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Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

37signals.com

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Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#11

Post by pg »

sanj wrote: post #6
pg wrote: post #4

Doing a startup seems to me more like playing soccer than running a marathon. Though you need to pace yourself, there are moments when you want to work super hard. So while being out of breath is not a sufficient condition for winning, it probably is a necessary one. Likewise for startups. Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one. Not long-term, obvio…

I don't believe the "out of breath" analogy quite holds, because being sleep deprived is not working at your brain's full potential, whereas running flat out probably is working at your lung's full potential. A better analogy might be playing while hurt. You're clearly not at your full potential, but you are making progress. But I'd argue that I'd rather have people on my team that aren't hurt: it is detrimental to p…

You're misunderstanding the metaphor. Working while tired is working at your full potential measured in what you can do in n hours (which is the case you usually face in a startup), not in what you can do per hour (which rarely matters).

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#12

Post by Tamerlin »

axod wrote: post #8

Depriving yourself of sleep for long periods of time is obviously not good. But pulling a couple of all-nighters a week when needed is pretty necessary if you want to get anywhere IMHO.

I think it's the "when needed" part that is the real problem. Most startups use being a startup as an excuse to justify a perpetual crunch mode to make up for poor planning.

All three of the startups I worked for over the years tried that, and none of them have gone anywhere significant. All of them ended up laying off a lot of people.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#13

Post by sabat »

(For once) I agree with 37 Signals. I'll go ya one further: if you plan well, there is no need to chronically work 12+ hour days. Really.

In pre-dot-bomb startups, we used to work like that -- mainly because we were writing tools and infrastructure that now exists in generic form. For free. On the inter-webs.

I'm just saying. :-)

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#14

Post by joshstaiger »

goofygrin wrote: post #7
spydez wrote: post #5

This is why I wish more software jobs had flexible hours. The vast majority of programmers have absolutely no need to be in their office at some predefined hour. So if you had to work late one night, it'd be nice to be able to sleep some of it off the next day. But no... Megacorp wants you in your chair by 8. And as a night owl, I can not fall asleep before 2-3ish am, but I have to be at work by 8 or 8:30, so I'm con…

I second this. Personally I am super productive from about 9pm to 2-3am. But I need to be at the client at a reasonable hour (9am-9:30am). Lately I've taken to hacking away from about 9pm to midnight then going to bed so that I can keep everyone happy. Of course, I tend to toss and turn a bit because there is always something that my mind is chewing on that I left off at midnight. Weekends, all bets are off and my sl…

I have the same tossing and turning problem when I work close to bed time.

I find that reading a fiction book, even just a few pages, helps flush my brain's "cache" and relax.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#15

Post by sgoraya »

The 'badge of honor' concept rang true for me while working the videogame industry - The crunch period was often times discussed with great pride, 'Man, I was up for two straight days fixing the item bug!'

The ironic thing was that more bugs were being introduced during this period than the 'regular' development period (We measured it during one of my last projects).

Our conclusion was that we'll work as hard as it takes, but sleep was necessary - We mandated that everyone get rest after 10 hours at the office (on the couch, under the desk, or at home). Though since I left, they went back to their old ways.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#16

Post by wanorris »

pg wrote: post #11
sanj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the "out of breath" analogy quite holds, because being sleep deprived is not working at your brain's full potential, whereas running flat out probably is working at your lung's full potential. A better analogy might be playing while hurt. You're clearly not at your full potential, but you are making progress. But I'd argue that I'd rather have people on my team that aren't hurt: it is detrimental to p…

You're misunderstanding the metaphor. Working while tired is working at your full potential measured in what you can do in n hours (which is the case you usually face in a startup), not in what you can do per hour (which rarely matters).

I think it's valid up to a point.

But the playing while injured metaphor has some parallels as well. Not only is this a badge of honor, but it's flatly expected of you once you get past a certain level of competition. This is generally good and right.

However, past a certain level of injury, you're hurting both yourself and the team, and you're better off taking time to heal.

My personal experience with sleep deprivation is that if I go too long and too hard, I am doing less work than if I had rested, even in absolute (and not per hour) terms. And DHH is 100% correct that as most people get tired, their solutions to problems get worse -- that's definitely true for me.

I've tried various levels of sleep over the years, from a solid 8 hours a night to so little sleep that I would literally hallucinate during the day. For me, except in short (2-3 day) bursts, at least 6-7 hours of sleep a night is most effective for my ongoing productivity. Any less than that, and I would have gotten more done net if I had slept.

Having said that, everyone is different, and if you're one of those people who can get 2 hours of sleep on an ongoing basis and still be highly productive, then cool.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#17

Post by sanj »

pg wrote: post #11
sanj wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the "out of breath" analogy quite holds, because being sleep deprived is not working at your brain's full potential, whereas running flat out probably is working at your lung's full potential. A better analogy might be playing while hurt. You're clearly not at your full potential, but you are making progress. But I'd argue that I'd rather have people on my team that aren't hurt: it is detrimental to p…

You're misunderstanding the metaphor. Working while tired is working at your full potential measured in what you can do in n hours (which is the case you usually face in a startup), not in what you can do per hour (which rarely matters).

Actually, that's how I interpreted it, but I appreciate the clarification.

But I still disagree. Anecdotally, I've found that coding for 6 hours a days gets more features implemented and bugs fixed than coding for 14 hours a day.

The loss of mental acuity, clarity and creativity (again, this is for me, and anecdotal) is simply too high a price to pay.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#18

Post by JesseAldridge »

pg wrote: post #4

Doing a startup seems to me more like playing soccer than running a marathon. Though you need to pace yourself, there are moments when you want to work super hard. So while being out of breath is not a sufficient condition for winning, it probably is a necessary one. Likewise for startups. Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one. Not long-term, obvio…

I'm not so sure about this. Working long hours for a small period doesn't seem to me like it would change your progress by an order of magnitude. If you build something great, does it really matter whether it takes a few extra days?

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#19

Post by nostrademons »

pg wrote: post #4

Doing a startup seems to me more like playing soccer than running a marathon. Though you need to pace yourself, there are moments when you want to work super hard. So while being out of breath is not a sufficient condition for winning, it probably is a necessary one. Likewise for startups. Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one. Not long-term, obvio…

"Sleep deprivation is not a sufficient condition for winning, but empirically it seems to be a necessary one."

It doesn't seem to be a necessary one either, given the existence of counterexamples. Eg. Pierre Omidyar started E-bay while keeping his day job and adamantly refused to work more than 8 hours/day on it even after going full-time. One of the reasons he stepped back from a management position was that he didn't culturally fit in with E-bay after hiring a few work-through-the-night cowboy coders.

Re: Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor

#20

Post by neilc » 

  So trying to extract 110% performance from today when it
  means having only 70% performance available tomorrow is a
  bad deal. You end up with just 77% of your available peak.
Uh, not quite: x(1.1) + x(0.7) != 0.77(2x). Reminds me of the fuzzy math in DHH's startup revenue calculations...
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