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How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

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21–30 of 34 posts

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#21

Post by vaksel »

Personally I don't subscribe to the notion that you need to work 100 hours per week to be successful mentality.

You do need to be serious and work on your start up full time, but you will most likely be able to get just as much done working for 60 hours as you do working 100.

The reason for that is because you can actually stay focused on your work for 60 hours. Don't get me wrong if you actually have something to do, its perfectly fine working for 100 hours. But don't try to force yourself into working a 100 hour week, just to convince yourself that you are taking it seriously.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#22

Post by Mistone »

honestly i only got half way through - its really long and i cant be bothered to read long stuff unless its really good.

this guys seems really motivated to succeed and not afraid of truly digging in to get what he wants, so of course, best of luck bro!

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#23

Post by ibsulon »

The question I have, of course, is how does one keeps their mental clarity of working even 70 hours a week over a month? For all the workaholics I've seen, most are not able to do so, lose sight of the big picture, and end up doing worse work than if they'd kept a normal schedule.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#24

Post by mhartl »

If you're working 80-100 hours/week, what are you maximizing apart from time spent "working"? Even if you're trying to maximize productivity (and I'm not sure that's the right thing in life to maximize), I bet 80+ work-weeks are supra-optimal.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#25

Post by 0x44 »

pbnaidu wrote: post #10

I think how many hours per week you can work is an individual thing. I need atleast 7 hours of sleep to think straight and produce meaningful stuff (code, designs, conversations, etc).

I don't need seven hours of sleep to think straight and produce meaningful stuff. I need seven hours of sleep to be able to convey the meaningful stuff to other people. I tend to talk a lot faster than people when I haven't gotten much sleep, and change subjects pretty quickly.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#26

Post by swombat »

sdpurtill wrote: post #5

working more than 80 hours a week isn't sustainable over long periods of time, if anything it will just hasten a huge burnout. anyone can work 80-100 hours a week - it doesn't mean they're going to get more done. work in bursts when you are most efficient, that seems to work best for me.

Working for 80+ hours a week may not be sustainable, but doing something interesting, challenging and enjoyable for 80 hours a week certainly is.

I consider working on my start-up to be something I do because I enjoy it, not because of external pressures. Building a tech business is just a very enjoyable way to pass the time. I'd be doing that even if I had $100m in the bank.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#27

Post by Hexstream »

krschultz wrote: post #6
martythemaniak wrote: post #2

"The real truth is, entrepreneurs have a much greater respect for life and the purpose of a startup is to condense much of what would have been a very dull, very boring 9-5 for 40-50 years into a fast-paced, stress-intensive 4-7 year startup." The real truth is, that won't happen unless you hit a jackpot, so if you're actually banking on working 100hr weeks in startup, so you can relax later on, I suggest taking 30mi…

The real question though is why you would WANT to retire in 10 years? He would be 32 or 34, and he will have spent his entire 20s elminating time for friends, relationships, and hobbies. So you get to the 30s, and suddenly you have 10 million dollars and what are you going to do? Stop working and do nothing? He already said he doesn't want to do that. And if you try to meet someone for a relationship - it is somewhat…

Myself, I want to "retire" early so I can start working more exclusively on what I love without having to worry when and how I can monetize my work. I'd rather have 500k in bank and complete independence than 100 millions and having to report to someone.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#28

Post by Tamerlin »

axod wrote: post #3
martythemaniak wrote: post #2

"The real truth is, entrepreneurs have a much greater respect for life and the purpose of a startup is to condense much of what would have been a very dull, very boring 9-5 for 40-50 years into a fast-paced, stress-intensive 4-7 year startup." The real truth is, that won't happen unless you hit a jackpot, so if you're actually banking on working 100hr weeks in startup, so you can relax later on, I suggest taking 30mi…

If you work hard, make good decisions, and think hard, it's not really a lottery. Everything in life is a risk, so it's better to try hard, make a real go of it, than to sit at the sidelines and never try.

If all you're doing is working and sleeping, you're neither making good decisions nor thinking hard. You're just faking it and making up for your burnout by getting less done.

That extra long hours speed the time to market is an illusion. It doesn't work. In the vast majority of projects, burnout hours are a direct result of a failure you can't admit to.

I'm not saying this only because I don't like sweatshops, it's because I have yet to see quality code from a sweatshop. When I've worked in sweatshops, I've found that the most productive people were never the ones working the longest hours; on the contrary, those of us who were smart enough to do our jobs and go home and get some rest ended up picking up the pieces from the all-night crew every morning.

Re: How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks

#30

Post by quellhorst »

Work 80+ hours, get no exercise, put on weight, have no friends or a social life? You'll wake up at 30 and realize you are getting old and wasted the best years of your life for ideas that didn't make you rich.
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