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Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

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Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

#2

Post by codefined »

My work week is generally 30 hours or so, which provides me more than enough to provide for both myself and another, as well as excess for savings.

If you're working that long, I feel the other parts of your life may be suffering. Do you have a fixed time contract or are you contracting?

Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

#4

Post by taylodl »

I don't know about it being normal but it's not out of line. I tend to work 10 hours/day 5 days a week and have been doing so for the past 35 years. There have been times when I've worked 60-70 hours/week and I can tell you that's less productive than working 50 hours/week because fatigue makes things worse - those extra hours are actually working against you. As a result I've learned you can't work more then 10 hours/day and you need at least one day off per week. That means the max you can work is 60 hours/week, and that's not sustainable. You can do that a few weeks but you can't sustain that. 50 hours/week is both sustainable and doesn't work against you. As with anything, YMMV. 50 hours/week is what I have found I can sustain. Your sustainability rate may be more or less. You need to find what works best for you.

Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

#9

Post by smclaughlin »

So much of “normal” depends what _your_ objective is.

If you are very career driven, work at a startup, or would like to generate additional opportunities for your own advancement - 60hrs a week might be normal.

In my own experience, you stop measuring work by hours at that point, and convert to measurement by results (which, if you are ambitious, leads to more hours actually worked).

If you want to work fewer hours because you don’t want to prioritize your work or career (to spend time with friends or family, other passions, etc), that’s fine. There are probably folks with that mindset who would view 30 hours as normal.

Personally, I am at my office working 12hrs a day 5 days a week. Then about 10 hours on Sunday.

But that’s because my objective at this phase of my life is to build a winning business and maximize the value of our equity.

Your objective is probably different from mine, but hopefully not different from those you are working with.

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