Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 66 posts

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#41

Post by akavlie »

jasonkester wrote: post #38

I just pulled up the last year's worth of consulting invoices and yes, it looks like I managed to bill an entire 40 hours once in the last 52 weeks. I have a personal policy of only billing for the time I'm creating value. So if I boot up, fire up the IDE, sip my coffee, pull up a bug report, then proceed to browse f'ng Hacker News for 2 hours, I don't charge my time. Similarly, if I notice by lunchtime that I'm just…

Exactly. I've had a similar experience consulting, and wondered if it was the same for others... or if they're just loose with counting hours.

The only time I've been able to rack up more than 20~25 hours is when I work at the client's office (as I've been doing for the past couple of months).

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#42

Post by aangjie »

Well, i had the doubts and started using rescuetime(www.rescuetime.com) for tracking my activities. I won't get into definition of work but just give some stats. i clock between 50-70 hrs a week on the computer. Productive time(Defined as time spent on the terminal/editor) : 20-30 hrs. Rest is either browsing blogs/email/video..:) P.S: And oh, am dissatisfied with what i have accomplished.

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#43

Post by tensor »

chunkyslink wrote: post #32
shin_lao wrote: post #30

My own experience is that above 50 hours you start destructing value, not creating some. Examples: writing code filled of bugs you have to fix later, getting upset on a problem you cannot find a solution for while you could be resting, taking the wrong decision, being cranky, etc. Agreed, sometimes you have to go beyond the limit, but it's not sustainable.

I only agree with you if you so the same work for those 50 hours. If you work for 80, but this is split between marketing, coding, networking and strategy then its not the same thing. When I'm feeling the pressure, I just switch to another role.

Yes, but networking and marketing is not even close to as taxing as coding or solving mathematical problems. This is so much the case, that I generally discount business dinners as not work.

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#44

Post by gerhardi »

Well.. I work for a large international IT-consulting corporation at a client site. I go to work at 8 AM and leave around 4 PM. So this makes.. umm.. 40 hours per week. During normal 8 hour office day I usually attend meetings for around 1-2 hours, chat around with fellow consultants and client personnel for 2-3 hours, solve client issues alone or with colleagues for 1-3 hours. For the rest of the day I drink coffee and read HN + other web sites.

Yes - I feel sometimes that my job is somewhat boring and that I should be doing something more "activating" but I: - get reasonable salary - do my job very well - have great work/life balance

So maybe there is not so much to complain.

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#45

Post by keyle »

jasonkester wrote: post #38

I just pulled up the last year's worth of consulting invoices and yes, it looks like I managed to bill an entire 40 hours once in the last 52 weeks. I have a personal policy of only billing for the time I'm creating value. So if I boot up, fire up the IDE, sip my coffee, pull up a bug report, then proceed to browse f'ng Hacker News for 2 hours, I don't charge my time. Similarly, if I notice by lunchtime that I'm just…

I do the same, good man.

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#47

Post by chopsueyar »

gerhardi wrote: post #44

Well.. I work for a large international IT-consulting corporation at a client site. I go to work at 8 AM and leave around 4 PM. So this makes.. umm.. 40 hours per week. During normal 8 hour office day I usually attend meetings for around 1-2 hours, chat around with fellow consultants and client personnel for 2-3 hours, solve client issues alone or with colleagues for 1-3 hours. For the rest of the day I drink coffee…

Hiring?

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#48

Post by peteretep »

veyron wrote: post #9

When you are working on your own startup, you don't see it as work. It's easy to "work" many hours, but it's enjoyable to a great extent.

Or even your own projects. I have day job, I'm finding a few hours every day to write open-source, and I'm finding a couple of days of extra time a week to work on my startup. Hard work? Yes... But I only see the day job as actual work, and that's only when I'm not working on something interesting.

Programming is awesome, especially in Perl :D

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#49

Post by bane »

I have a F/T+ day-job where I work for one company 30-40 hours a week (it's supposed to be about 20) and am on loan to another company about 25 hours a week. Then I come home and work on my Startup with my co-founder 2-3 hours a day and full days on most weekends...about 20-30 hours a week. So I usually put in 60-70 hour weeks on the low end.

Recently a co-worker had to take an extended leave of absence and my hours at my main company ballooned to full-on 50-60 hours + the 25 hour side job + the startup. Needless to say my startup work had to take a reduction in hours with my co-founder flying solo for a bit (which was hard on her because we just got a bunch of coverage on killer startups, feed my app and a ton of Spanish language tech sites). But for a couple of months I was pulling 90-100 hour weeks.

My co-worker has returned and my weeks have fallen back to their regular 60-70 hour pattern.

Re: Poll: How many hours do you work a week?

#50

Post by sirrocco »

garethsprice wrote: post #5

40 at day job, 40+ on consulting projects. Finding it harder to keep up the pace and want to reshuffle to find time for my own projects. Hard to get off that consulting gravy train though.

Damn do I know what you mean. I pull 20+ on consulting but it's getting to the point where it's affecting my health.

I'll stop soon, probably go full time consulting so I can actually have a life.

Best of luck.

Post reply on HN