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Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

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Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#91

Post by elliotec »

rmsaksida wrote: post #9

I mostly agree with the author, but I don't see the point of stopping yourself when you're "in the zone". Why lose the flexibility? What works for me is having a baseline of 3 or 4 hours of daily work, and not imposing any hard limits when I want or need to do extra hours. This works out great, because I have no excuses not to do the boring routine work as it's just a few hours, but I also have the liberty of doing o…

I totally agree with you. "The Zone" is arguably the ideal state for productivity (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)), so why cut it short?

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#92

Post by ghaff »

Michielvv wrote: post #80
wilblack wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could say that but it seems like you will be turning down a lot of work. If you are only working 3 to 4 hours a day it is not that hard to double yours hours for a week or two to meet a client's deadline. It will keep your clients happy and if you charge by the hour it a nice bonus on your invoice.

I think the assumption of the author is that the 3 hours he does work are best-case productive hours. If you work 40+ hours a week, you still have to account for all those staring-at-your screen hours, that are not contributing towards meeting the deadline. Somewhat related: I found it is a lot easier (and natural) to estimate projects in terms of 'ideal' hours. And then just assume there are only 20 to 25 of those a…

This is somewhat different but, back when I did consulting work that often involved writing in some form, we tended to think in terms of the work that we could do in a "production day" of about 4 hours. The thinking was that, on a given day, we'd spend about half on project-based work and about half on the phone with clients and others, doing miscellaneous research and "research," internal discussions, and various administrivia. Sometimes we'd buckle down more to get something done and other times we were at conferences and the like--but we found this a good rule-of-thumb.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#93

Post by TensionBuoy »

3 hours is not enough time to get anything done. I'm self employed. I go 12 hours straight before I realize I should probably eat something. I love what I'm doing so I'm drawn to it all day, every day. At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though. 3 hours is just getting warmed up.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#94

Post by maxxxxx »

When I was freelancing there were a lot of days when I didn't do much but then there were days when I got into the flow and worked 2 or 3 days almost straight. Most of the time this ended up at around 40 hours/ week on average but in spurts. This was probably the best work environment I have ever been in.

I hate about the corporate workplace that it doesn't accept any kind of rhythm but treats you like a machine that performs exactly the same at all times. Nature is built around seasons and so are humans. They are not machines.

I would much prefer to have a time sheet where I can do my 40 hours whenever I feel like it.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#95

Post by maxxxxx »

TensionBuoy wrote: post #93

3 hours is not enough time to get anything done. I'm self employed. I go 12 hours straight before I realize I should probably eat something. I love what I'm doing so I'm drawn to it all day, every day. At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though. 3 hours is just getting warmed up.

Do you do this every day? I also used to go 12 hours straight but then there were days I would take off and not do anything. I am not capable of going 12 hours hard every day.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#96

Post by dkopi »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #78
dkopi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This approach has a lot of pros and cons. By committing to a fixed price for a project, you're taking a lot of risk on yourself. What if it takes more than Y? What if you weren't able to expect the true scope of the project? What if the customer isn't cooperative and wastes your time? What is considered a reasonable delivery? How many bugs do you continue to fix for free without charging more? How many changes to you…

What if it takes more than Y? No problem there. Educate your clients. Tell them if it takes significantly longer than expected you will come back to them. Tell them it is not likely but you want to be straight from the beginning.

You still end up taking the financial risk on yourself.

It's one thing if the project is delay because of you. Its another thing if the project is delayed because their backend guy hasn't fixed a few bugs and you're stuck creating ugly workarounds in the client code.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#97

Post by artursapek »

katzgrau wrote: post #66
err4nt wrote: post #39

I have experienced a similar thing while freelancing or design and web development. I used to work 16 hours some days and less hours others, but then sometimes I would need to work and found it hard to kick it into gear. I think creativity is like a well, and when you do creative work its like drawing that water out. If you use too much water one day, the well runs dry. You have to wait for the goundwater to fill it…

"Not only did I begin viewing creativity as a limited resource I create and have access to over time, but I noticed that some activities, like reading about science, listening to music, and walking around town actually increase the rate at which the well fills up." +1, many times over. Taking breaks and having fun are very important to maintaining high productivity and creativity when I am working. Unfortunately it's…

> "there's someone out there who is working harder than you on the same thing and they're going to win if you let up."

I've heard Elon Musk say this a lot. It seems to work for him, at least.

https://youtu.be/GtaxU6DZvLs?t=79

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#98

Post by thearn4 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #94

When I was freelancing there were a lot of days when I didn't do much but then there were days when I got into the flow and worked 2 or 3 days almost straight. Most of the time this ended up at around 40 hours/ week on average but in spurts. This was probably the best work environment I have ever been in. I hate about the corporate workplace that it doesn't accept any kind of rhythm but treats you like a machine that…

This is one thing about federal work that I can appreciate, if nothing else, it is at least flexible.

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#99

Post by codethief »

logicallee wrote: post #2

Historically, working 24 hours a day (I include sleep because after a certain number of hours you even dream of code or your business) for 1 year typically accomplishes more than working 3 hours per day for 8 years. Or 1.5 hours per day for 16 years. There is just some kind of economy of scale. --------- EDIT: I got downvoted. Come up with whatever standard of productivity you want (ANY standard that you want) and ad…

I think your point with Einstein is invalid.

"Einstein immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he held a professorship at Princeton University until his retirement in 1945. His routine there was simple. Between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M. he ate breakfast and perused the daily papers. At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00, then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters."

(Source: Mason Currey – Daily Rituals: How Artists Work; found on http://jrbenjamin.com/2013/08/08/the-old-elephants-tricks/)

Clearly, this quote doesn't cover the time of the 1900s and 1910s but I doubt Einstein significantly changed his work habits (that had enabled him to be so successful in the first place) after emigrating to the States. In any case, he certainly did not work on theoretical physics for 8 hours per day, let alone 24 hours.

Besides, being a theoretical physicist myself, I can tell you from personal experience that thinking about theoretical problems is hard work and depletes you of energy rather quickly. I don't think success in theoretical physics depends on how much time you spend (beyond a handful of hours a day) but rather on your perseverence, on what problems you choose and on your ability to come up with new ways in which to rephrase the problem.

If that still doesn't satisfy you, you can also google for biographies of successful mathematicians to see that a lot of them considered rest to be important and didn't work more than a couple hours per day. See, for instance, http://mathoverflow.net/questions/9799/how-much-work-does-it... .

Re: Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

#100

Post by logicallee »

codethief wrote: post #99
logicallee wrote: post #2

Historically, working 24 hours a day (I include sleep because after a certain number of hours you even dream of code or your business) for 1 year typically accomplishes more than working 3 hours per day for 8 years. Or 1.5 hours per day for 16 years. There is just some kind of economy of scale. --------- EDIT: I got downvoted. Come up with whatever standard of productivity you want (ANY standard that you want) and ad…

I think your point with Einstein is invalid. "Einstein immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he held a professorship at Princeton University until his retirement in 1945. His routine there was simple. Between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M. he ate breakfast and perused the daily papers. At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university woul…

We are discussing the suggestion that people work 3 hours. (Indeed the title of the article is literally "Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday".)

Your quote does cover 3 hours of work very clearly:

"At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00". That is almost exactly 3 hours. Your quote clearly describes about three hours of work per day, from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM. The only problem? Your quote continues "then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters."

Literally "the rest of the afternoon was spent at home continuing his work...dealing with correspondnece..." and after a 6:30 pm supper "more work and more letters."

I will thank you for not cutting your quote off at the word "he worked until 1:00", which is the kind of example I was asking for (describing a 3-hour workday). The only issue is that an additional 5-10 hours of work follow. It's no example at all. In fact, taken as a whole it's pretty much the lifestyle I was describing, working from morning until late into the night.

If you do know of any scientist who worked for 3 hours a day I'd love to hear it.

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