Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by barbs » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 12:08 AM UTC

JacobAldridge wrote: post #7

If I told you that every car needed 8 gallons of gas to drive 100 miles, you'd point out I was wrong - so many different makes and models, not to mention variables from tire pressure to driving style. Yet for the potentially even more complex range that is different people, it amazes me that so much of the advice is didactic - we all need 8 hours sleep, 8 glasses of water, and 8 hours of work with breaks is optimal.…

I agree with what you're saying, which is also why I think the title of the blog post should really be: "I work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday". It's less of a command or suggestion and more an expression of what works for him.

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

#122

Post by lllllll » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 1:12 AM UTC

wprapido wrote: post #111

lojack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, consider charging by the day. It's unconventional, but it makes sense for a number of reasons.

in the UK contractors / consultants / freelancers do charge daily and i definitely prefer it over hourly rates or fixed per project prices

I've been checking UK ads looking for contractors, and I was wondering: How do you take into account long (8h+) vs short(4h+) days?

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

#123

Post by joeguilmette » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 1:13 AM UTC

I work on a remote team and I am only accountable for my output. I end up working 15-25hrs a week. Sometimes more if something is on fire.

I usually work 7 days a week, but invariably a couple days a week I only work an hour, checking email and replying to people.

The work I do is of better quality, I'm happier, and I easily could work at this pace until the day I die.

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

#124

Post by jsli » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 1:57 AM UTC

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…

Exactly. This reminds me of the book "Willpower" by Roy F. Baumeister.

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

#125

Post by tim333 » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 2:01 AM UTC

vmorgulis wrote: post #107

artursapek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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

Yes but he doesn't code. He is more a manager and a good one. Programming requires a lot of concentration that is hard to sustain for a long time (the author of the post is an iOS programmer).

He used to code and wrote his first product zip2 over the summer in 95. Not sure about the hours - I guess you can do long hours for a couple of months https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sLmeYNmZKY

(In the vid he's saying he used to sleep on a futon in the office as he couldn't afford a flat at the time)

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

#126

Post by tim333 » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 2:39 AM UTC

lucaspiller wrote: post #42

JacobAldridge wrote: post #7

If I told you that every car needed 8 gallons of gas to drive 100 miles, you'd point out I was wrong - so many different makes and models, not to mention variables from tire pressure to driving style. Yet for the potentially even more complex range that is different people, it amazes me that so much of the advice is didactic - we all need 8 hours sleep, 8 glasses of water, and 8 hours of work with breaks is optimal.…

This is one of my gripes about working in an office. More often than not I cannot work continuously from 9-5, and end up wasting time just trying to get myself back into working mode - which usually descends into browsing HN/Reddit/etc or just working half as effectively as I usually do. When I work remotely and have freedom over my time, I can take a few hours off to go for a walk, sleep, go for a long lunch, meet f…

Joel Splosky chatting about HN/Reddit vs in the zone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF8ZVB-v3IM&feature=youtu.be...

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

#127

Post by tonyedgecombe » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 6:53 AM UTC

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.

> At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though.

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

#128

Post by Pamar » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 7:09 AM UTC

wilblack wrote: post #74

I started contract work last fall. I set me rate assuming a 25 hour work week. At first I tried working ~4 hrs / day everyday day. I quickly realized this did not work for me. Working everyday, even just a little is not sustainable for me. I have a family and they are still on the 9 to 5 schedule, so working even a few hours on weekends cut into my family time which is important to me. So now I force myself to take a…

Have you considered practicing a Martial Art? It definitely helps resetting your mind for the duration of the practice.

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

#129

Post by mikekchar » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 8:01 AM UTC

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'm currently experimenting with a very long kata (tens of hours) where I do 1 pomodoro a day (although I frequently miss a day, and occasionally do 2 pomodoros in a day). What I have found fascinating is that stopping early keeps my interest up for the project. I "feel like" working on the code every single day and only miss days due to illness or other unavoidable circumstances.

There is something to be said for always leaving yourself wanting to do a bit more. Never being satisfied means that you are always hungry for more.

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

#130

Post by onion2k » Mon, Mar 14, 2016, 10:44 AM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #60

onion2k wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding your edit - no one is downvoting you because they believe they can do more in 90 minutes than 24 hours. You're being downvoted because you're saying that productivity is infinitely scalable - I believe that's wrong. Over a certain amount of work productivity drops to the point where it creates a negative impact on your effectiveness. If you find that you're effective for every hour you work regardless how l…

Why would you say that I'm stating productivity is "infinitely" scalable? Is a billion "infinitely" more than a million? I'm saying if you want to accomplish something great and groundbreaking, it's better to work 24 hours a day at it than three hours a day, and, yes, you can stop after a year or two. You literally have as much life left, but you can accomplish a huge amount more, by concentrating the work rather tha…

Why would you say that I'm stating productivity is "infinitely" scalable?

Because you're saying that doing more work is always more effective than doing less work, all the way up to the maximum possible amount of work. That's the definition of infinite scaleability.

I'm saying if you want to accomplish something great and groundbreaking, it's better to work 24 hours a day at it than three hours a day

And that's what I'm saying isn't true, although I'm using the lower value of 6 hours rather than 3. Typical people can't work 24 hours a day for months on end without having a catastrophic crash in the end. Similarly, typical people can't put in more than about 8 hours solid work without becoming less effective, to the point of negative effectiveness. Personally, if I work for 14 hours a day I make lots of mistakes and have to spend time fixing them, which means I'm not really doing 14 hours work - I'm doing 14 hours minus the time it takes to fix things. I might as well just do the 6 or 8 or 10 hours that I can do without things going wrong.

Saying that you can work for any number of hours a day ad infinitum without ever getting burnt out is controversial because anyone who's been a developer for more than a few years knows it isn't true.