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> I often worked until 1am. I’d usually start at 6am. I always worked on weekends, albeit with leaving time for family activities as well. The laptop came on ev

> I often worked until 1am. I’d usually start at 6am. I always worked on weekends, albeit with leaving time for family activities as well. The laptop came on every holiday and I had to work very hard at balancing productivity with time out. Like I say, that’s not very palatable to many people but this is what it took for me to get this amount of stuff done. Does anyone else feel like this falls under a combination of "workaholic" and luck of genetics? Even with caffeine, I simply can't do two nights in a row with less than 7 hours of sleep and retain a level of mental acuity I need to "work" effectively. Of course he may not be meaning this literally but I have the feeling the way that is written he is.

JimiofEden 11y ago
Perhaps, but I've fallen both in and out of this mindset, so I think it might have more to do with your state of mind. In my mind at the time, something needed to get done. And I was the only one that could do it. And I'm too proud to admit failure, so damn the torpedoes, and full steam ahead, about a weeks worth of no sleep, caffeine induced, coding frenzy. Both before and after that experience however, I'm the opposite. Unless it's a task that I own, and I feel like I NEED to do, and won't rest until it's done, then it's whatever man. Let me sleep. So for my situation, maybe it's all about getting yourself into that mindset and hyping yourself up for something. (Though all things considered, I was mega burnt out after what I did and would not ever try it again.)
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Perhaps. Out of curiosity, were you doing something that had a high-cost-per-defect? [e.g. All bugs lead directly to a loss of money for the company and/or accounting uncertainty on exactly where the money/inventory went]? The reason I ask is generally the only people I ever see saying stuff like that tend to be engaging in projects with low-risk-defects that don't translate to 4-5 figures of financial losses per defect but rather a "meh, I'll spend an hour later figuring it out and it costs me basically $0" kind of defects.
vtlynch 11y ago
What I find striking about this, and other parts of the article, is how they seem like they must be contradictory. He spent 19 hours of his day working? Thats exceptional. A feat I certainly couldnt achieve. But... he also spent an hour and a half playing high intensity tennis and/or taking regular walks to the shops near his house? That dosent sound like 19 hours of work to me. And he balanced his personal life and relationships whilst working 19 hours a day? Or did his family only see the benefits in the last 18 months (as he states near the end of the article)? So often when I read these "hack your life/productivity" articles and actually try to figure out the logistics, it just does not seem to check out.
lmm 11y ago
Depends on the work though. If he was spending 2 hours/day reading and writing emails, maybe half-asleep is a perfectly appropriate state to be doing that in. I program more than twice as well when I've got a good night's sleep, and I'm happier. But if I wanted to get promoted at all costs, I'd probably sleep less and spend more time in the office. I'd be less productive, and less healthy, but I fear that, sadly, in many corporate environments I'd be more likely to get promoted.
- SZJX 11y ago
  Not really "sadly" though I guess. If your manager has ability he'll know whether you've produced quality work or not. Just working for extra hours for its own sake at the expense of low-quality work, that doesn't contribute anything at all. If the IT managers are like that they'd be doing a horrible job.
sp332 11y ago
I suppose it's possible that he's right, but it seems more likely that he was not being very productive due to being tired all the time. That's why he felt like he had to work such long hours. Probably, if he had worked a normal number of hours a day, he would have accomplished as much.
- SZJX 11y ago
  Back in my high school when preparing for university application etc. I used to sleep little and work a lot. I'd say that was the time when I was most productive. I slept at noon which must have been very helpful. Now I just can't find that level of concentration and efficiency back.
teddyuk 11y ago
I got myself stuck in a bit of a rut at work a couple of years ago and had basically let myself become worthless in the job market and to get myself out of it I re-skilled (re-learnt an old skill) in my own time, got a new job working with that and also started writing / blogging / coding on the side. I regularly go to sleep after midnight and get up before 6 (young children etc). What I am getting at is that it is hard but possible to get by on less sleep (although 20 mins meditation helps) - although there are def times when I realise that I should just stop and go to sleep from a quality point of view. Having a family who actually wants to see me they wouldn't put up with me taking a laptop on holiday and I won't work on weekends during the day (maybe a conf or something once or twice a year) - I will work in the evening.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.htm... > The six-hour subjects fared no better — steadily declining over the two weeks — on a test of working memory in which they had to remember numbers and symbols and substitute one for the other. The same was true for an addition-subtraction task that measures speed and accuracy. All told, by the end of two weeks, the six-hour sleepers were as impaired as those who, in another Dinges study, had been sleep-deprived for 24 hours straight — the cognitive equivalent of being legally drunk. https://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer https://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer > People like this put themselves, their teams, their companies, and the general public in serious jeopardy, says Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, the Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School.1 To him, encouraging a culture of sleepless machismo is worse than nonsensical; it is downright dangerous, and the antithesis of intelligent management. He notes that while corporations have all kinds of policies designed to prevent employee endangerment—rules against workplace smoking, drinking, drugs, sexual harassment, and so on—they sometimes push employees to the brink of self-destruction. Being “on” pretty much around the clock induces a level of impairment every bit as risky as intoxication. The majority of people can't run on 6 hours of sleep. It is the luck of genetics to be able to do that on a regular basis and pretending it is anything else is silly. I can point to numerous articles like these with similar results.

JimiofEden 11y ago

Perhaps, but I've fallen both in and out of this mindset, so I think it might have more to do with your state of mind. In my mind at the time, something needed to get done. And I was the only one that could do it. And I'm too proud to admit failure, so damn the torpedoes, and full steam ahead, about a weeks worth of no sleep, caffeine induced, coding frenzy. Both before and after that experience however, I'm the opposite. Unless it's a task that I own, and I feel like I NEED to do, and won't rest until it's done, then it's whatever man. Let me sleep. So for my situation, maybe it's all about getting yourself into that mindset and hyping yourself up for something. (Though all things considered, I was mega burnt out after what I did and would not ever try it again.)

fweespeech 11y ago
Perhaps. Out of curiosity, were you doing something that had a high-cost-per-defect? [e.g. All bugs lead directly to a loss of money for the company and/or accounting uncertainty on exactly where the money/inventory went]? The reason I ask is generally the only people I ever see saying stuff like that tend to be engaging in projects with low-risk-defects that don't translate to 4-5 figures of financial losses per defect but rather a "meh, I'll spend an hour later figuring it out and it costs me basically $0" kind of defects.

vtlynch 11y ago

What I find striking about this, and other parts of the article, is how they seem like they must be contradictory. He spent 19 hours of his day working? Thats exceptional. A feat I certainly couldnt achieve. But... he also spent an hour and a half playing high intensity tennis and/or taking regular walks to the shops near his house? That dosent sound like 19 hours of work to me. And he balanced his personal life and relationships whilst working 19 hours a day? Or did his family only see the benefits in the last 18 months (as he states near the end of the article)? So often when I read these "hack your life/productivity" articles and actually try to figure out the logistics, it just does not seem to check out.

lmm 11y ago

Depends on the work though. If he was spending 2 hours/day reading and writing emails, maybe half-asleep is a perfectly appropriate state to be doing that in. I program more than twice as well when I've got a good night's sleep, and I'm happier. But if I wanted to get promoted at all costs, I'd probably sleep less and spend more time in the office. I'd be less productive, and less healthy, but I fear that, sadly, in many corporate environments I'd be more likely to get promoted.

SZJX 11y ago
Not really "sadly" though I guess. If your manager has ability he'll know whether you've produced quality work or not. Just working for extra hours for its own sake at the expense of low-quality work, that doesn't contribute anything at all. If the IT managers are like that they'd be doing a horrible job.

sp332 11y ago

I suppose it's possible that he's right, but it seems more likely that he was not being very productive due to being tired all the time. That's why he felt like he had to work such long hours. Probably, if he had worked a normal number of hours a day, he would have accomplished as much.

SZJX 11y ago
Back in my high school when preparing for university application etc. I used to sleep little and work a lot. I'd say that was the time when I was most productive. I slept at noon which must have been very helpful. Now I just can't find that level of concentration and efficiency back.

teddyuk 11y ago

I got myself stuck in a bit of a rut at work a couple of years ago and had basically let myself become worthless in the job market and to get myself out of it I re-skilled (re-learnt an old skill) in my own time, got a new job working with that and also started writing / blogging / coding on the side. I regularly go to sleep after midnight and get up before 6 (young children etc). What I am getting at is that it is hard but possible to get by on less sleep (although 20 mins meditation helps) - although there are def times when I realise that I should just stop and go to sleep from a quality point of view. Having a family who actually wants to see me they wouldn't put up with me taking a laptop on holiday and I won't work on weekends during the day (maybe a conf or something once or twice a year) - I will work in the evening.

fweespeech 11y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sleep-t.htm... > The six-hour subjects fared no better — steadily declining over the two weeks — on a test of working memory in which they had to remember numbers and symbols and substitute one for the other. The same was true for an addition-subtraction task that measures speed and accuracy. All told, by the end of two weeks, the six-hour sleepers were as impaired as those who, in another Dinges study, had been sleep-deprived for 24 hours straight — the cognitive equivalent of being legally drunk. https://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer https://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer > People like this put themselves, their teams, their companies, and the general public in serious jeopardy, says Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, the Baldino Professor of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School.1 To him, encouraging a culture of sleepless machismo is worse than nonsensical; it is downright dangerous, and the antithesis of intelligent management. He notes that while corporations have all kinds of policies designed to prevent employee endangerment—rules against workplace smoking, drinking, drugs, sexual harassment, and so on—they sometimes push employees to the brink of self-destruction. Being “on” pretty much around the clock induces a level of impairment every bit as risky as intoxication. The majority of people can't run on 6 hours of sleep. It is the luck of genetics to be able to do that on a regular basis and pretending it is anything else is silly. I can point to numerous articles like these with similar results.