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Question for you - how much more productive were you on your 80th hour than on your zero-th? I ask because I typically work 50 hour weeks. I've pushed to 80 whe
by iyulaev 13y ago
Question for you - how much more productive were you on your 80th hour than on your zero-th? I ask because I typically work 50 hour weeks. I've pushed to 80 when projects are wrapping up but I find that the extra hours are mostly only useful for rote work like writing/running tests, fixing simple bugs, and not for creative work. In fact most of the most difficult problems I solved in my off hours rather than at my desk. So I've always wondered what the net benefit is of working crazy hours like that in the long term, especially when there's always the option of hiring two employees and paying them 1/2 of the salary (I know I prefer x for 40/wk rather than 2x for 80/wk, the marginal cost of that 80th hour is huge!)
- spiredigital 13y agoI'd say I was much less productive. Usually when we were pushing 80 hours weeks, we were getting ready for a big conference that our bank put on - and cranking out loads of monotonous pitch books that didn't require too much mental energy. At least, not too much if you'd done similar ones 100 times before! If I had had to create a financial model from scratch - or put together something really complex at hour 80 - that would have been a MUCH harder task.
- iyulaev 13y agoMakes sense! This I can understand. Analogously, at the end of a software project you tend to have to take care of all of the little things - re-run all of the tests, figure out the packaging script, fill out paperwork, make sure the website is ready, etc. This sort of stuff can be done on relatively little sleep with few breaks. I was imagining the interns putting together models and doing lots of calculations in that 80th hour - seems like sooner or later this would be disastrous. Thanks for answering the question :)