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This false dichotomy is seriously getting annoying. If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. But sto

This false dichotomy is seriously getting annoying. If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. But stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong when there are so many factors at play. Some of my most productive memories are summers studying and working for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week (= 72 hours). I didn't get tired, burned out, or anything. Another summer had me working at a company making "apps" for 40 hours a week, and it fucking drained me... despite taking far less intelligence and brain effort. I suppose that's not true, the brain effort was constantly justifying why I wasn't quitting haha. Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Seriously. Your priorities aren't aligned. I don't know what I'd do if my partner expected me to be home for dinner at 6pm on weeknights... Oh wait I do, I'd get a new partner, which I did. Now everyone involved (myself, previous partner, new partner) are very happy. Finally regarding productivity vs. hours put in. Again, this is completely irrelevant if you're following the right metrics - results. Long hours obviously don't make sense if they're making you too tired to deliver results. If you're delivering but not in a sustainable way, well, you need to calibrate and lower expectations so you don't under deliver. In short, people should optimize for long-term productivity appropriate to their goals. This, combined with your unique physiology and work circumstances, will dictate how many hours you should work. Oh and definitely exercise every week.

Avshalom 13y ago
>If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. This is not an option for most us.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  Not an option?
  - cdcarter 13y ago
    Yes. Most people who are employed full-time are expected to work full-time. Yes, they could leave full-time work and fine new sources of income, but that no longer falls under "just work 30 hours instead".
    - zanny 13y ago
      This doesn't mean that you are suited for 40 hours a week. It just means you have no option but to overwork yourself.
      - cdcarter 13y ago
        Correct. It's not an option.
        alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
        cgag 13y ago
        There are next to no stable part-time jobs in programming. I don't really know what you're getting at.
        cdcarter 13y ago
        There are next to no stable part-time jobs that can sustain someone above the poverty line in most fields.
- sokoloff 13y ago
  I'd wager that more than 25% of "full-time" employees in an office-worker setting are spending less than 30 hours per week actually working. Probably far more than 25%. How many facebook posts do you get at all hours of the workday? Assuming their job isn't social media community relations manager, those people aren't working; they're simply attending their job.
  - thesz 13y ago
    My former boss was a PSP/TSP certified software developer. He said studios had shown that programmer can work 4 hour/day and plans should be made accordingly (e.g., if you have 16 hours to solve set of tasks, plan for four days, not two). He also said that this statistics was actually proven true during the course of their training and later in the practical application. Other four hours of "work" time is related to documentation and social aspects of development, like discussing ideas and plans.
  - cgag 13y ago
    This doesn't count. Working 20 hours a week but still having to sit an an office 40 hours a week makes me pretty much as horribly depressed as putting in 40 hours of effort at the same office.
    - sokoloff 13y ago
      I hear ya, but if that's the situation you irretrievably (in your own mind) find yourself in, make the best of it. Put in your solid, no-BS 20 hours of honest work and then when you're exhausted mentally, fill the time with web browsing related to your job, and even personal errands (shopping, travel booking, the online portion of socializing, whatever). If you are genuinely good and the 20 hours represent genuine best-efforts, you're very unlikely to stand out negatively in terms of results produced. But, you probably aren't as stuck to a 40-hour ass-in-seat job as you think. Find remote work; become a freelancer. Some of those have a higher risk profile than sitting down and shutting up 40 hours a week as an employee. No one said life would be trivially easy, but for those of us that can write code, our lot in life is already 2 or 3 standard deviations above the mean, IMO.
- mcv 13y ago
  I have said no to job offers that required me to work 5 days. I explained how it was old-fashioned and that people with kids needed time with their kids too, that part-time work was the way of the future, and that people aren't fully productive for 40 hours a week anyway, so a 4 day work week generally gets you more than 80% of the productivity of a 5 day work week. They fully agreed, and yet they still couldn't hire me for less than 5 days. The job sounded great, but I said no. It was a good decision.
rmjacque 13y ago
+1 to recognizing that the ability to sustain work volume is unique and personal. The issue comes in when you are asking someone capable of doing a 40 hour/week job to output 60 hours. That ask will ultimately break that person.
- rmjacque 13y ago
  Edit: Or run them out.
shadowfox 13y ago
> But stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong Well. I am not sure anything is being imposed here. The original is just a blog by someone stating that working too long (by his definition) is not something he considers a badge of honor/skill/awesomeness. You don't have to follow the recommendation.
Derbasti 13y ago
Statistics tell a different story. There were numerous studies on productivity relative to many measures. Then again, you know, you might be a actual snowflake...
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  [Citation needed] I've gotten the following list of citations in the past, which suggest that the 40-60 hour regime is (aggregated over many workers) optimal for construction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089557 But I've never seen anything even remotely suggesting that an individual needs to be an "actual snowflake" in order to productively work more than 40 hours. Since you claim there are "numerous studies", please cite a few.
  - mattmanser 13y ago
    They don't suggest that at all! Can you not read? The key thing you've just conveniently left out is this: overtime is only effective over very short sprints Operative words. VERY. SHORT. And overtime, in the context of the article and all the supporting literature, is working more than 40 hours. Worst still, you or your employees then become stupid. Unimaginative. Burnt out. They make silly mistakes. Does that sound like a place that will foster innovation and greatness? Is that the kind of company you want to lead? Kid yourself all you want with your 40-60 'optimal'. But don't cite actual research that says quite the opposite of what you claim.
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
      All of the studies I linked to discuss population means. Not a single one addresses the claim Derbasti made about the tails of population distributions. Whenever this topic comes up, people constantly claim tons of research showing 40 hours is some magic right number for everyone everywhere in every industry, yet that research is rarely cited. The best I've seen so far is the post I linked to, which is population means in construction.
  - ByronT 13y ago
jleyank 13y ago
zxcvvcxz says: "Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Seriously. Your priorities aren't aligned. I don't know what I'd do if my partner expected me to be home for dinner at 6pm on weeknights... Oh wait I do, I'd get a new partner, which I did. Now everyone involved (myself, previous partner, new partner) are very happy." Man, I hope you develop some empathy before you end up directing others. I've worked for some of these automatons, and it results in a toxic environment with limited productivity. Far more gets done when your people are excited to be along for the ride.
- dmunoz 13y ago
  I found the same sentence strange. Is sacrifice no longer in the dictionary of reasonable action? Running around thinking you can mutually maximize "everyone involved" is a recipe for disaster.
- aNoob7000 13y ago
  I just commented on the same thing. This person is amazing. I can't imagine being his wife or kid. On the empathy front, I can't agree more. Who the hell would want to work for a person that can't sympathize with going home on time to be with family.
- aestra 13y ago
  Agreed. This person sounds like an egomaniac. http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/14/to-avoid-regret-put-romance-first-work-second/ http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/14/to-avoid-regret-put-ro...
btbuildem 13y ago
> stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong Take your own advice much?
helipad 13y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but the point of the post wasn't that working 60 hour weeks is wrong - it was that boasting "woe is me" having voluntarily worked long hours isn't impressive. As you say, results are what impress people.
PhasmaFelis 13y ago
> If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. I'd love to, but no industry in the USA that pays a living wage will put up with less than 40 hours a week, because we fetishize hours-worked...which is another symptom of the same problem.
joe_the_user 13y ago
This false dichotomy is seriously getting annoying. If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. Two different things are frustrating about this simple homily. * It's very easy to fool yourself into thinking you can handle things you can't, especially with peer pressure, job pressure and so-forth involved. By the time your health is ruined, your marriage is ruined and etc, it's too late to just say "uh, that didn't work for me". IE, for every "unique physiology", there twenty self-deceivers. I mean, what are the odds? Next, tell me you have "unique physiology" that gets healthier on Cheetos and Ramen (not impossible so it must be true, right). * The poor result of a permanent 60-hour week aren't just felt by those who make the mistake of following it but by their families and their co-workers. Sure, freedom. I mean, this article obviously isn't about physically blocking someone from working 60 hours at their workplace but rather encouraging the person to think again whether those 60 hours really make sense.
- stretchwithme 13y ago
  Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. At least when you take on something that's too much, there are signs of failing or your wellbeing declining.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. I don't know if that's true or not. It's probably too vague to be even true or false. But it also seems like a dangerous sort of symmetry to invoke because the consequences of going beyond your capacities tend to be a lot worse than the consequences of not quite reaching them. I recall you as fitness person from other discussion - what's worse, not stretching as much as your tendons allow or stretching more than your tendons allow? In the case of work, as noted by the people here mentioning studies, most people can push themselves for short periods. But that pushing is definitely going involving learning to ignore tiredness and such. But you take that skill and use it ignore your constant tiredness, you can get to a really bad place after a while. In other words, I disagree with any contention that a person's body provides a magic signal that distinguishes between "hard but you can handle it" and "too much for you, you must stop or suffer bad consequences". The degree to which people do harm themselves today shows this.
TacticalCoder 13y ago
Indeed... And most of the friends around me who made it big also played it hard. When Broadcom was nowhere several employees number xxx (with xxx less than 300) were, while in crunch-mode, sleeping in their trucks, on the parking lot, to deliver chip plans on time. Stock options have been good for them the day Broadcom was worth $12bn. I've got a few friends who started a 3D-rendering business for TV ads, short movies and cartoons. 60 hours a week? Make it 80, 90 and occasionally more than one hundred (you read correctly). I'm talking about people working 15 hours a day, bringing their sleeping bags and pillows at work and eating in a few minutes. They now enjoy 40 employees working for them and have the good life. I have friends who got money from a business angel and for whom, between angel money and before VC money came, life was work, work and more work. I could tell you about other people, on the east coast, getting BA money and an office in which they'd sleep (and the girlfriend being surprised to see her new boyfriend living where he works)... And the exit they made selling to a big software company. No 40 hours a week either here but much, much more. Or another friend setting up a commodity trading (?) company, who's always on the phone and on planes around the world, tracking the ships he's renting and working out deals left and right. Both of us work a lot, yet we find the time to meet (in this or that city in Europe) once in a while. These people know about burnouts, crunch-mode and... Wealth. Lots of wealth. Yet money wasn't the drive. The drive is simply the desire to achieve great things (build a chip, publish a book, create a company, make an exit, ...). I've written (and typeset) several books. The last weeks before the book left to go to the editor/publisher were easily 80+ hours a week, working until early in the morning and then taking a few hours of sleep. Rince and repeat. Total crunch-mode. I also know about naps on the bean bag on saturdays and even sundays (!) at Californian startups. I understand not wanting to work more than 40 hours a week when you're an employee and have a life which you prefer more than your work... But when you're an entrepreneur and want to make a difference, 40 hours a week is nothing. I'm not saying that there aren't very successful people who've never worked more than 40 hours a week (there are also people who never worked and won the lottery)... All I'm saying is the entrepreneurs I know who've succeeded big times were (and most still are) relentless workers. I'm in my forties and I just love what I do. It's saturday, and what did I do? Spent time with my SO, went to buy stuff to paint a room in the appartment, went for a cool drive with my oldtimer and... Spent several hours coding in Clojure.. I even find the time to spend some time on HN ^ ^ You can come with all the studies you want about how 40 hours a week is the limit not to break, unreasonable men will keep being driven by passion and will keep working more than that. It's not black & white. You want 40 hours a week or, heck, why not 35: try to go to France if you want. Even try to fetch a 4 days out of 5 and you'll be doing 28 hours a week there. But don't discourage the ones who simply want to work more. EDIT: fixed a few sentences, not a native english speaker here
rattray 13y ago
Thank you so much for this. I've been kicking myself for working more hours than I've been told are good for me, even though working as few as 40 on what I care about makes me unhappy.
pjc50 13y ago
If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, then being employed can be a serious problem. I spent three years with chronic fatigue where I could only work 25 without falling asleep at my desk; fortunately I had a very understanding employer who needed me. (Also, are you by any chance male, under 35 and have no children?)
- memracom 13y ago
  I wonder how many of them are just hiring overseas contractors to do their work.
aNoob7000 13y ago
"Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Seriously. Your priorities aren't aligned." I'm going to guess that you're not married or have kids because this is the dumbest and shallowest thing I've heard in a while. Why would anyone want to be with you if at the slightest suggestion that you spend more time with them you would fire/terminate the relationship.
rwallace 13y ago
Most things in life, as far as I'm concerned, are best left to you to decide what's right for you. This is not one of them. First, if you're spending sixty hours a week in the office, you're not only harming yourself. You're encouraging idiot bosses to start demanding the same of other people, which ends up causing real and considerable harm. When your actions start harming other people, that's when it becomes appropriate to respond with social and legal sanctions. Now you could take a social Darwinist view and say "blow you Jack, I'm alright"; if other people can't hack it the way you can, that's their problem. But the reality is, you almost certainly can't either, even if you think you can. Working excessive hours is like working drunk: it impairs your judgment in such a way that you don't realize how badly your judgment has been impaired, but it shows every time it's put to an objective test. So yes, if you're spending sixty hours a week in the office, I damn well am going to tell you you're doing it wrong.
- antjanus 13y ago
  This is the huge problem. I've worked in offices with people who were obsessed with pulling 12 hour days, and it soon became an expectation. Even 10 hour days. I work 8 hour days and get all my shit done, everything. If I worked 10 hour days, I'd probably get a little more done at the beginning but then my productivity would plummet and then I'd just become resentful of it.
kruipen 13y ago
> But stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong when there are so many factors at play. ... > Oh and definitely exercise every week.
Elizer0x0309 13y ago
Preach the word. I personally do fine with 16 hrs per day. Yes I'm healthy, fit and extremely successful.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  You work this sustained? Then unless you sleep very little, you are doing nothing but work. I don't think this is very sustainable. Some places typically use the phrase "pics or GTFO," seems apt ... :) Maybe it's true; I guess it is clearly possible and some people but I don't think many people could sustain or find it worth it for very long.
  - Elizer0x0309 13y ago
    That's the point of above comment. I don't go around telling people you're lazy or anything. We each have our priorities and that list decides how much time we invest in each. For me purpose is to better the world through technology. Others it's through family, friends etc. All play a part in forming a society! A great one too might I add! xP
memracom 13y ago
I agree that developers should not try to work more than 40 hours per week on a regular basis. But when I was younger, I went for years working around 16 hours per day, 7 days per week and everybody thought that I was a rockstar genius. But it was not all mental work. I probably spent about 8 hours a day on software development and then I wehnt home and worked another 8 hours in my half acre of gardens, 3 acre asparagus field or shoveling the daily snowfall of 6 inches or so, off my 100 yard driveway. Not to mention sawing and splitting a few cords of firewood to heat the house, cutting Christmas trees to sell. The physical work was energizing after a day spent writing software, and the mental work was energizing after all the physical labor that I had done the day before. I'm not saying that the physical labor made me more productive at developing software, although that may be true. But I think that when people count hours and then try to use that to prove a point, they forget to classify what is being done in those hours. Case in point. When I have a tough coding problem, I don't slog away at it for extra hours. I go sit in a different chair, stare out the window, look at the cloud shapes, then close my eyes and think of absurd ways to solve the problem. Now if I would include that time in my count of hours per day and tell you that I can regularly put in a 10 hour day, you would be misled. The total hours are not as important as what you do with those hours. If you are going to play on the net for 20 hours a week, then yeah, you may need to put in a full 60 hours. Or you could stop goofing around and do your work. Pay attention to your productivity. Split your day into chunks, take your coffee and lunch breaks. I used to join the smokers on their smoke breaks even though I didn't smoke because it got me out of the chair, moving around, and I got to stand in the fresh air and sunshine (upwind of course). And I almost always go for a walk at lunchtime. This is not a waste of time. These pauses are essential for you to get your maximum mental effort. Sure, sometimes you get stuck into a problems and go for hours without leaving the chair. Even if you are 50 you can do that once in a while if you eat healthy (read Joel Fuhrman), but the key here is "once in a while". Once in a while you can pull out all the stops, but like heroin, it does not get better by doubling the dose. Buddha had it right when he said (and I paraphrase him) "All things in Moderation". It takes great discipline, but discipline is what software developers need to cultivate in themselves.
notastartup 13y ago
The point of the story is that more hours is not increased productivity. Look at Germany's working hours for the average salary man. They work less than British salary man and are far more productive.
beedogs 13y ago
Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Or, hey, just go live in a cave with your sad, forever-alone 60-hour-a-week self.

Avshalom 13y ago

>If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. This is not an option for most us.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
Not an option?
- cdcarter 13y ago
  Yes. Most people who are employed full-time are expected to work full-time. Yes, they could leave full-time work and fine new sources of income, but that no longer falls under "just work 30 hours instead".
  - zanny 13y ago
    This doesn't mean that you are suited for 40 hours a week. It just means you have no option but to overwork yourself.
    - cdcarter 13y ago
      Correct. It's not an option.
      - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
        cgag 13y ago
        There are next to no stable part-time jobs in programming. I don't really know what you're getting at.
        cdcarter 13y ago
        There are next to no stable part-time jobs that can sustain someone above the poverty line in most fields.
sokoloff 13y ago
I'd wager that more than 25% of "full-time" employees in an office-worker setting are spending less than 30 hours per week actually working. Probably far more than 25%. How many facebook posts do you get at all hours of the workday? Assuming their job isn't social media community relations manager, those people aren't working; they're simply attending their job.
- thesz 13y ago
  My former boss was a PSP/TSP certified software developer. He said studios had shown that programmer can work 4 hour/day and plans should be made accordingly (e.g., if you have 16 hours to solve set of tasks, plan for four days, not two). He also said that this statistics was actually proven true during the course of their training and later in the practical application. Other four hours of "work" time is related to documentation and social aspects of development, like discussing ideas and plans.
- cgag 13y ago
  This doesn't count. Working 20 hours a week but still having to sit an an office 40 hours a week makes me pretty much as horribly depressed as putting in 40 hours of effort at the same office.
  - sokoloff 13y ago
    I hear ya, but if that's the situation you irretrievably (in your own mind) find yourself in, make the best of it. Put in your solid, no-BS 20 hours of honest work and then when you're exhausted mentally, fill the time with web browsing related to your job, and even personal errands (shopping, travel booking, the online portion of socializing, whatever). If you are genuinely good and the 20 hours represent genuine best-efforts, you're very unlikely to stand out negatively in terms of results produced. But, you probably aren't as stuck to a 40-hour ass-in-seat job as you think. Find remote work; become a freelancer. Some of those have a higher risk profile than sitting down and shutting up 40 hours a week as an employee. No one said life would be trivially easy, but for those of us that can write code, our lot in life is already 2 or 3 standard deviations above the mean, IMO.
mcv 13y ago
I have said no to job offers that required me to work 5 days. I explained how it was old-fashioned and that people with kids needed time with their kids too, that part-time work was the way of the future, and that people aren't fully productive for 40 hours a week anyway, so a 4 day work week generally gets you more than 80% of the productivity of a 5 day work week. They fully agreed, and yet they still couldn't hire me for less than 5 days. The job sounded great, but I said no. It was a good decision.

rmjacque 13y ago

+1 to recognizing that the ability to sustain work volume is unique and personal. The issue comes in when you are asking someone capable of doing a 40 hour/week job to output 60 hours. That ask will ultimately break that person.

rmjacque 13y ago
Edit: Or run them out.

shadowfox 13y ago

> But stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong Well. I am not sure anything is being imposed here. The original is just a blog by someone stating that working too long (by his definition) is not something he considers a badge of honor/skill/awesomeness. You don't have to follow the recommendation.

Derbasti 13y ago

Statistics tell a different story. There were numerous studies on productivity relative to many measures. Then again, you know, you might be a actual snowflake...

yummyfajitas 13y ago
[Citation needed] I've gotten the following list of citations in the past, which suggest that the 40-60 hour regime is (aggregated over many workers) optimal for construction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089557 But I've never seen anything even remotely suggesting that an individual needs to be an "actual snowflake" in order to productively work more than 40 hours. Since you claim there are "numerous studies", please cite a few.
- mattmanser 13y ago
  They don't suggest that at all! Can you not read? The key thing you've just conveniently left out is this: overtime is only effective over very short sprints Operative words. VERY. SHORT. And overtime, in the context of the article and all the supporting literature, is working more than 40 hours. Worst still, you or your employees then become stupid. Unimaginative. Burnt out. They make silly mistakes. Does that sound like a place that will foster innovation and greatness? Is that the kind of company you want to lead? Kid yourself all you want with your 40-60 'optimal'. But don't cite actual research that says quite the opposite of what you claim.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    All of the studies I linked to discuss population means. Not a single one addresses the claim Derbasti made about the tails of population distributions. Whenever this topic comes up, people constantly claim tons of research showing 40 hours is some magic right number for everyone everywhere in every industry, yet that research is rarely cited. The best I've seen so far is the post I linked to, which is population means in construction.
- ByronT 13y ago

jleyank 13y ago

zxcvvcxz says: "Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Seriously. Your priorities aren't aligned. I don't know what I'd do if my partner expected me to be home for dinner at 6pm on weeknights... Oh wait I do, I'd get a new partner, which I did. Now everyone involved (myself, previous partner, new partner) are very happy." Man, I hope you develop some empathy before you end up directing others. I've worked for some of these automatons, and it results in a toxic environment with limited productivity. Far more gets done when your people are excited to be along for the ride.

dmunoz 13y ago
I found the same sentence strange. Is sacrifice no longer in the dictionary of reasonable action? Running around thinking you can mutually maximize "everyone involved" is a recipe for disaster.
aNoob7000 13y ago
I just commented on the same thing. This person is amazing. I can't imagine being his wife or kid. On the empathy front, I can't agree more. Who the hell would want to work for a person that can't sympathize with going home on time to be with family.
aestra 13y ago
Agreed. This person sounds like an egomaniac. http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/14/to-avoid-regret-put-romance-first-work-second/ http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/14/to-avoid-regret-put-ro...

btbuildem 13y ago

> stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong Take your own advice much?

helipad 13y ago

I agree with the sentiment, but the point of the post wasn't that working 60 hour weeks is wrong - it was that boasting "woe is me" having voluntarily worked long hours isn't impressive. As you say, results are what impress people.

PhasmaFelis 13y ago

> If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. I'd love to, but no industry in the USA that pays a living wage will put up with less than 40 hours a week, because we fetishize hours-worked...which is another symptom of the same problem.

joe_the_user 13y ago

This false dichotomy is seriously getting annoying. If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. Two different things are frustrating about this simple homily. * It's very easy to fool yourself into thinking you can handle things you can't, especially with peer pressure, job pressure and so-forth involved. By the time your health is ruined, your marriage is ruined and etc, it's too late to just say "uh, that didn't work for me". IE, for every "unique physiology", there twenty self-deceivers. I mean, what are the odds? Next, tell me you have "unique physiology" that gets healthier on Cheetos and Ramen (not impossible so it must be true, right). * The poor result of a permanent 60-hour week aren't just felt by those who make the mistake of following it but by their families and their co-workers. Sure, freedom. I mean, this article obviously isn't about physically blocking someone from working 60 hours at their workplace but rather encouraging the person to think again whether those 60 hours really make sense.

stretchwithme 13y ago
Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. At least when you take on something that's too much, there are signs of failing or your wellbeing declining.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  Its even easier to fool yourself into thinking you can't handle things that actually can handle. I don't know if that's true or not. It's probably too vague to be even true or false. But it also seems like a dangerous sort of symmetry to invoke because the consequences of going beyond your capacities tend to be a lot worse than the consequences of not quite reaching them. I recall you as fitness person from other discussion - what's worse, not stretching as much as your tendons allow or stretching more than your tendons allow? In the case of work, as noted by the people here mentioning studies, most people can push themselves for short periods. But that pushing is definitely going involving learning to ignore tiredness and such. But you take that skill and use it ignore your constant tiredness, you can get to a really bad place after a while. In other words, I disagree with any contention that a person's body provides a magic signal that distinguishes between "hard but you can handle it" and "too much for you, you must stop or suffer bad consequences". The degree to which people do harm themselves today shows this.

TacticalCoder 13y ago

Indeed... And most of the friends around me who made it big also played it hard. When Broadcom was nowhere several employees number xxx (with xxx less than 300) were, while in crunch-mode, sleeping in their trucks, on the parking lot, to deliver chip plans on time. Stock options have been good for them the day Broadcom was worth $12bn. I've got a few friends who started a 3D-rendering business for TV ads, short movies and cartoons. 60 hours a week? Make it 80, 90 and occasionally more than one hundred (you read correctly). I'm talking about people working 15 hours a day, bringing their sleeping bags and pillows at work and eating in a few minutes. They now enjoy 40 employees working for them and have the good life. I have friends who got money from a business angel and for whom, between angel money and before VC money came, life was work, work and more work. I could tell you about other people, on the east coast, getting BA money and an office in which they'd sleep (and the girlfriend being surprised to see her new boyfriend living where he works)... And the exit they made selling to a big software company. No 40 hours a week either here but much, much more. Or another friend setting up a commodity trading (?) company, who's always on the phone and on planes around the world, tracking the ships he's renting and working out deals left and right. Both of us work a lot, yet we find the time to meet (in this or that city in Europe) once in a while. These people know about burnouts, crunch-mode and... Wealth. Lots of wealth. Yet money wasn't the drive. The drive is simply the desire to achieve great things (build a chip, publish a book, create a company, make an exit, ...). I've written (and typeset) several books. The last weeks before the book left to go to the editor/publisher were easily 80+ hours a week, working until early in the morning and then taking a few hours of sleep. Rince and repeat. Total crunch-mode. I also know about naps on the bean bag on saturdays and even sundays (!) at Californian startups. I understand not wanting to work more than 40 hours a week when you're an employee and have a life which you prefer more than your work... But when you're an entrepreneur and want to make a difference, 40 hours a week is nothing. I'm not saying that there aren't very successful people who've never worked more than 40 hours a week (there are also people who never worked and won the lottery)... All I'm saying is the entrepreneurs I know who've succeeded big times were (and most still are) relentless workers. I'm in my forties and I just love what I do. It's saturday, and what did I do? Spent time with my SO, went to buy stuff to paint a room in the appartment, went for a cool drive with my oldtimer and... Spent several hours coding in Clojure.. I even find the time to spend some time on HN ^ ^ You can come with all the studies you want about how 40 hours a week is the limit not to break, unreasonable men will keep being driven by passion and will keep working more than that. It's not black & white. You want 40 hours a week or, heck, why not 35: try to go to France if you want. Even try to fetch a 4 days out of 5 and you'll be doing 28 hours a week there. But don't discourage the ones who simply want to work more. EDIT: fixed a few sentences, not a native english speaker here

rattray 13y ago

Thank you so much for this. I've been kicking myself for working more hours than I've been told are good for me, even though working as few as 40 on what I care about makes me unhappy.

pjc50 13y ago

If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, then being employed can be a serious problem. I spent three years with chronic fatigue where I could only work 25 without falling asleep at my desk; fortunately I had a very understanding employer who needed me. (Also, are you by any chance male, under 35 and have no children?)

memracom 13y ago
I wonder how many of them are just hiring overseas contractors to do their work.

aNoob7000 13y ago

"Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Seriously. Your priorities aren't aligned." I'm going to guess that you're not married or have kids because this is the dumbest and shallowest thing I've heard in a while. Why would anyone want to be with you if at the slightest suggestion that you spend more time with them you would fire/terminate the relationship.

rwallace 13y ago

Most things in life, as far as I'm concerned, are best left to you to decide what's right for you. This is not one of them. First, if you're spending sixty hours a week in the office, you're not only harming yourself. You're encouraging idiot bosses to start demanding the same of other people, which ends up causing real and considerable harm. When your actions start harming other people, that's when it becomes appropriate to respond with social and legal sanctions. Now you could take a social Darwinist view and say "blow you Jack, I'm alright"; if other people can't hack it the way you can, that's their problem. But the reality is, you almost certainly can't either, even if you think you can. Working excessive hours is like working drunk: it impairs your judgment in such a way that you don't realize how badly your judgment has been impaired, but it shows every time it's put to an objective test. So yes, if you're spending sixty hours a week in the office, I damn well am going to tell you you're doing it wrong.

antjanus 13y ago
This is the huge problem. I've worked in offices with people who were obsessed with pulling 12 hour days, and it soon became an expectation. Even 10 hour days. I work 8 hour days and get all my shit done, everything. If I worked 10 hour days, I'd probably get a little more done at the beginning but then my productivity would plummet and then I'd just become resentful of it.

kruipen 13y ago

> But stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong when there are so many factors at play. ... > Oh and definitely exercise every week.

Elizer0x0309 13y ago

Preach the word. I personally do fine with 16 hrs per day. Yes I'm healthy, fit and extremely successful.

dinkumthinkum 13y ago
You work this sustained? Then unless you sleep very little, you are doing nothing but work. I don't think this is very sustainable. Some places typically use the phrase "pics or GTFO," seems apt ... :) Maybe it's true; I guess it is clearly possible and some people but I don't think many people could sustain or find it worth it for very long.
- Elizer0x0309 13y ago
  That's the point of above comment. I don't go around telling people you're lazy or anything. We each have our priorities and that list decides how much time we invest in each. For me purpose is to better the world through technology. Others it's through family, friends etc. All play a part in forming a society! A great one too might I add! xP

memracom 13y ago

I agree that developers should not try to work more than 40 hours per week on a regular basis. But when I was younger, I went for years working around 16 hours per day, 7 days per week and everybody thought that I was a rockstar genius. But it was not all mental work. I probably spent about 8 hours a day on software development and then I wehnt home and worked another 8 hours in my half acre of gardens, 3 acre asparagus field or shoveling the daily snowfall of 6 inches or so, off my 100 yard driveway. Not to mention sawing and splitting a few cords of firewood to heat the house, cutting Christmas trees to sell. The physical work was energizing after a day spent writing software, and the mental work was energizing after all the physical labor that I had done the day before. I'm not saying that the physical labor made me more productive at developing software, although that may be true. But I think that when people count hours and then try to use that to prove a point, they forget to classify what is being done in those hours. Case in point. When I have a tough coding problem, I don't slog away at it for extra hours. I go sit in a different chair, stare out the window, look at the cloud shapes, then close my eyes and think of absurd ways to solve the problem. Now if I would include that time in my count of hours per day and tell you that I can regularly put in a 10 hour day, you would be misled. The total hours are not as important as what you do with those hours. If you are going to play on the net for 20 hours a week, then yeah, you may need to put in a full 60 hours. Or you could stop goofing around and do your work. Pay attention to your productivity. Split your day into chunks, take your coffee and lunch breaks. I used to join the smokers on their smoke breaks even though I didn't smoke because it got me out of the chair, moving around, and I got to stand in the fresh air and sunshine (upwind of course). And I almost always go for a walk at lunchtime. This is not a waste of time. These pauses are essential for you to get your maximum mental effort. Sure, sometimes you get stuck into a problems and go for hours without leaving the chair. Even if you are 50 you can do that once in a while if you eat healthy (read Joel Fuhrman), but the key here is "once in a while". Once in a while you can pull out all the stops, but like heroin, it does not get better by doubling the dose. Buddha had it right when he said (and I paraphrase him) "All things in Moderation". It takes great discipline, but discipline is what software developers need to cultivate in themselves.

notastartup 13y ago

The point of the story is that more hours is not increased productivity. Look at Germany's working hours for the average salary man. They work less than British salary man and are far more productive.

beedogs 13y ago

Regarding friends/partners/etc. If the amount of hours you want to work isn't compatible with your partner's expectations... get a new partner. Or, hey, just go live in a cave with your sad, forever-alone 60-hour-a-week self.