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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?

#41

Post by liveoneggs »

throwawaystress wrote: post #19
rafaelvasco wrote: post #16

Used to work (IT, game/web development) 40h max a week. And could barely handle it. As I grow older (33) the tolerance is going down. My body asks for more exercise and less sitting (or standing doesn't matter) hours. So 40h a week is too much now. I'm at 25-30h tops. So I try to make the most with that time. Of course I must say that I have a condition, since I was a kid, that makes me feel terrible if I sit for too…

Can you elaborate on how you learned to be that effective? I’d much rather work less, but I find I can’t get work done in 40 hours, and my coworkers doing the same work can. I often need to put in some extra hours here and there.

you can emulate extreme restlessness by wearing electroshock pants (set to increase voltage every 30 minutes) and drinking coffee continuously!

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

#42

Post by neilsense »

I have RescueTime installed and so this is what it says for last week:

61h 54m logged 87 is productivity pulse

29% software dev 29% communication & scheduling 16% design

I'm a CEO of a data startup. I'm still coding a lot & do all the product design. Comms has increased thanks to more sales meetings etc.

What's missing from this is ~1hr of emailing in the morning & again in the evening on my iPad Pro every day (no tracking on the iPad).

Have been doing this for months and it's rough as hell. Hoping this is the last month as we'll be hiring people to start filling in the roles I don't have time to do any more.

I'm also very aware that none of this sustainable.

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

#43

Post by rafaelvasco »

throwawaystress wrote: post #19
rafaelvasco wrote: post #16

Used to work (IT, game/web development) 40h max a week. And could barely handle it. As I grow older (33) the tolerance is going down. My body asks for more exercise and less sitting (or standing doesn't matter) hours. So 40h a week is too much now. I'm at 25-30h tops. So I try to make the most with that time. Of course I must say that I have a condition, since I was a kid, that makes me feel terrible if I sit for too…

Can you elaborate on how you learned to be that effective? I’d much rather work less, but I find I can’t get work done in 40 hours, and my coworkers doing the same work can. I often need to put in some extra hours here and there.

Well, I think there's some factors. I can focus really easily into something and get completely absorbed in it. That helps immensely. There's a huge part of your mind that only activates when you're completely shutdown from outer stimuli and completely focused into something. That part of your mind is hundreds of times more powerful and efficient than your normally used part. If I can't focus like that my productivity drops drastically. And that can happen any time for a variety of reasons.

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

#44

Post by AnonC »

I personally think it’s not “normal” in this century to work so many hours a week especially for someone who reads/posts on HN. If you’re referring to whether it’s “common”, that depends on which industry, country, company you’re in and the kind of work you’re doing. For some professions (like lawyers in certain countries or doctors almost everywhere), 80-100 hour weeks are common.

If you’re in tech and you’re not automating your tasks as much as possible, then you need to dig deeper on doing that. Even if you’re not in tech but you use computing technology for work, you should look at ways to avoid repetitive manual work.

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

#45

Post by rcarmo »

throwawaystress wrote: post #40
rcarmo wrote: post #32

I actually wrote about that yesterday: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830 I’m doing roughly four hours of 30m calls a day (which completely destroys any real productivity I have), plus around two hours of actual “focus time”. The overhead and fragmentation implied pushes this to a 10-12h daily range, which is becoming a serious issue as I can’t find the time to plan or do quality work right now.

I feel the same way! I don’t know how to get work done when there are so many meetings and random events, and yet my employer expects us to get it all done within 40 hours (and will be concerned if you can’t).

My current occupation (consulting) has a mix of billable hours and _quality assurance_ that makes this especially challenging.

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

#46

Post by 72deluxe »

24 hours a week over 3 days. I went part time the other year since working 37.5 official hours (actually more) was full of arguing, battles and stress at work. I realised having a life was more important than work.

Work is part of your life, not your life. I work to live, not live to work. No gravestone ever tells you how much money a guy made. It only mentions being a loving father, husband or son.

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

#47

Post by BlackiceNetwork »

sparker72678 wrote: post #28

I work from home, and typically I’m “In the office,” about 32-40 hours a week. I find that I can sustain a max of about 4 hours of focused work (programming) a day before I’m just mentally worked over. If there isn’t more project management/coordination work to do, then I’ll just call it a day. There have been short seasons where I’ve averaged quite a bit more, but I don’t know that I was ever actually more productiv…

“For me it feels like I hit a point at which there is no more work to be wrung out of me, no matter how long I sit in a chair.”

This sentence made me laugh a little bit to hard. I know where you are coming from.

Don’t forget to do a small weird dance every hour or so. To move those muscles and the keep blood flowing to all corners of body.

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

#48

Post by omosubi »

72deluxe wrote: post #46

24 hours a week over 3 days. I went part time the other year since working 37.5 official hours (actually more) was full of arguing, battles and stress at work. I realised having a life was more important than work. Work is part of your life, not your life. I work to live, not live to work. No gravestone ever tells you how much money a guy made. It only mentions being a loving father, husband or son.

Are you still able to pay all your bills? What do you do? I'd love to do something like this but the opportunities seem to be few and far between

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

#49

Post by j_z_reeves »

I think it's normal to work 50-60 hours a week if you don't actively track your time. When I was going to the office, I actually worked a lot less. I averaged around 35-40 hours. Now that we all are remote, I find myself working 45-50 hours a week. It's too easy to accidentally go over since I do not have to worry about leaving the office at a particular time due to commuting. However, in general, I feel much more relaxed then before and I do not mind the extra work. I do not let it get out of control since, every hour I work extra, my salary per hour decreases. I like to keep it as high as I can since it makes me feel that my time is worth it.

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

#50

Post by sparker72678 »

BlackiceNetwork wrote: post #47
sparker72678 wrote: post #28

I work from home, and typically I’m “In the office,” about 32-40 hours a week. I find that I can sustain a max of about 4 hours of focused work (programming) a day before I’m just mentally worked over. If there isn’t more project management/coordination work to do, then I’ll just call it a day. There have been short seasons where I’ve averaged quite a bit more, but I don’t know that I was ever actually more productiv…

“For me it feels like I hit a point at which there is no more work to be wrung out of me, no matter how long I sit in a chair.” This sentence made me laugh a little bit to hard. I know where you are coming from. Don’t forget to do a small weird dance every hour or so. To move those muscles and the keep blood flowing to all corners of body.

Standing desk keeps me alive, for sure.
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