131–140 of 246 posts
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There is anecdotal information that he does indeed do what he claims. And he is the most impressive CEO in this generation, perhaps in history, so long hours must work for some people.
Or his sleep patterns are completely orthogonal to his success.
I always like Richard Hamming’s take on hours worked: “ Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.” (From “You and Your Research”: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html ) I started incorporating this thinking into my own…
I think this is the generally accepted and obvious view, but there seems to be a push from several popular personalities to virtue signal against it in the name of better working conditions. In the process they are accusing startup founders of abusing their workforce if they mention such an idea as working a little extra to get ahead.
A few thoughts to add to the discussion, loosely related: 1) If I know exactly where to spend my time for the best rate of return, its likely that I'll have to spend relatively few hours achieving success. 2) For most people, the success they can achieve through just having a plain old job can be had for a mere 40 hours. Anything they want above what 40 hours can grant them should probably be done elsewhere (second j…
I agree and regarding 3) would you put most startup founders into this bucket? In reading Peter Thiel Zero to One I was struck by his point that real power law focus in a startup means you're doing something new, thus "The Search" is a required first step even if it's not your first rodeo.
Re: Thiel, wasn't the point of that power law section meant to say that each founder should focus on what gives them leverage? I don't recall correctly.
"The Search" is the discovery of those things outside of your normal circles of concern, which makes it doubly-difficult to find _on purpose_. Felix Dennis describes the process more akin to an aware predator waiting for something to enter its kill-zone.
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What does “not working hard” look like? It looks like Facebook, Reddit, news.yc, YouTube, online shopping, Candy Crush, chatting with co-workers, and dicking off in the break/game room. “Working hard” looks a lot like “not not working hard”.
Dick off as in masturbation at work? Sorry, English is not my first nor second language.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dicking%20of...
I don't believe anyone really does 80 hours. I just don't think it is possible and I don't think you can call sitting at a desk doing nothing "work". I've done 60 hours during intense periods just fine... but it was only effective because of the nature of the work I was doing at the time. And, I usually took a break down the road to compensate. In no way was it even 50% creative work. 4 to 6 creative hours seems righ…
1. Hours worked & productivity are interrelated variables but they do not equal each other. So you have to explore the other variables involved in your productivity equation if you want to control effects on productivity.
2. The brain works on solving big problems even when you’re not actively focused on it. Anyone who experiences the effect of coming back to a problem they were beating their heads on for a while and quickly figured out a path forward has experienced this first hand.
3. If you’ve bought into this, then also consider that your output is solved problems. That’s what other people will see about your work. If the outcome is that you stayed at the office for 12 hours solving a problem, versus at work for 6 hours, said f this, went home, came back the next morning and worked the problem out in an hour, then what was the difference?
You kinda keyed in that a lot of work is not creative, so I think that kinda fits into this framework too. I find that doing rote work is a nice warm up or wind down block of time. So having scheduling awareness can help boost your productivity. But yeah for all of that, I’ve never been able to buy into the idea that 60/80 hour work weeks are at all a necessary idea, or a very proper one either. And this is how I’ve tried to make myself feel better that I could never personally do that kind of time, lol.
What's unfortunate is that on the other side of the coin, "rockstar CEOs" like Elon Musk claim they sleep 4 hours a night and work 90 hour weeks. I think Musk does this mostly for publicity/image reasons and not that it's actually true, but you've got plenty of wantapreneurs parroting this (imo) unhealthy lifestyle.
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They're different! Sorry if I made you feel gross, why is it gross? Need medicine or something? Aww
It's gross because creativity is one of the fundamental properties of being human. Characterizing specific vocations or professional domains as creative or non-creative, regardless of how the industry may have boxed in the term, imbues distinct capability castes to the practitioners.
But you're wrong actually, I'm making a very valid differentiation, bossing people around is not a creative task the people who does the thing you tell them is the creative: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_professional
What's unfortunate is that on the other side of the coin, "rockstar CEOs" like Elon Musk claim they sleep 4 hours a night and work 90 hour weeks. I think Musk does this mostly for publicity/image reasons and not that it's actually true, but you've got plenty of wantapreneurs parroting this (imo) unhealthy lifestyle.
This is not healthy or impressive, and it may be the first sign of dementia for many people.
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Most of my work weeks clock in around 50-60 hours regularly. It's pretty simple how this happens. It's meetings all day and then once meetings are over it's email, documents, admin paperwork, training etc... Here's an example of just last Thursday which was busy but was at least not double booked and had some times I could stop and go to the bathroom, I also wasn't traveling this day which was good: 8-12 - US Senate…
I keep seeing this but why do non-creatives count dinner, commuting and exercise as work? (You don't do all these but you put dinner there) As a creative I find it hard to justify that, sure I did talk about work during lunch with a coworker or an ex coworker or friend but damn I was just enjoying my pork chops, that's not work!!!
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What does “not working hard” look like? It looks like Facebook, Reddit, news.yc, YouTube, online shopping, Candy Crush, chatting with co-workers, and dicking off in the break/game room. “Working hard” looks a lot like “not not working hard”.
Dick off as in masturbation at work? Sorry, English is not my first nor second language.