabagel 3y ago
  > But in order for a 4 day work week to be more productive than a 5 day work week then that means your work output on the 5th day is negative. You are assuming equal productivity (per working hour) in both scenarios. However, it just might be that the worker who just came off a 3-day weekend, and knows they only have to work for 4 days before their next break, will be more productive per hour than someone who just came off a 2-day weekend, and who knows they will need to work for five days before their next break. Basically, you are assuming that people are robots and get a certain amount of work done per hour regardless of circumstances.
- satysin 3y ago
  As metabagel said you seem to be basing this on every hour in a persons working week being equal which is obviously not how things really work out. Do you not find yourself more mentally and physically fatigued at ~35 hours compared to ~25 into the work week? When do you do your best work? At the start of the work week? Middle? End? Do you feel you do better work after you've had more down time to let your brain "decompress" or whatever you want to call it? As far as I can tell we stumbled into the ~40 hour work week a long time ago due to physical exhaustion and that exhaustion led to more mistakes and productivity impact due to assembly lines being held up to correct those mistakes, etc. This makes sense to me and seems like a pretty understandable and reasonable upper limit when it comes to physical jobs such as assembly lines and such. Why do we just assume that ~40 hours transfers over to knowledge worker jobs? We all know how mentally fatiguing it is after several hours of debugging a tricky issue or trying to design a modern scalable architecture. Whereas a mistake on an assembly line from a fatigued worker at 40+ hours into the week may put the assembly line out of action for a few hours it that is usually it for the negative impact. Mistakes in a platform design or a silly bug can easily lead to constant productivity impact and huge costs down the road if that mistake makes it into production. We see it all the time with technical debt. In your opinion how many hours per working week strikes your balance? How did you get to this number and do you think it is specific to you or more of a general figure that should be the standard?

tayistay 3y ago

Assuming equal productivity for the first four days of the week overlooks the duration of the previous weekend’s rest interval.