41–50 of 93 posts
I would have learned a lot with 4 hours a day, but I think the extra 90 hours I put in that month really helped me out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your colleagues likely work 4 like you, then bill for 8. Scott Adams (maker of Dilbert) once said this is extremely common in the corporate world, and my experience largely agrees. Much of the other 4 hours may be spent in meetings, lunches, relocating, gossiping, or internet browsing. You're largely paid to be on-site and aware for 40 hours a week, not to necessarily produce anything. One of Adams' books has a story…
> You're largely paid to be on-site and aware for 40 hours a week, not to necessarily produce anything This really bugged me early on in my career before I understood this. When I started work I would feel disappointed that I couldn't be productive for 8 hours per day. Then I realised that no one else around me was getting probably more than 3 hours of work done in a day so I set my aim for each day at 4 hours of pro…
Eg you could say you'll only be working 20 billable hours per week and suddenly it sounds like they will be getting some of your time for free.
The rest of the time is actually taken up with marketing, administration, training etc.
It's interesting that we see so many articles posted on hacker news on how to be more productive, beat procrastination and be more motivated when really this article the OP posted explains it all. In most cases you probably don't have a problem with procrastination and motivation, it's simply that you are over-extending yourself. Cut back your commitments and you fix your problem.
Alright, I'll be that guy. I have no trouble doing more than 4 hours worth of mentally strenuous work in a day, and neither do most of the people I work with. Frequently enough I've put in sustained 12-16 hour days for weeks on end to meet a tough deadline.
You'll generally find that the most successful people who are best at what they do have no trouble with this either. I'll go further and say that a large number of the people who complain about having to work more than a few hours a day are doing nothing more than rationalizing their lazy HN and/or reddit habits.
Unbelievable, 40+ comments and not one contrary opinion. Alright, I'll be that guy. I have no trouble doing more than 4 hours worth of mentally strenuous work in a day, and neither do most of the people I work with. Frequently enough I've put in sustained 12-16 hour days for weeks on end to meet a tough deadline. You'll generally find that the most successful people who are best at what they do have no trouble with t…
I find that I can focus intensely for shorter bursts over a couple hours, but then I hit my limit and need to push the really hard stuff aside for a while. Sure, I can crank through a ton of tedious or menial tasks (and there are certainly plenty of them), but that's really not the same.
When I complain about being expected to sit around for 8, 9, 10 hours a day (and I do occasionally complain), it's not because I'm rationalizing lazy habits or want to get out of work. I love my work.
No -- It's because in only 3-4 of those hours I will finish 90% of what I ultimately get done in a day. The trick is in knowing how to optimize those hours of productivity, and when to go home and give your brain time to decompress.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of that work isn't that cognitively demanding though. If you're reading research papers or textbooks most of the time the really hard parts have been done for you. You just need to follow along. Also, with most work there's lots of things that need to do that require relatively little concentration once you've made the cognitive shift. I think the four hour limit applies to design/creative work or work that requ…
If reading research papers is not cognitively demanding, that just means that you're not reading fast enough, or you're not truly absorbing the content. Or are you saying that the speed at which you read research papers is limited by the speed at which your eyes can move?
Unbelievable, 40+ comments and not one contrary opinion. Alright, I'll be that guy. I have no trouble doing more than 4 hours worth of mentally strenuous work in a day, and neither do most of the people I work with. Frequently enough I've put in sustained 12-16 hour days for weeks on end to meet a tough deadline. You'll generally find that the most successful people who are best at what they do have no trouble with t…
Since then I've read of luminaries mentioning this in passing, but I haven't really tried to employ it. (I'm also pretty sure I've seen pg say this is empirically false with YC founders, and perhaps he and axiom are correct)
I'd like to know if there's evidence of this for learning, however, even if it is mathematics.
Unbelievable, 40+ comments and not one contrary opinion. Alright, I'll be that guy. I have no trouble doing more than 4 hours worth of mentally strenuous work in a day, and neither do most of the people I work with. Frequently enough I've put in sustained 12-16 hour days for weeks on end to meet a tough deadline. You'll generally find that the most successful people who are best at what they do have no trouble with t…
Proving theorems is a completely different class of work to chipping away at your failed unit tests or knocking together a CRUD app in your favourite language. Maybe a tenth of one percent of software developers routinely do work that is intellectually on a par with mathematical research; The rest are for the most part skilled tradesmen, doing work they understand relatively well.
It is universally accepted that all but the most prodigious musicians do not benefit from more than 4 or 5 hours of practice a day. They can often easily do twelve or sixteen hours a day, but the extra time is simply wasted. Once your reserves of concentration are spent, you're just going through the motions without learning anything. Most conservatories go to great lengths to persuade their students to practice less, because young musicians are often convinced that they can attain mastery through sheer force of effort.
I can sit and transcribe or arrange parts all day long. I can play from sheet music until my hands give out, all the while daydreaming about what I'm having for tea or what chores need doing. I can't usefully improvise or compose for more than about two hours at a time, or more than four hours in a day. I can feel the point at which I start playing familiar riffs rather than truly improvising; When I've run out of ideas and I'm just writing pastiche. There are composers who claim to do regular eight-hour days, but when you look deeper they invariably spend most of that day arranging or transcribing or recording into the computer, stuff that's essentially just admin.