40 per week
Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
51–59 of 59 posts
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#52Used 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…
I feel very similar to this.
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#53About 15 hours a week. I sometimes ramp it up if I've got a new project that I'm excited about but over the long term it always drifts back down again. When I look back to my employee and contracting days although I was on site for eight hours a day I wasn't really doing any more than three or four hours worth of work.
What do you do that you can work 15 hours per week?
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#54I 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).
Exactly!
I try to work my minimum 40 hours. After doing more for years and not getting rewarded/promoted, I don't see a point of doing more. Everybody else works more than me, so I'll never be promoted again but at least I won't be wasting my life. It is very stressful though.
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#55As an independent contractor, I worked 5 billable hours a day and an hour or 2 on top of that. I worked alone with almost no distractions. Just me and 3 dogs in the country.
Sounds like you're living the dream. I want land in the country but my wife won't move.
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#56I 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 re…
"every hour I work extra, my salary per hour decreases"
It amazes me that more people don't realize this. I work for a financial company and most people don't realize this. My company also expects people to be happy with a 7% raise when being promoted, but they expect a 15% increase in hours.
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#57I don't know about it being normal but it's not out of line. I tend to work 10 hours/day 5 days a week and have been doing so for the past 35 years. There have been times when I've worked 60-70 hours/week and I can tell you that's less productive than working 50 hours/week because fatigue makes things worse - those extra hours are actually working against you. As a result I've learned you can't work more then 10 hour…
Early in my career, I routinely worked 50 hrs/wk. Not on purpose; I just preferred to get to the office early to avoid the morning rush hour, and I often stayed around late to get a drink with co-workers after work. I was always productive, and it wasn't until years later that I realized that 50 hrs/wk adds up to an extra 3 months/yr. Same job, about six years into it, a major project came up that I had staked my rep…
Figures your boss would win it...
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#5810 to 14 hours a day HOWEVER A) Around 4 hours of this is on 'must do and not very productive work' B) So in effect there is just 6 to 10 hours of work a day on vital stuff
Are you hourly or salary?
Re: Ask HN: How many hours do you work?
#5924 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
Yes, I ensure that my outgoings are low. I have a mortgage to pay (it isn't a luxurious area, so the house prices aren't astronomical) but before moving to 3 days I ensured that I cleared debts on cars/credit cards (eg. do you really need a brand new car?), so it isn't an overnight change. I have a strict budget (just a spreadsheet) where I allocate a portion of money to "going out", an allocated amount to fuel and then other bills and rates, car maintenance and insurance (saving up over the year so you can pay at a lump sum when required, saving up in advance, as it is cheaper to pay a lump than pay monthly for car insurance) and any left over goes to a holiday fund or savings. The secret is to religiously stick to the budget! And over-allocate for each section; when you spend less on a section you will be pleasantly surprised and have spare cash, eg. assume 400 for food when you know it is only 300 (just an example). Alternatively, put a smaller figure for your monthly income than you actually earn and you will always have spare cash at the end of the month, eg. if you earn 1000 put 900 and try to live off that. You'll always be 100 better off at the end of the month then.
I do not have many services that I rent, eg. I only have Netflix. I don't have a contract phone - I went SIM-only and bought an Honor Play phone outright since the cost of that was far less than a contract phone per year. I have a large music collection that I bought when I was younger (spent all my money on that really), so you might consider a music subscription service good value but I don't need it myself. I occasionally rent a film, or make use of an Amazon Prime offer to watch stuff on there for a week (and then cancel to avoid an on-going debit) or Google Play movie offers. It is cheaper than going to the cinema and you don't have to listen to someone else eating popcorn with their mouth open.
Sure, I have less to go out and spend on luxuries (a couple of CDs a month perhaps, a book) but I get to spend more time with my wife. Who cares what you eat if you are together (do I really need a gourmet meal to enjoy my wife's company?). You end up enjoying nature more instead of "things".
I see some of my contemporaries being unaware of what they spend per month (literally no clue), and have leased cars, many foreign holidays (pre-lockdown), and rent many services eg. music subscriptions, Grammarly ?!, VPS they don't need, Sky, TV licence, the list goes on and on. And then they are confused why they work so much, and always "run out of money" by the end of the month. It's blindingly obvious - they spend too much on things they don't need, and don't have time to use because they are busy working to pay for them...
Many of these subscription services rely on you not noticing that small fee going out of your account, yet they all add up. If you add them up and work out how much they are per year, you would likely be shocked and consider it poor value. You would probably rather spend the value of the subscriptions on something else - perhaps a holiday or a trip.
If you can aim to live on half or two-thirds of your income, you can save a lot and then you have a bit less worry about incoming crisis bills (eg. broken fridge). We are careful where we shop for food. If you can make a meal plan for the week you will spend less on food since you only buy what you need for those meals. You will throw out less. I am eating a lot more rice these days as potatoes seem to upset my stomach, and the good thing is that rice can be bought in giant bags very cheaply. It is also filling and goes a long way!
For a job, I write software. I try to occasionally supplement it with contract work but I am more of a programmer than a salesman so my success in this area is quite limited!
I was not able to do this when I was younger since I did not earn as much, and foolishly spent all my money than I earned. Getting into debt taught me to keep an eye on what I spend and be strict about spending, so that was a beneficial lesson from that perspective. I wish you success - just look after the pennies, and the pounds will surely look after themselves.