9 ms·

Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday

524 points by NonUmemoto 11y ago

logicallee 11y ago
Historically, working 24 hours a day (I include sleep because after a certain number of hours you even dream of code or your business) for 1 year typically accomplishes more than working 3 hours per day for 8 years. Or 1.5 hours per day for 16 years. There is just some kind of economy of scale. --------- EDIT: I got downvoted. Come up with whatever standard of productivity you want (ANY standard that you want) and adduce a single human who in 16 years times 90 minutes per day accomplished more than I can find a counter-example of someone doing in the same field in 1 year. 1 year of 24 hours a day strictly dominates 16 years of 90 minutes per day, and you cannot find a single counterexample in any field from any era of humanity. Go ahead and try. oh and by the way, in 1905 Einstein published 1 paper on the Photoelectric effect, for which he won his only nobel prize, 1 paper on Brownian motion which convinced the only leading anti-atomic theorist of the existence of atoms, 1 paper on a little subject that "reconciles Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. This later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity" and 1 paper on Mass–energy equivalence, which might have remained obscure if he hadn't worked it into a catchy little ditty referring to an "mc". You might have heard of it? E = mc^2? Well a hundred and ten years later all the physicistis are still laying their beats on top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers Your turn. Point to someone who did as much in 16 years by working just 90 minutes per day. Closer to our own field, Instagram was sold for $1 billion about a year after its founding date, to Facebook. Point out anyone who built $1 billion in value over 16 years working just 90 minutes per day.
- onion2k 11y ago
  There is just some kind of economy of scale. I feel the opposite is true. Working longer hours actually reduces my level of productivity because at some point I start making mistakes that take time to undo. For me that's only about 6 hours of coding; if I work 12 hours then half of my time is spent undoing mistakes or finding better solutions, so I'm less productive than if I'd only written code for 6 hours in the first place. I definitely don't find that I'm more productive if I just put in more time ad infinitum.
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    6 hours is my sweet spot too.
- usrusr 11y ago
  Probably depends a lot on the amount of intrinsic motivation involved: burning for something you love until it is done? Much more efficient per hour than revisiting it as a side project for some leftover hours each day. But when you are just exchanging hours for money, you will see acceptable (but not stellar) productivity at a reasonable amount of hours that will sharply drop when you add more.
- greendesk 11y ago
  I feel that there were times when working 24 hours / day was effective and times when working such long hours was ineffective. There are two issues that I know of when I worked for long hours: tunnel-vision, communication and burning out. If one works long hours, one has to evaluate an idea all the way, to check if is correct or not. For me, his hampers evaluating competing ideas effectively. This might not be the case for everyone. Working as a team requires feedback from other team members. If you get stuck or need feedback/communication with someone else, you can enter a feedback loop such that the additional time that you spent on it does not bring additional value. These type of loops are possible even if working less hours per day, so it can be a good idea for additional research. And burning-out: there is only so many hours in a day. A worker can have interest outside the technical question at hand: if they have priorities outside of work, would you require that they forego their priorities for work?
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Says who? I've not found this to be historically so at all in my own perception. Feel free to share some data.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    I mean historically as in, in the annals of history. I've now updated my comment with two examples.
    - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
      Thanks. I don't see how the Einstein example is relevant, feel free to elaborate. On instagram... you're introduction valuation, not nominal productivity. i.e., imagine I can either produce 1 smartphone after a year working 100 hours per week, or produce 100 smartphones after 10 years, working 10 hours per week. Well, nominally, the latter example is way more productive. You produce 10x as many phones per year while working 1/10th the time. There's absolutely no way you can say that the former is more productive. But, building today's smartphone in 10 years is obviously going to leave you with little value. In 10 years, your 10-year old tech will be valued very little. Your instagram example is like that. The engineers working on it may have been much more productive if given 10 years to work on their project, but its valuation would be shit because it's last to market instead of first to market. So, not a great example. If you're trying to say that working hard in short periods, allowing you to get to market before anyone else, is better than taking your time, then obviously that's true, but that's more a function of competition than it is of productivity! Further, it's a poor example. Show me data that's meaningful for a large group of people, not extreme outliers. How many people do you know that created a $1b company or came up with g relativity theory? It's like saying 'dropping out of school is a great idea, look at Gates and Zuckerberg'. When in reality the data overwhelmingly supports the notion that finishing school has positive outcomes in your life. You can prove anything by looking at selective (outlier) examples, but show me examples that commonly occur. Meanwhile overwhelmingly studies show that productivity drops sharply after some amount of hours. You get more work done per unit of time when working 8 hours per day, than 16 hours, period. That's what productivity measures. There is obviously some lower bound, if you work in 3 minute intervals you're spending a lot of your time 'starting up' your workspace and getting your brain tuned in your work, and so productivity (work per unit of time) drops. I wouldn't be surprised if 4 times 90 minutes was less productive than working for 6 hours, that makes a lot of sense. But there's also an upper bound, where you lose concentration and motivation and are better off resting and getting back to it the next day, such that working two days of 6 hours is more productive than a single 12 hour session. Feel free to look at the many, many studies that confirm this. The above applies to virtually anyone, any organisation, any individual, productivity has diminishing returns as you scale way down or way up.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Regarding your edit - no one is downvoting you because they believe they can do more in 90 minutes than 24 hours. You're being downvoted because you're saying that productivity is infinitely scalable - I believe that's wrong. Over a certain amount of work productivity drops to the point where it creates a negative impact on your effectiveness. If you find that you're effective for every hour you work regardless how long you work for then you're very fortunate and exceptionally unusual.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    Why would you say that I'm stating productivity is "infinitely" scalable? Is a billion "infinitely" more than a million? I'm saying if you want to accomplish something great and groundbreaking, it's better to work 24 hours a day at it than three hours a day, and, yes, you can stop after a year or two. You literally have as much life left, but you can accomplish a huge amount more, by concentrating the work rather than spreading it out. I don't know why this is, it just is. But you know what's even easier than working three hours a day? Working zero hours and signing up for unemployment benefits. You certainly won't suffer from exhaustion or burnout. You can choose smallness, but just be aware that you are doing so. That's what choosing to work three hours a day means. I don't think I'm saying something even a tiny bit controversial and I am utterly perplexed at the votes I received on it. If you want to do something big, then concentrate your work on it, don't spread it out over a longer time period. You literally are not able to achieve as much in the exact same number of hours, if the hours are spread out over a longer time period. I can't believe anyone finds this even the slightest bit controversial or finds any objection to what I've written.
    - onion2k 11y ago
      Why would you say that I'm stating productivity is "infinitely" scalable? Because you're saying that doing more work is always more effective than doing less work, all the way up to the maximum possible amount of work. That's the definition of infinite scaleability. I'm saying if you want to accomplish something great and groundbreaking, it's better to work 24 hours a day at it than three hours a day And that's what I'm saying isn't true, although I'm using the lower value of 6 hours rather than 3. Typical people can't work 24 hours a day for months on end without having a catastrophic crash in the end. Similarly, typical people can't put in more than about 8 hours solid work without becoming less effective, to the point of negative effectiveness. Personally, if I work for 14 hours a day I make lots of mistakes and have to spend time fixing them, which means I'm not really doing 14 hours work - I'm doing 14 hours minus the time it takes to fix things. I might as well just do the 6 or 8 or 10 hours that I can do without things going wrong. Saying that you can work for any number of hours a day ad infinitum without ever getting burnt out is controversial because anyone who's been a developer for more than a few years knows it isn't true.
- dreamfactory2 11y ago
  Are those the papers he wrote in his spare time while he was working full time as an office clerk?
  - logicallee 11y ago
    upvoted you. So, this is really important and let's look at this very carefully. (I'm not a historian.) Obviously you mean to imply that he had just spare time for his papers only, and that from our point of view 8 hours were taken as irrelevant non-work (if we consider the science to be the work), so that perhaps something like 3 were left for physics. But is that accurate? If we look at the article I linked on that miracle year, it says: "He worked as an examiner at the Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland, and he later said of a co-worker there, Michele Besso, that he 'could not have found a better sounding board for his ideas in all of Europe'." I'm not trying to "rebut" you, let's understand what really happened. Did Einstein really do irrelevant clerical work that was time he simply lost from his day? Or did he really not only slack off during his job, and spend some time doing physics on company time, but even have his coworkers' input into it? i.e. get extra resources from his day job? I am genuinely curious, but I think that it is probably the latter! What I mean is that suppose you take away his job at the patent office and his connection with his colleagues there. Instead you rewind history and just I don't know make him win some kind of lottery or give him the same money that he made but from some other source, or you make him a mailman or something, but at any rate you take away any positive direct contribution from his position. What is your personal opinion about whether the four papers would still have resulted? Given everything I know about working on private projects on company time, or the history of Bill Gates at Harvard or a number of other similar stories... and given the direct quote... I think it quite likely that his 8 hour "office clerk" job in fact contributed to his physics research. It would have been a purer example if he were a chauffeur or something. But given the quote, I think perhaps we should consider even those 8 hours as contributing to his physics research. It is a real shame that we can't ask "what would have happened if he hadn't been working as a patent clerk." On balance I think it supports my theory that it takes 24 hours to do something. You raise a good point however and I'd be interested in a historian's perspective. This is an extremely interesting venue to ask about. I wonder if anyone wrote about his work habits during those couple of years?
- codethief 11y ago
  I think your point with Einstein is invalid. "Einstein immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he held a professorship at Princeton University until his retirement in 1945. His routine there was simple. Between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M. he ate breakfast and perused the daily papers. At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00, then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters." (Source: Mason Currey – Daily Rituals: How Artists Work; found on http://jrbenjamin.com/2013/08/08/the-old-elephants-tricks/ http://jrbenjamin.com/2013/08/08/the-old-elephants-tricks/) Clearly, this quote doesn't cover the time of the 1900s and 1910s but I doubt Einstein significantly changed his work habits (that had enabled him to be so successful in the first place) after emigrating to the States. In any case, he certainly did not work on theoretical physics for 8 hours per day, let alone 24 hours. Besides, being a theoretical physicist myself, I can tell you from personal experience that thinking about theoretical problems is hard work and depletes you of energy rather quickly. I don't think success in theoretical physics depends on how much time you spend (beyond a handful of hours a day) but rather on your perseverence, on what problems you choose and on your ability to come up with new ways in which to rephrase the problem. If that still doesn't satisfy you, you can also google for biographies of successful mathematicians to see that a lot of them considered rest to be important and didn't work more than a couple hours per day. See, for instance, http://mathoverflow.net/questions/9799/how-much-work-does-it-take-to-be-a-successful-mathematician http://mathoverflow.net/questions/9799/how-much-work-does-it... .
  - logicallee 11y ago
    We are discussing the suggestion that people work 3 hours. (Indeed the title of the article is literally "Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday".) Your quote does cover 3 hours of work very clearly: "At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00". That is almost exactly 3 hours. Your quote clearly describes about three hours of work per day, from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM. The only problem? Your quote continues "then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters." Literally "the rest of the afternoon was spent at home continuing his work...dealing with correspondnece..." and after a 6:30 pm supper "more work and more letters." I will thank you for not cutting your quote off at the word "he worked until 1:00", which is the kind of example I was asking for (describing a 3-hour workday). The only issue is that an additional 5-10 hours of work follow. It's no example at all. In fact, taken as a whole it's pretty much the lifestyle I was describing, working from morning until late into the night. If you do know of any scientist who worked for 3 hours a day I'd love to hear it.
shin_lao 11y ago
3 hours a day is just not enough for everyone. For some projects it's perfectly fine but some tasks can only be done if you focus for a large amount of time on it, work obsessively on it until you reach a milestone. The greatest work I have ever done, was always done when I retreated like a monk for several weeks, cutting myself of the whole world and working almost non-stop on the task until I made a significant breakthrough. Then I go back to the livings and share the fruits of my work, and of course, take a well deserved rest for several days. The trap into most people fall is that they are confusing being active and working.
- Nemcue 11y ago
  I too do my absolute best work in that kind of mode. However, I'm thoroughly lacking on the "take a well deserved rest" part after crunching on my own. Since no one actually sees me working so hard, I have no idea how I would go about making sure client/boss would be happy with that.
JacobAldridge 11y ago
If I told you that every car needed 8 gallons of gas to drive 100 miles, you'd point out I was wrong - so many different makes and models, not to mention variables from tire pressure to driving style. Yet for the potentially even more complex range that is different people, it amazes me that so much of the advice is didactic - we all need 8 hours sleep, 8 glasses of water, and 8 hours of work with breaks is optimal. The closest I get to advice is 'learn your body and what works for you'. Thanks to the OP for sharing what works for him.
- MarcusP 11y ago
  I agree with your point, one size certainly doesn't fit all. However, people should also be aware that they are not special snowflakes and there large groups of people who have the same tendencies and benefit from the same advice. Therefore, even though I appreciate that this isn't a solution for everyone, I don't think it's fair to say that this boils down to just a personal experience with no external value.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    I think maybe the larger lesson is to timebox work so that it's not overwhelming. This can tend to reduce procrastination and time-wasting distractions in some people, as it's less intimidating to start a three hour work session than an all-day one, and easier to stay focused with a clear ending time already known. Whether that's three hours, or four, or two sets of two hours, maybe is less important.
- daveguy 11y ago
  This reminds me of 7 minute abs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE
- lucaspiller 11y ago
  This is one of my gripes about working in an office. More often than not I cannot work continuously from 9-5, and end up wasting time just trying to get myself back into working mode - which usually descends into browsing HN/Reddit/etc or just working half as effectively as I usually do. When I work remotely and have freedom over my time, I can take a few hours off to go for a walk, sleep, go for a long lunch, meet friends, or even play games. Afterwards I feel recharged and can be 110% productive, and usually end up working more hours than I would in an office. I did this for a lot of last year, as I needed to overlap with teams in India and PST, so I usually worked 10am - 10pm taking a few hours off in the afternoon. I was able to get so much more done because of that extended break.
dkopi 11y ago
I'm pretty sure this has worked for the author, and it will work for a lot of other people as well, but a lot the benefits raised can still be achieved when working more than 3 hours a day. A few points are raised in the post: 1. If you only work 3 hours, you're less tempted to go on twitter/facebook/hacker news. True - but that's really a question of discipline, work environment and how excited you are about what you're working on. It's perfectly possible to perform for 10 hours straight without distractions, just make sure to take an occasional break for physical health. 2. Better prioritization. Treating your time as a scarce resource helps focus on the core features. But your time is a scarce resource even if you work 12 hours a day. Programmers are in shortage. They cost a lot. And the time you're spending on building your own apps could have been spent freelancing and working for someone else's apps. Always stick a dollar figure on your working hours. Even if you're working on your own projects. You should always prioritize your tasks, and always consider paying for something that might save you development time (Better computer. better IDE. SaaS solutions, etc). 3. Taking a long break can help you solve a problem you're stuck on. Personally, I find that taking a short walk, rubber duck debugging or just changing to a different task for a while does the same. If I'm stuck on something, I don't need to stop working on it until tomorrow. I just need an hour or two away from it.
- geographomics 11y ago
  On the topic of work environment: in one job I worked at, we had the Internet machines completely separated from the work machines. If you needed to check something you had to physically walk over to the Internet desk. Great for focussing on the task at hand without distraction, and considering carefully what information you need.
  - bdcravens 11y ago
    But then how do you copy and paste from Stack Overflow?
    - sleepychu 11y ago
      On a serious note, this is a terrible habbit. SO code is questionably licenced.
rmsaksida 11y ago
I mostly agree with the author, but I don't see the point of stopping yourself when you're "in the zone". Why lose the flexibility? What works for me is having a baseline of 3 or 4 hours of daily work, and not imposing any hard limits when I want or need to do extra hours. This works out great, because I have no excuses not to do the boring routine work as it's just a few hours, but I also have the liberty of doing obsessive 10h sessions when I'm trying to solve a tough problem or when I'm working on something fun.
- sleepychu 11y ago
  The author thinks in the long run the 10h sessions hurt you. They acknowledge specifically that got a week long exercise more work will produce more results but that they feel their average productivity is much higher over months or years by never getting bogged down even when they're making progress.
  - kethinov 11y ago
    The 3 hours every day pattern might work for the author and many other people but it won't work for everyone. That's the problem with generalizing. There's no one size fits all solution for an optimal work schedule. I think the lesson to learn from this is that we should work harder to not only remove the stigma of unusual work schedules, but encourage them so people can discover their maximum productivity schedule for themselves.
- ChrisDutrow 11y ago
  It probably depends on the person. When I do what you are suggesting, I seem to burn through too much "cognitive resources", getting a ton done, then crashing into a haze for a few days to more than a week. At that point it's hard to get started again. So I see the advantage - for some people - of cutting "in the zone" time short. I should note that "in the zone" time for me can last a few weeks. Most recently, a long one came after spending a lot of time at the gym doing cardio. When I hit "the zone", I stopped going to the gym and just worked. Now I'm in the "haze phase". The problem with the haze phase is it's hard to focus on anything, including going back to the gym, which should theoretically spur another "in the zone" phase. I have a lot of trouble achieving balance.
andretti1977 11y ago
I agree with the author with some exceptions: when you are working as a contractor or freelancer for someone else's project maybe 3h/day is not acceptable. When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient. But i agree that working less than 8h/day could be really more productive. I also liked the "less stuck for coding" topic as "...it is sometimes hard to go bed without solving some unknown issues, and you don’t want to stop coding in the middle of it..." so maybe forcing themselves to stop could be a solution. Anyway, i would really like to work 4 or 5 hours a day but keeping holidays and weekends free from work and i think this can only be achieved if you can pay your living with products of your own such as your apps and not by freelancing (i am a freelance and i know it!). But i enjoyed the idea behind the article and i will try to achieve it one day.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  > When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient. Lots of deadlines companies and thus their employees face are externally imposed (often from their customer(s)).
  - quietplatypus 11y ago
    they are also often bullshit deadlines that users dont care about but gets a few brownie points for management.
    - wolfgke 11y ago
      No true Scotsman fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
      - bybjorn 11y ago
        True, they're still deadlines. But, since they are BS, that might be fixed somehow, no?
        11y ago
spajus 11y ago
How to pull this through when you are paid by the hour?
- marincounty 11y ago
  You bill like Lawyers--lie. Yea, I know, I can't lie as easily as Lawyers either. I guess they learned to lie without guilt in ethics class?
- brianwawok 11y ago
  You either learn to live on less, or switch to billing by project ;)
xg15 11y ago
So no going out for drinks where you might have a hangover the next day?
- Kenji 11y ago
  If you really want alcohol, why waste the next day with hangover when you can just drink one or two drinks and be well?
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Getting drunk is part of the point. There's no gain in pretending it's not.
    - jschwartzi 11y ago
      There's a spectrum: tipsy, drunk, pissed, belligerent, shitfaced, and finally poisoned. From pissed on you're probably going to get a hangover.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      I really like drinking but I hate being drunk. I am happy with a buzz but if I drink more after that is unpleasant to me. My apologies to Xg15 for down voting him or her. It was accidental, my finger slipped and there's no "undo" button that I know of.
      - xg15 11y ago
        No offense taken - I didn't notice to be honest.
jiblylabs 11y ago
As a freelancer, I understand where some of the comments "As a freelancer this won't work" are coming from. However, the last year I've flipped my freelancing model where I offer a more productized service with a clearly defined scope and set price. Instead of doing design work for $XXX/h, I'll deliver A,B,C within Timeframe Y, for Price $XXXX. With clearly defined services, I've actually been working for the last 12 months using a similar model, usually constraining myself to 4h/day with weekends off. My productivity + revenue have increased dramatically. Productizing your service makes it easier to market and generate leads, while it gives you the flexibility to work the way you want and actually free up time. Awesome post OP!
- radicalbyte 11y ago
  That's interesting, what do you do exactly? Designer? Developer? :)
  - jiblylabs 11y ago
    I'm both, but offer a couple of productized design services. I'm actually right now in the process to figure out if if I'm able to replicate the same model for some dev services. Curious to find out.
    - existencebox 11y ago
      I realize this may not be the thread for it; but you seem to have a good enough handle on your freelancing to be evaluating different product strategies, which is significantly more detail than I typically hear mentioned. Do you have any writing/thoughts on getting this far, for someone stuck in the bigCo land who has always dreamed of more autonomy, but stumbled on the "building a freelancer client network" block?
      - jiblylabs 11y ago
        this stuff isn't mine, but a big source of inspiration for me has been the stuff casjam.com has put up. Check out his blog/podcast. You can also find some webinars he's done on youtube. You'll find some golden nuggets in there
jjoe 11y ago
It reads like someone who isn't doing much of realtime support. This works great for projects that haven't been unveiled or even ones that require little ongoing maintenance like a game. But if I worked 3 hours a day, my clients would crucify me. Sadly, it isn't always possible.
err4nt 11y ago
I have experienced a similar thing while freelancing or design and web development. I used to work 16 hours some days and less hours others, but then sometimes I would need to work and found it hard to kick it into gear. I think creativity is like a well, and when you do creative work its like drawing that water out. If you use too much water one day, the well runs dry. You have to wait for the goundwater to fill it up again. Not only did I begin viewing creativity as a limited resource I create and have access to over time, but I noticed that some activities, like reading about science, listening to music, and walking around town actually increase the rate at which the well fills up. So now I have made it a daily habit of doing things that inspire me, and I also daily draw from the well like the author said - but Im more careful not to creatively 'overdo it' and leave myself unable to be creative the next day. Viewing it this way has helped a lot, for all the same benefits the author listed. Im in a rhythm where I dont feel I need a break on the weekend, I just still have energy.
- katzgrau 11y ago
  "Not only did I begin viewing creativity as a limited resource I create and have access to over time, but I noticed that some activities, like reading about science, listening to music, and walking around town actually increase the rate at which the well fills up." +1, many times over. Taking breaks and having fun are very important to maintaining high productivity and creativity when I am working. Unfortunately it's in stark contrast to the mantras I often hear suggesting "there's someone out there who is working harder than you on the same thing and they're going to win if you let up." That mentality is unhealthy and leads to depression/exhaustion.
  - jonah 11y ago
    s/harder/smarter and it probably holds true.
    - ams6110 11y ago
      Yes. And course if you believe the premise, then working harder (i.e. more hours) is a net negative. I would imagine we've all been on death marches at some point in our careers. And yes it can work to meet a deadline but the long term result is usually burnout and piles of technical debt which is always less fun to work on even if you're motivated.
susam 11y ago
I agree with this article mostly, although 3 hours a day might be too little to make good progress with work for some people. This article reminded me of my previous workplace (about 7 years ago) where my manager discouraged engineers from working for more than 6 hours a day. He recommended 4 hours of work per day and requested us not to exceed more than 6 hours of work per day. He believed working for less number of hours a day would lead to higher code quality, less mistakes and more robust software. Although, he never went around the floor ensuring that engineers do not exceed 6 hours of work a day, and some engineers did exceed 6 hours a day, however, in my opinion, his team was the most motivated team on the floor.
- jqm 11y ago
  I've found 6 hours to be about the right amount day in and day out.
  - vldx 11y ago
    Same here; I've build a system around this, i.e. 6 sets of 50 minute sprints. No pressure hitting this volume, it's not a goal, but more a data point.
- chris11 11y ago
  Did he differentiate between more demanding work like writing code and less demanding work like going to meetings?
  - susam 11y ago
    No, he was not specific about what the 4 hours of work included. However, working on code consumed about 90% of our time. Meetings were held once a week for 30 minutes. The time spent on emails and updating bug tracker usually varied anywhere between 0 minutes to 45 minutes per day.
  - Drdrdrq 11y ago
    Less demanding??? I would gladly trade meetings time for hardcore programming work, anytime.
LiweiZ 11y ago
I work 4-5 hours everyday but everyday on my own project. I wish I could have more time on work since most of the rest time I have is allocated to housework and taking care of two little ones. I guess the key is to control your work pace. When a sprint is needed and you are ready for it, a two-week with 90-100 hours in each week would not be a bad idea. Just like running. Listen to your body, pick your pace and keep going towards your goal.
jamesjyu 11y ago
Work hard. Not too much. Focus on what's important.
jacquesm 11y ago
There is a much better alternative: work really hard for 2 to 3 months per year and then take the rest of the year off. If you're doing high value consulting you can easily do this. You may have to forego some luxury but that's a very small price to pay for the freedom you get in return.
- Melk 11y ago
  That was my schedule the past 8 or 9 years (actually it was closer to working 4 months and taking 8 months off because I'm not that high value). The problem is that I like what I do but the months I was working I enjoyed it less and the months I was off I missed working. Also it's killing for your social life when you're working nonstop. Another problem is you'll lose clients if you're not available for months at a time. My new schedule is closer to what the post describes and it works much better for me personally.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > Another problem is you'll lose clients if you're not available for months at a time. Yes, I can see how that would be possible, this is not a problem for me because of the work that I do but in other lines of work it could really kill your momentum.
mrottenkolber 11y ago
What about work 11 hours a week and be happy? Works for me, and I am a freelancer. Edit: I usually do three blocks of three hours each and one two hour block each week. I find three hours perfect to tackle a problem, and a good chunk to be able to reflect upon afterwards.
amelius 11y ago
> Making money on the App Store is really tough, and people don’t care how many hours I spend on my apps. They only care if it is useful or not. This is a completely result oriented world, but personally, I like it. I would guess that, if the OP had a competitor, then the OP would be easily forced out of the market if that competitor worked 4 hours a day :)
- Drdrdrq 11y ago
  Not really, that's exactly the point. OP would be forced out of the market if that competitor produced better results. Not the same thing.
Shorrock 11y ago
One size certainly does not fit all, however, my one take away is that this is huge benefit to paying close attention to what works best for you and optimizing your life around that. When you focus on productivity and happiness (often the 2 are linked) ignoring, when possible, schedules dictated upon you your quality of life will improve.
1123581321 11y ago
I read an essay several years ago that suggested working three focused hours a day. But, it suggested slowly increasing the hours worked while keeping the same level of focus, and doing restorative activities in the remaining time. The idea was that this would "triple" productivity.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
wilblack 11y ago
I started contract work last fall. I set me rate assuming a 25 hour work week. At first I tried working ~4 hrs / day everyday day. I quickly realized this did not work for me. Working everyday, even just a little is not sustainable for me. I have a family and they are still on the 9 to 5 schedule, so working even a few hours on weekends cut into my family time which is important to me. So now I force myself to take at least one weekend day off with no prgramming. This is hard because I love to program. Also I have a hard cutoff time during the week days at about 5:30pm when my wife and kid get home. I usually feel like I want to keep working but that forces me to stop (at least until my daughter goes to bed). So now I work 5 or 6 days a week but seldom exceed 6 hours/ day. Most days are closer to 4hrs. It's great at this pace because I usually always feel like i want to keep programming so I don't get burnt out. And if I do have an off day I just don't work. The problem I am running into now is what do I do with my spare time? All my hobbies are computer based (video games and Raspberry Pi projects) but I am trying to minimize my screen time in my off hours. This will get better in the spring and summer as the weather gets better but during winter on the Oregon Coast going outside is hit or miss. And I hear you about not being able to go to bed until I solve a problem I am stuck on, that drives me crazy.
- vhost- 11y ago
  Since you mentioned Oregon, you should try rock climbing. This is one of the best places in the country to be a climber given we have Smith Rock, Broughton bluff and other climbing areas. I've been climbing for years outside work and I feel like it's a great hobby for programmers. It gets you outside and you are essentially problem solving. I found my side projects (video games, rpi things, fun programming) are much more productive when I spend time climbing. I also found it helps me not think about work. Before I started climbing, I would think about my next work day non-stop which was totally counter-productive. I would over think things and then get stuck in a rut for weeks at a time. I now care less about my work when I'm off and I think it's actually made me a better employee.
  - embwbam 11y ago
    I'll second this recommendation. Outdoors sports, especially rock climbing, are the perfect counterbalance to programming. Where programming is in your head, climbing is in your gut, your body, and in the current moment. Personally, I also ski, run, play frisbee, and jam on the mandolin. But agreed, doing things very different from programming are the most rejuvenating for me.
TensionBuoy 11y ago
3 hours is not enough time to get anything done. I'm self employed. I go 12 hours straight before I realize I should probably eat something. I love what I'm doing so I'm drawn to it all day, every day. At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though. 3 hours is just getting warmed up.
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  Do you do this every day? I also used to go 12 hours straight but then there were days I would take off and not do anything. I am not capable of going 12 hours hard every day.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  > At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though.
maxxxxx 11y ago
When I was freelancing there were a lot of days when I didn't do much but then there were days when I got into the flow and worked 2 or 3 days almost straight. Most of the time this ended up at around 40 hours/ week on average but in spurts. This was probably the best work environment I have ever been in. I hate about the corporate workplace that it doesn't accept any kind of rhythm but treats you like a machine that performs exactly the same at all times. Nature is built around seasons and so are humans. They are not machines. I would much prefer to have a time sheet where I can do my 40 hours whenever I feel like it.
- thearn4 11y ago
  This is one thing about federal work that I can appreciate, if nothing else, it is at least flexible.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
"Work for only 3 hours a day, but every day". 'everyday' is an adjective
abledon 11y ago
This is so true of people who give 100% every moment they work, but can't work long hours without feeling drained. compared to someone who goes at 50% and can manage the 40hr/work-week, I wish this method would become more recognized.
a-saleh 11y ago
Nice! I actually had similar routine while at school, but it was 6 hours a day total. 3 hours in the evening, usually just before I went to sleep, might be 19-22, or 21-24 and 3 hours in the morning when I woke up and continued for ~3 hours and then left for lectures. I started doing this because I realized that I am no longer capable of pulling all-nighters. And it worked surprisingly well :-)
joeguilmette 11y ago
I work on a remote team and I am only accountable for my output. I end up working 15-25hrs a week. Sometimes more if something is on fire. I usually work 7 days a week, but invariably a couple days a week I only work an hour, checking email and replying to people. The work I do is of better quality, I'm happier, and I easily could work at this pace until the day I die.
shanwang 11y ago
I'm about to quit my day job and work on my own projects. I planed to maintain a 9-6 working style by going to a library with wifi. Reading this post I'm now thinking maybe I can experiment with different work routines and see which one is more productive for me.

524 points by NonUmemoto 11y ago

Historically, working 24 hours a day (I include sleep because after a certain number of hours you even dream of code or your business) for 1 year typically accomplishes more than working 3 hours per day for 8 years. Or 1.5 hours per day for 16 years. There is just some kind of economy of scale. --------- EDIT: I got downvoted. Come up with whatever standard of productivity you want (ANY standard that you want) and adduce a single human who in 16 years times 90 minutes per day accomplished more than I can find a counter-example of someone doing in the same field in 1 year. 1 year of 24 hours a day strictly dominates 16 years of 90 minutes per day, and you cannot find a single counterexample in any field from any era of humanity. Go ahead and try. oh and by the way, in 1905 Einstein published 1 paper on the Photoelectric effect, for which he won his only nobel prize, 1 paper on Brownian motion which convinced the only leading anti-atomic theorist of the existence of atoms, 1 paper on a little subject that "reconciles Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. This later became known as Einstein's special theory of relativity" and 1 paper on Mass–energy equivalence, which might have remained obscure if he hadn't worked it into a catchy little ditty referring to an "mc". You might have heard of it? E = mc^2? Well a hundred and ten years later all the physicistis are still laying their beats on top. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers Your turn. Point to someone who did as much in 16 years by working just 90 minutes per day. Closer to our own field, Instagram was sold for $1 billion about a year after its founding date, to Facebook. Point out anyone who built $1 billion in value over 16 years working just 90 minutes per day.

onion2k 11y ago
There is just some kind of economy of scale. I feel the opposite is true. Working longer hours actually reduces my level of productivity because at some point I start making mistakes that take time to undo. For me that's only about 6 hours of coding; if I work 12 hours then half of my time is spent undoing mistakes or finding better solutions, so I'm less productive than if I'd only written code for 6 hours in the first place. I definitely don't find that I'm more productive if I just put in more time ad infinitum.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  6 hours is my sweet spot too.
usrusr 11y ago
Probably depends a lot on the amount of intrinsic motivation involved: burning for something you love until it is done? Much more efficient per hour than revisiting it as a side project for some leftover hours each day. But when you are just exchanging hours for money, you will see acceptable (but not stellar) productivity at a reasonable amount of hours that will sharply drop when you add more.
greendesk 11y ago
I feel that there were times when working 24 hours / day was effective and times when working such long hours was ineffective. There are two issues that I know of when I worked for long hours: tunnel-vision, communication and burning out. If one works long hours, one has to evaluate an idea all the way, to check if is correct or not. For me, his hampers evaluating competing ideas effectively. This might not be the case for everyone. Working as a team requires feedback from other team members. If you get stuck or need feedback/communication with someone else, you can enter a feedback loop such that the additional time that you spent on it does not bring additional value. These type of loops are possible even if working less hours per day, so it can be a good idea for additional research. And burning-out: there is only so many hours in a day. A worker can have interest outside the technical question at hand: if they have priorities outside of work, would you require that they forego their priorities for work?
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Says who? I've not found this to be historically so at all in my own perception. Feel free to share some data.
- logicallee 11y ago
  I mean historically as in, in the annals of history. I've now updated my comment with two examples.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    Thanks. I don't see how the Einstein example is relevant, feel free to elaborate. On instagram... you're introduction valuation, not nominal productivity. i.e., imagine I can either produce 1 smartphone after a year working 100 hours per week, or produce 100 smartphones after 10 years, working 10 hours per week. Well, nominally, the latter example is way more productive. You produce 10x as many phones per year while working 1/10th the time. There's absolutely no way you can say that the former is more productive. But, building today's smartphone in 10 years is obviously going to leave you with little value. In 10 years, your 10-year old tech will be valued very little. Your instagram example is like that. The engineers working on it may have been much more productive if given 10 years to work on their project, but its valuation would be shit because it's last to market instead of first to market. So, not a great example. If you're trying to say that working hard in short periods, allowing you to get to market before anyone else, is better than taking your time, then obviously that's true, but that's more a function of competition than it is of productivity! Further, it's a poor example. Show me data that's meaningful for a large group of people, not extreme outliers. How many people do you know that created a $1b company or came up with g relativity theory? It's like saying 'dropping out of school is a great idea, look at Gates and Zuckerberg'. When in reality the data overwhelmingly supports the notion that finishing school has positive outcomes in your life. You can prove anything by looking at selective (outlier) examples, but show me examples that commonly occur. Meanwhile overwhelmingly studies show that productivity drops sharply after some amount of hours. You get more work done per unit of time when working 8 hours per day, than 16 hours, period. That's what productivity measures. There is obviously some lower bound, if you work in 3 minute intervals you're spending a lot of your time 'starting up' your workspace and getting your brain tuned in your work, and so productivity (work per unit of time) drops. I wouldn't be surprised if 4 times 90 minutes was less productive than working for 6 hours, that makes a lot of sense. But there's also an upper bound, where you lose concentration and motivation and are better off resting and getting back to it the next day, such that working two days of 6 hours is more productive than a single 12 hour session. Feel free to look at the many, many studies that confirm this. The above applies to virtually anyone, any organisation, any individual, productivity has diminishing returns as you scale way down or way up.
onion2k 11y ago
Regarding your edit - no one is downvoting you because they believe they can do more in 90 minutes than 24 hours. You're being downvoted because you're saying that productivity is infinitely scalable - I believe that's wrong. Over a certain amount of work productivity drops to the point where it creates a negative impact on your effectiveness. If you find that you're effective for every hour you work regardless how long you work for then you're very fortunate and exceptionally unusual.
- logicallee 11y ago
  Why would you say that I'm stating productivity is "infinitely" scalable? Is a billion "infinitely" more than a million? I'm saying if you want to accomplish something great and groundbreaking, it's better to work 24 hours a day at it than three hours a day, and, yes, you can stop after a year or two. You literally have as much life left, but you can accomplish a huge amount more, by concentrating the work rather than spreading it out. I don't know why this is, it just is. But you know what's even easier than working three hours a day? Working zero hours and signing up for unemployment benefits. You certainly won't suffer from exhaustion or burnout. You can choose smallness, but just be aware that you are doing so. That's what choosing to work three hours a day means. I don't think I'm saying something even a tiny bit controversial and I am utterly perplexed at the votes I received on it. If you want to do something big, then concentrate your work on it, don't spread it out over a longer time period. You literally are not able to achieve as much in the exact same number of hours, if the hours are spread out over a longer time period. I can't believe anyone finds this even the slightest bit controversial or finds any objection to what I've written.
  - onion2k 11y ago
    Why would you say that I'm stating productivity is "infinitely" scalable? Because you're saying that doing more work is always more effective than doing less work, all the way up to the maximum possible amount of work. That's the definition of infinite scaleability. I'm saying if you want to accomplish something great and groundbreaking, it's better to work 24 hours a day at it than three hours a day And that's what I'm saying isn't true, although I'm using the lower value of 6 hours rather than 3. Typical people can't work 24 hours a day for months on end without having a catastrophic crash in the end. Similarly, typical people can't put in more than about 8 hours solid work without becoming less effective, to the point of negative effectiveness. Personally, if I work for 14 hours a day I make lots of mistakes and have to spend time fixing them, which means I'm not really doing 14 hours work - I'm doing 14 hours minus the time it takes to fix things. I might as well just do the 6 or 8 or 10 hours that I can do without things going wrong. Saying that you can work for any number of hours a day ad infinitum without ever getting burnt out is controversial because anyone who's been a developer for more than a few years knows it isn't true.
dreamfactory2 11y ago
Are those the papers he wrote in his spare time while he was working full time as an office clerk?
- logicallee 11y ago
  upvoted you. So, this is really important and let's look at this very carefully. (I'm not a historian.) Obviously you mean to imply that he had just spare time for his papers only, and that from our point of view 8 hours were taken as irrelevant non-work (if we consider the science to be the work), so that perhaps something like 3 were left for physics. But is that accurate? If we look at the article I linked on that miracle year, it says: "He worked as an examiner at the Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland, and he later said of a co-worker there, Michele Besso, that he 'could not have found a better sounding board for his ideas in all of Europe'." I'm not trying to "rebut" you, let's understand what really happened. Did Einstein really do irrelevant clerical work that was time he simply lost from his day? Or did he really not only slack off during his job, and spend some time doing physics on company time, but even have his coworkers' input into it? i.e. get extra resources from his day job? I am genuinely curious, but I think that it is probably the latter! What I mean is that suppose you take away his job at the patent office and his connection with his colleagues there. Instead you rewind history and just I don't know make him win some kind of lottery or give him the same money that he made but from some other source, or you make him a mailman or something, but at any rate you take away any positive direct contribution from his position. What is your personal opinion about whether the four papers would still have resulted? Given everything I know about working on private projects on company time, or the history of Bill Gates at Harvard or a number of other similar stories... and given the direct quote... I think it quite likely that his 8 hour "office clerk" job in fact contributed to his physics research. It would have been a purer example if he were a chauffeur or something. But given the quote, I think perhaps we should consider even those 8 hours as contributing to his physics research. It is a real shame that we can't ask "what would have happened if he hadn't been working as a patent clerk." On balance I think it supports my theory that it takes 24 hours to do something. You raise a good point however and I'd be interested in a historian's perspective. This is an extremely interesting venue to ask about. I wonder if anyone wrote about his work habits during those couple of years?
codethief 11y ago
I think your point with Einstein is invalid. "Einstein immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he held a professorship at Princeton University until his retirement in 1945. His routine there was simple. Between 9:00 and 10:00 A.M. he ate breakfast and perused the daily papers. At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00, then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters." (Source: Mason Currey – Daily Rituals: How Artists Work; found on http://jrbenjamin.com/2013/08/08/the-old-elephants-tricks/ http://jrbenjamin.com/2013/08/08/the-old-elephants-tricks/) Clearly, this quote doesn't cover the time of the 1900s and 1910s but I doubt Einstein significantly changed his work habits (that had enabled him to be so successful in the first place) after emigrating to the States. In any case, he certainly did not work on theoretical physics for 8 hours per day, let alone 24 hours. Besides, being a theoretical physicist myself, I can tell you from personal experience that thinking about theoretical problems is hard work and depletes you of energy rather quickly. I don't think success in theoretical physics depends on how much time you spend (beyond a handful of hours a day) but rather on your perseverence, on what problems you choose and on your ability to come up with new ways in which to rephrase the problem. If that still doesn't satisfy you, you can also google for biographies of successful mathematicians to see that a lot of them considered rest to be important and didn't work more than a couple hours per day. See, for instance, http://mathoverflow.net/questions/9799/how-much-work-does-it-take-to-be-a-successful-mathematician http://mathoverflow.net/questions/9799/how-much-work-does-it... .
- logicallee 11y ago
  We are discussing the suggestion that people work 3 hours. (Indeed the title of the article is literally "Work for only 3 hours a day, but everyday".) Your quote does cover 3 hours of work very clearly: "At about 10:30 he left for his Princeton office, walking when the weather was nice; otherwise, a station wagon from the university would pick him up. He worked until 1:00". That is almost exactly 3 hours. Your quote clearly describes about three hours of work per day, from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM. The only problem? Your quote continues "then returned home for a 1:30 lunch, a nap, and a cup of tea. The rest of the afternoon was spent at home, continuing his work, seeing visitors, and dealing with the correspondence that his secretary had sorted earlier in the day. Supper was at 6:30, followed by more work and more letters." Literally "the rest of the afternoon was spent at home continuing his work...dealing with correspondnece..." and after a 6:30 pm supper "more work and more letters." I will thank you for not cutting your quote off at the word "he worked until 1:00", which is the kind of example I was asking for (describing a 3-hour workday). The only issue is that an additional 5-10 hours of work follow. It's no example at all. In fact, taken as a whole it's pretty much the lifestyle I was describing, working from morning until late into the night. If you do know of any scientist who worked for 3 hours a day I'd love to hear it.

shin_lao 11y ago

3 hours a day is just not enough for everyone. For some projects it's perfectly fine but some tasks can only be done if you focus for a large amount of time on it, work obsessively on it until you reach a milestone. The greatest work I have ever done, was always done when I retreated like a monk for several weeks, cutting myself of the whole world and working almost non-stop on the task until I made a significant breakthrough. Then I go back to the livings and share the fruits of my work, and of course, take a well deserved rest for several days. The trap into most people fall is that they are confusing being active and working.

Nemcue 11y ago
I too do my absolute best work in that kind of mode. However, I'm thoroughly lacking on the "take a well deserved rest" part after crunching on my own. Since no one actually sees me working so hard, I have no idea how I would go about making sure client/boss would be happy with that.

JacobAldridge 11y ago

If I told you that every car needed 8 gallons of gas to drive 100 miles, you'd point out I was wrong - so many different makes and models, not to mention variables from tire pressure to driving style. Yet for the potentially even more complex range that is different people, it amazes me that so much of the advice is didactic - we all need 8 hours sleep, 8 glasses of water, and 8 hours of work with breaks is optimal. The closest I get to advice is 'learn your body and what works for you'. Thanks to the OP for sharing what works for him.

MarcusP 11y ago
I agree with your point, one size certainly doesn't fit all. However, people should also be aware that they are not special snowflakes and there large groups of people who have the same tendencies and benefit from the same advice. Therefore, even though I appreciate that this isn't a solution for everyone, I don't think it's fair to say that this boils down to just a personal experience with no external value.
- ams6110 11y ago
  I think maybe the larger lesson is to timebox work so that it's not overwhelming. This can tend to reduce procrastination and time-wasting distractions in some people, as it's less intimidating to start a three hour work session than an all-day one, and easier to stay focused with a clear ending time already known. Whether that's three hours, or four, or two sets of two hours, maybe is less important.
daveguy 11y ago
This reminds me of 7 minute abs: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JB2di69FmhE
lucaspiller 11y ago
This is one of my gripes about working in an office. More often than not I cannot work continuously from 9-5, and end up wasting time just trying to get myself back into working mode - which usually descends into browsing HN/Reddit/etc or just working half as effectively as I usually do. When I work remotely and have freedom over my time, I can take a few hours off to go for a walk, sleep, go for a long lunch, meet friends, or even play games. Afterwards I feel recharged and can be 110% productive, and usually end up working more hours than I would in an office. I did this for a lot of last year, as I needed to overlap with teams in India and PST, so I usually worked 10am - 10pm taking a few hours off in the afternoon. I was able to get so much more done because of that extended break.

dkopi 11y ago

I'm pretty sure this has worked for the author, and it will work for a lot of other people as well, but a lot the benefits raised can still be achieved when working more than 3 hours a day. A few points are raised in the post: 1. If you only work 3 hours, you're less tempted to go on twitter/facebook/hacker news. True - but that's really a question of discipline, work environment and how excited you are about what you're working on. It's perfectly possible to perform for 10 hours straight without distractions, just make sure to take an occasional break for physical health. 2. Better prioritization. Treating your time as a scarce resource helps focus on the core features. But your time is a scarce resource even if you work 12 hours a day. Programmers are in shortage. They cost a lot. And the time you're spending on building your own apps could have been spent freelancing and working for someone else's apps. Always stick a dollar figure on your working hours. Even if you're working on your own projects. You should always prioritize your tasks, and always consider paying for something that might save you development time (Better computer. better IDE. SaaS solutions, etc). 3. Taking a long break can help you solve a problem you're stuck on. Personally, I find that taking a short walk, rubber duck debugging or just changing to a different task for a while does the same. If I'm stuck on something, I don't need to stop working on it until tomorrow. I just need an hour or two away from it.

geographomics 11y ago
On the topic of work environment: in one job I worked at, we had the Internet machines completely separated from the work machines. If you needed to check something you had to physically walk over to the Internet desk. Great for focussing on the task at hand without distraction, and considering carefully what information you need.
- bdcravens 11y ago
  But then how do you copy and paste from Stack Overflow?
  - sleepychu 11y ago
    On a serious note, this is a terrible habbit. SO code is questionably licenced.

rmsaksida 11y ago

I mostly agree with the author, but I don't see the point of stopping yourself when you're "in the zone". Why lose the flexibility? What works for me is having a baseline of 3 or 4 hours of daily work, and not imposing any hard limits when I want or need to do extra hours. This works out great, because I have no excuses not to do the boring routine work as it's just a few hours, but I also have the liberty of doing obsessive 10h sessions when I'm trying to solve a tough problem or when I'm working on something fun.

sleepychu 11y ago
The author thinks in the long run the 10h sessions hurt you. They acknowledge specifically that got a week long exercise more work will produce more results but that they feel their average productivity is much higher over months or years by never getting bogged down even when they're making progress.
- kethinov 11y ago
  The 3 hours every day pattern might work for the author and many other people but it won't work for everyone. That's the problem with generalizing. There's no one size fits all solution for an optimal work schedule. I think the lesson to learn from this is that we should work harder to not only remove the stigma of unusual work schedules, but encourage them so people can discover their maximum productivity schedule for themselves.
ChrisDutrow 11y ago
It probably depends on the person. When I do what you are suggesting, I seem to burn through too much "cognitive resources", getting a ton done, then crashing into a haze for a few days to more than a week. At that point it's hard to get started again. So I see the advantage - for some people - of cutting "in the zone" time short. I should note that "in the zone" time for me can last a few weeks. Most recently, a long one came after spending a lot of time at the gym doing cardio. When I hit "the zone", I stopped going to the gym and just worked. Now I'm in the "haze phase". The problem with the haze phase is it's hard to focus on anything, including going back to the gym, which should theoretically spur another "in the zone" phase. I have a lot of trouble achieving balance.

andretti1977 11y ago

I agree with the author with some exceptions: when you are working as a contractor or freelancer for someone else's project maybe 3h/day is not acceptable. When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient. But i agree that working less than 8h/day could be really more productive. I also liked the "less stuck for coding" topic as "...it is sometimes hard to go bed without solving some unknown issues, and you don’t want to stop coding in the middle of it..." so maybe forcing themselves to stop could be a solution. Anyway, i would really like to work 4 or 5 hours a day but keeping holidays and weekends free from work and i think this can only be achieved if you can pay your living with products of your own such as your apps and not by freelancing (i am a freelance and i know it!). But i enjoyed the idea behind the article and i will try to achieve it one day.

wolfgke 11y ago
> When you've got externally imposed deadlines 3h/day may not be sufficient. Lots of deadlines companies and thus their employees face are externally imposed (often from their customer(s)).
- quietplatypus 11y ago
  they are also often bullshit deadlines that users dont care about but gets a few brownie points for management.
  - wolfgke 11y ago
    No true Scotsman fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
    - bybjorn 11y ago
      True, they're still deadlines. But, since they are BS, that might be fixed somehow, no?
      - 11y ago

spajus 11y ago

How to pull this through when you are paid by the hour?

marincounty 11y ago
You bill like Lawyers--lie. Yea, I know, I can't lie as easily as Lawyers either. I guess they learned to lie without guilt in ethics class?
brianwawok 11y ago
You either learn to live on less, or switch to billing by project ;)

xg15 11y ago

So no going out for drinks where you might have a hangover the next day?

Kenji 11y ago
If you really want alcohol, why waste the next day with hangover when you can just drink one or two drinks and be well?
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Getting drunk is part of the point. There's no gain in pretending it's not.
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    There's a spectrum: tipsy, drunk, pissed, belligerent, shitfaced, and finally poisoned. From pissed on you're probably going to get a hangover.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    I really like drinking but I hate being drunk. I am happy with a buzz but if I drink more after that is unpleasant to me. My apologies to Xg15 for down voting him or her. It was accidental, my finger slipped and there's no "undo" button that I know of.
    - xg15 11y ago
      No offense taken - I didn't notice to be honest.

jiblylabs 11y ago

As a freelancer, I understand where some of the comments "As a freelancer this won't work" are coming from. However, the last year I've flipped my freelancing model where I offer a more productized service with a clearly defined scope and set price. Instead of doing design work for $XXX/h, I'll deliver A,B,C within Timeframe Y, for Price $XXXX. With clearly defined services, I've actually been working for the last 12 months using a similar model, usually constraining myself to 4h/day with weekends off. My productivity + revenue have increased dramatically. Productizing your service makes it easier to market and generate leads, while it gives you the flexibility to work the way you want and actually free up time. Awesome post OP!

radicalbyte 11y ago
That's interesting, what do you do exactly? Designer? Developer? :)
- jiblylabs 11y ago
  I'm both, but offer a couple of productized design services. I'm actually right now in the process to figure out if if I'm able to replicate the same model for some dev services. Curious to find out.
  - existencebox 11y ago
    I realize this may not be the thread for it; but you seem to have a good enough handle on your freelancing to be evaluating different product strategies, which is significantly more detail than I typically hear mentioned. Do you have any writing/thoughts on getting this far, for someone stuck in the bigCo land who has always dreamed of more autonomy, but stumbled on the "building a freelancer client network" block?
    - jiblylabs 11y ago
      this stuff isn't mine, but a big source of inspiration for me has been the stuff casjam.com has put up. Check out his blog/podcast. You can also find some webinars he's done on youtube. You'll find some golden nuggets in there

jjoe 11y ago

It reads like someone who isn't doing much of realtime support. This works great for projects that haven't been unveiled or even ones that require little ongoing maintenance like a game. But if I worked 3 hours a day, my clients would crucify me. Sadly, it isn't always possible.

err4nt 11y ago

I have experienced a similar thing while freelancing or design and web development. I used to work 16 hours some days and less hours others, but then sometimes I would need to work and found it hard to kick it into gear. I think creativity is like a well, and when you do creative work its like drawing that water out. If you use too much water one day, the well runs dry. You have to wait for the goundwater to fill it up again. Not only did I begin viewing creativity as a limited resource I create and have access to over time, but I noticed that some activities, like reading about science, listening to music, and walking around town actually increase the rate at which the well fills up. So now I have made it a daily habit of doing things that inspire me, and I also daily draw from the well like the author said - but Im more careful not to creatively 'overdo it' and leave myself unable to be creative the next day. Viewing it this way has helped a lot, for all the same benefits the author listed. Im in a rhythm where I dont feel I need a break on the weekend, I just still have energy.

katzgrau 11y ago
"Not only did I begin viewing creativity as a limited resource I create and have access to over time, but I noticed that some activities, like reading about science, listening to music, and walking around town actually increase the rate at which the well fills up." +1, many times over. Taking breaks and having fun are very important to maintaining high productivity and creativity when I am working. Unfortunately it's in stark contrast to the mantras I often hear suggesting "there's someone out there who is working harder than you on the same thing and they're going to win if you let up." That mentality is unhealthy and leads to depression/exhaustion.
- jonah 11y ago
  s/harder/smarter and it probably holds true.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Yes. And course if you believe the premise, then working harder (i.e. more hours) is a net negative. I would imagine we've all been on death marches at some point in our careers. And yes it can work to meet a deadline but the long term result is usually burnout and piles of technical debt which is always less fun to work on even if you're motivated.

susam 11y ago

I agree with this article mostly, although 3 hours a day might be too little to make good progress with work for some people. This article reminded me of my previous workplace (about 7 years ago) where my manager discouraged engineers from working for more than 6 hours a day. He recommended 4 hours of work per day and requested us not to exceed more than 6 hours of work per day. He believed working for less number of hours a day would lead to higher code quality, less mistakes and more robust software. Although, he never went around the floor ensuring that engineers do not exceed 6 hours of work a day, and some engineers did exceed 6 hours a day, however, in my opinion, his team was the most motivated team on the floor.

jqm 11y ago
I've found 6 hours to be about the right amount day in and day out.
- vldx 11y ago
  Same here; I've build a system around this, i.e. 6 sets of 50 minute sprints. No pressure hitting this volume, it's not a goal, but more a data point.
chris11 11y ago
Did he differentiate between more demanding work like writing code and less demanding work like going to meetings?
- susam 11y ago
  No, he was not specific about what the 4 hours of work included. However, working on code consumed about 90% of our time. Meetings were held once a week for 30 minutes. The time spent on emails and updating bug tracker usually varied anywhere between 0 minutes to 45 minutes per day.
- Drdrdrq 11y ago
  Less demanding??? I would gladly trade meetings time for hardcore programming work, anytime.

LiweiZ 11y ago

I work 4-5 hours everyday but everyday on my own project. I wish I could have more time on work since most of the rest time I have is allocated to housework and taking care of two little ones. I guess the key is to control your work pace. When a sprint is needed and you are ready for it, a two-week with 90-100 hours in each week would not be a bad idea. Just like running. Listen to your body, pick your pace and keep going towards your goal.

jamesjyu 11y ago

Work hard. Not too much. Focus on what's important.

jacquesm 11y ago

There is a much better alternative: work really hard for 2 to 3 months per year and then take the rest of the year off. If you're doing high value consulting you can easily do this. You may have to forego some luxury but that's a very small price to pay for the freedom you get in return.

Melk 11y ago
That was my schedule the past 8 or 9 years (actually it was closer to working 4 months and taking 8 months off because I'm not that high value). The problem is that I like what I do but the months I was working I enjoyed it less and the months I was off I missed working. Also it's killing for your social life when you're working nonstop. Another problem is you'll lose clients if you're not available for months at a time. My new schedule is closer to what the post describes and it works much better for me personally.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > Another problem is you'll lose clients if you're not available for months at a time. Yes, I can see how that would be possible, this is not a problem for me because of the work that I do but in other lines of work it could really kill your momentum.

mrottenkolber 11y ago

What about work 11 hours a week and be happy? Works for me, and I am a freelancer. Edit: I usually do three blocks of three hours each and one two hour block each week. I find three hours perfect to tackle a problem, and a good chunk to be able to reflect upon afterwards.

amelius 11y ago

> Making money on the App Store is really tough, and people don’t care how many hours I spend on my apps. They only care if it is useful or not. This is a completely result oriented world, but personally, I like it. I would guess that, if the OP had a competitor, then the OP would be easily forced out of the market if that competitor worked 4 hours a day :)

Drdrdrq 11y ago
Not really, that's exactly the point. OP would be forced out of the market if that competitor produced better results. Not the same thing.

Shorrock 11y ago

One size certainly does not fit all, however, my one take away is that this is huge benefit to paying close attention to what works best for you and optimizing your life around that. When you focus on productivity and happiness (often the 2 are linked) ignoring, when possible, schedules dictated upon you your quality of life will improve.

1123581321 11y ago

I read an essay several years ago that suggested working three focused hours a day. But, it suggested slowly increasing the hours worked while keeping the same level of focus, and doing restorative activities in the remaining time. The idea was that this would "triple" productivity.

deleted 11y ago

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wilblack 11y ago

I started contract work last fall. I set me rate assuming a 25 hour work week. At first I tried working ~4 hrs / day everyday day. I quickly realized this did not work for me. Working everyday, even just a little is not sustainable for me. I have a family and they are still on the 9 to 5 schedule, so working even a few hours on weekends cut into my family time which is important to me. So now I force myself to take at least one weekend day off with no prgramming. This is hard because I love to program. Also I have a hard cutoff time during the week days at about 5:30pm when my wife and kid get home. I usually feel like I want to keep working but that forces me to stop (at least until my daughter goes to bed). So now I work 5 or 6 days a week but seldom exceed 6 hours/ day. Most days are closer to 4hrs. It's great at this pace because I usually always feel like i want to keep programming so I don't get burnt out. And if I do have an off day I just don't work. The problem I am running into now is what do I do with my spare time? All my hobbies are computer based (video games and Raspberry Pi projects) but I am trying to minimize my screen time in my off hours. This will get better in the spring and summer as the weather gets better but during winter on the Oregon Coast going outside is hit or miss. And I hear you about not being able to go to bed until I solve a problem I am stuck on, that drives me crazy.

vhost- 11y ago
Since you mentioned Oregon, you should try rock climbing. This is one of the best places in the country to be a climber given we have Smith Rock, Broughton bluff and other climbing areas. I've been climbing for years outside work and I feel like it's a great hobby for programmers. It gets you outside and you are essentially problem solving. I found my side projects (video games, rpi things, fun programming) are much more productive when I spend time climbing. I also found it helps me not think about work. Before I started climbing, I would think about my next work day non-stop which was totally counter-productive. I would over think things and then get stuck in a rut for weeks at a time. I now care less about my work when I'm off and I think it's actually made me a better employee.
- embwbam 11y ago
  I'll second this recommendation. Outdoors sports, especially rock climbing, are the perfect counterbalance to programming. Where programming is in your head, climbing is in your gut, your body, and in the current moment. Personally, I also ski, run, play frisbee, and jam on the mandolin. But agreed, doing things very different from programming are the most rejuvenating for me.

TensionBuoy 11y ago

3 hours is not enough time to get anything done. I'm self employed. I go 12 hours straight before I realize I should probably eat something. I love what I'm doing so I'm drawn to it all day, every day. At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though. 3 hours is just getting warmed up.

maxxxxx 11y ago
Do you do this every day? I also used to go 12 hours straight but then there were days I would take off and not do anything. I am not capable of going 12 hours hard every day.
tonyedgecombe 11y ago
> At the end of the day I've hardly made a dent in my project though.

maxxxxx 11y ago

When I was freelancing there were a lot of days when I didn't do much but then there were days when I got into the flow and worked 2 or 3 days almost straight. Most of the time this ended up at around 40 hours/ week on average but in spurts. This was probably the best work environment I have ever been in. I hate about the corporate workplace that it doesn't accept any kind of rhythm but treats you like a machine that performs exactly the same at all times. Nature is built around seasons and so are humans. They are not machines. I would much prefer to have a time sheet where I can do my 40 hours whenever I feel like it.

thearn4 11y ago
This is one thing about federal work that I can appreciate, if nothing else, it is at least flexible.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

"Work for only 3 hours a day, but every day". 'everyday' is an adjective

abledon 11y ago

This is so true of people who give 100% every moment they work, but can't work long hours without feeling drained. compared to someone who goes at 50% and can manage the 40hr/work-week, I wish this method would become more recognized.

a-saleh 11y ago

Nice! I actually had similar routine while at school, but it was 6 hours a day total. 3 hours in the evening, usually just before I went to sleep, might be 19-22, or 21-24 and 3 hours in the morning when I woke up and continued for ~3 hours and then left for lectures. I started doing this because I realized that I am no longer capable of pulling all-nighters. And it worked surprisingly well :-)

joeguilmette 11y ago

I work on a remote team and I am only accountable for my output. I end up working 15-25hrs a week. Sometimes more if something is on fire. I usually work 7 days a week, but invariably a couple days a week I only work an hour, checking email and replying to people. The work I do is of better quality, I'm happier, and I easily could work at this pace until the day I die.

shanwang 11y ago

I'm about to quit my day job and work on my own projects. I planed to maintain a 9-6 working style by going to a library with wifi. Reading this post I'm now thinking maybe I can experiment with different work routines and see which one is more productive for me.