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In my own experience, in the "short term" it really comes down to motivation / inspiration. If you are sufficiently motivated, overworking yourself seems to be

In my own experience, in the "short term" it really comes down to motivation / inspiration. If you are sufficiently motivated, overworking yourself seems to be far less painful, and productivity doesn't really seem to be impacted. I've certainly pulled all-nighters before with code going into production pretty successfully. I specifically put short term in quotes because I'm not sure how I would define it. It probably depends on a lot of factors, but I wouldn't stretch it past several weeks. Way past that, motivation also seems to be highly impacted, and you become the kind of tired, error prone zombie who stretches out their 8 hours of work over 16.

kamaal 12y ago
I agree. Actually its about knowing when to sleep than sleeping less always, more like when to accelerate and when to brake. I guess that's what Edison did too. Many times over a period what you really need is long stretches of un interrupted time to get something big done. You will have to take a break after that. Come back with a fresh purpose, an new challenge and start again.
AnimalMuppet 12y ago
One of XP's guiding principles is "Never work overtime for longer than one week." It's OK to work an 80-hour week. You can get a lot done. But the next week needs to be a 40-hour week, or the pace isn't sustainable. It isn't necessarily an iron-clad rule, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb. Past one week, you're just hurting your productivity. My experience bears this out as a fairly accurate guide.