

Ask HN: How hard do you work? - Liron

How many hours do you spend at your workplace? And in that time, how many hours of actual work do you do?
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ctingom
I've tracked my time for over 2 years solid.

The first year (2007) I was 46% billable efficiency (web design).

The second year (2008) I was 49% billable efficiency (doing web design).

I also do sales / marketing / customer service / and building my own web app
so this is purely consulting stuff with clients and I'm happy with the
numbers.

In 2007 I worked 2784 hours. In 2008 I worked about 600 hours less than the
previous year. I think that was my goal going into the year. Objective
achieved!

~~~
jon_dahl
Thanks for the numbers. As a principal in a consulting company, that's about
what I'd guess for my own time. Of course, I haven't tracked my time nearly as
thoroughly. :)

I'd be interested to see other numbers like this if anyone has them.

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drusenko
we used to spend 16 hours a day working on weebly, mon-fri and sunday, but
we'd always take friday night and saturday off. we were fairly productive, so
i'd say at least 50% of that time was actual, productive work.

over time, and with a move into our own office (and out of the apartment),
we've shifted to what feels a more sustainable 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a
week.

at the same time, we're pretty liberal with vacation as appropriate (probably
5-6 weeks a year), as it's a great time to recharge the batteries. in this
context, vacation generally means working at a much reduced output -- it's
pretty hard to step away completely.

all in all, we feel very happy with what we've been able to accomplish at
work, and feel lucky that we're able to have as much personal time as we do --
it's sometimes not as much about the amount of time, as it is about the
flexibility to take time off at the drop of a hat.

~~~
ojbyrne
So that first paragraph means that if you eliminated the non-productive time,
you work 6 x 8 hour days. And gain some work life balance.

~~~
drusenko
early on, i think it was pretty hard to figure out when we were going to be
productive, and when we weren't. partially because some of the stuff you do
(email, research, etc) doesn't _feel_ particularly productive, even though it
needs to get done. let's put it this way: we had no cable, gaming system, or
anything of the like -- we most definitely were not wasting time, it was more
like 8 hours a day of solid, uninterrupted coding, surrounded by 8 hours of
email, meals, catching up on the news, etc.

the one benefit to being very committed early on: we did occasionally have
weeks that were (usually by necessity) insanely productive, where we'd
accomplish some absolutely unbelievable task, something that would have
otherwise taken a month, usually because of a strict deadline. if you refuse
to work more than 4 x 8, a la 37 signals, that's just not going to be
possible.

believe it or not, though, i was actually trying to provide an example of a
positive work-life balance :)

~~~
ojbyrne
I do actually believe that 40 work weeks are artificial, and not conducive to
either good work or a good life outside of work. When it's time to be
enthusiastic and produce something, rigid hours should not get in the way.
But, on the same theme, when it's time to take a break, a two day weekend
often won't do, nor will arbitrarily scheduled holidays, or even 2-3 weeks of
vacation.

------
raffi
It depends. When I'm in the zone I work myself into the ground. When I'm out
of the zone I'm very unproductive. I found a secret that helps me get into the
zone though. Its a secret, for $9.95 you can order my e-book or just read the
rest of this comment.

I'm not a planner personality at all and I find planning my time does no good.
However I do respond to accountability. So what I do is make a table with the
X axis representing the days of the week and the Y axis representing each hour
slot in the waking day. I print this out so I can carry it with me and one
sheet of paper has one week.

I then fill in the table throughout the week with what I did during that hour.
If I ate, I put down that I ate. If I was asleep I put that down. If I wasted
the hour I put down an X. If I did something productive I write that down.
This method works for me and after two weeks of this I'm back in the zone and
don't need to track my time anymore.

~~~
dasil003
Two weeks and you're back in the zone? How long does it stick? For me, it
fluctuates much more rapidly. Most days I'm in the zone for solid chunks of
time and not in the zone for some chunks as well. Occasionally I'll have a bad
day or two back to back. However one day rarely carries over to the next in
terms of productivity.

~~~
raffi
Until I've gotten where I need to get to. I used to use this technique when I
was an undergraduate to get through tough periods of the semester.

Recently, I used it on my startup after I finished grad school. I had a goal
of getting a beta out and pushed myself into this working mode. I then kept
going until I released the beta.

I tend to spend months in a zone where I'm able to concentrate and think about
a project. During this time my social drive is down. Then I spend months in a
zone where I just want to be around people and I can barely work. I think this
technique is a way to throw myself into the working part of my brain at will.
I won't claim to understand it. And I won't guarantee it will work for you. I
just know all the plan things out stuff I was taught did me no good. This
worked and so that is why I point it out here.

I work out and eat well but any one who knows me will tell you that I am life
balance FAIL.

------
DanielStraight
I'm a programmer for an engineering company (the only one at the company). I
do internal apps to help make their jobs easier.

I have 9 scheduled hours a day (1 hour lunch). I'm usually at my desk early
and during part of lunch, but I don't work during these times (unless
something REALLY needs done). The break helps me focus more. During my regular
8 hours of work, I generally am actually working for at least 7.5 of them. I
NEVER goof off at work. I never handle personal business or surf the web while
at work (aside from using Google or StackOverflow to find an answer to a
programming question). The only thing that distracts me from work is chatting
with coworkers from time to time.

I don't think it's fair to measure work by any standard other than "I feel
what I'm doing is productive." I'm not typing code 7.5 hours a day. Sometimes
I'm designing or reviewing code or refactoring or reading version control logs
or reading up on new technologies. Fortunately, my company is smart enough to
agree that this is work and encourage it.

~~~
ggruschow
_I don't think it's fair to measure work by any standard other than "I feel
what I'm doing is productive."_

Wonderful statement. Only in extreme cases does it seem untrue for thought-
workers.

If you're interested in the idea of people simply declaring their productivity
(and worth), Maverick by Semler is a good read:
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0446670553>

------
kirubakaran
I often found myself doing random stuff and then wondering "what the hell did
I do?" at the end of the day. So I wrote a simple tool Smacklet
<http://smacklet.com/> and it has helped me immensely. All you do is: type in
few words about what you are doing and plan to do now. Doing this simple
exercise, I found myself more "aware" through the day and hence ended up
squandering less and less time.

Give it a try if you feel like. I had several features planned, like graphs
etc... but I found the current feature-set sufficient for my needs.

~~~
ReTelTech
Nice! I like it.

------
patio11
I am physically present at the day job for between 10 and 12 hours typically
(more some days, less others) and sustain peak productivity for about 2 to 4
hours most days.

My side business averages about 5 hours a week according to RescueTime -- more
when I'm able to block off time on a Saturday to get some heavy lifting done,
although after 6 hours I find my wheels spin an awful lot even when self-
directed.

It drives me absolutely freaking bonkers that people think the above figures
prove anything about whether I'm "working hard" on either the day job or the
business.

------
lleger
I work far too much and far too hard, yet not quite enough or quite hard
enough.

Yeah, it's a paradox, but anyone else building a company, working a regular
job, and going to school will understand.

------
rjurney
I've never seen my workplace, but I work about 65 hours a week, just over 40
of which I consider billable. Ratcheting up to 70-75.

This is not a sustainable rate, especially without equity.

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huhtenberg
11-12 hours per day and another 10-12 hours per weekend -> a bit over 70 hours
per week for two years. Then sold the company and it went downhill from there.
I posted longer version of this in an older thread -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=330672>

Now it's more like 3 hours a day, 4 days a week working on some stuff that I
like. So in the end it was totally worth it :-).

------
edw519
8 am to 4 pm 5 days/week - client sites (10% efficient)

7 pm to 11 pm 5 days/week, 8 hours Saturday, 12 hours Sunday - my startup (70
- 90% efficient)

Friday nights and one weekend per month off (100% efficient)

------
Zarathu
Given that I work from home, it depends on whether or not I've taken Adderall
that day.

It ranges from 2 to 16 hours.

~~~
ConradHex
If I may ask: why not just take it every day? Does it cause side effects?

~~~
ddemchuk
my guess would probably be not wanting to develop a tolerance, potentially
because it isn't prescribed and is then probably expensive...

~~~
Disparity
I highly recommend you try not taking Adderall. In my experience (I've had
plenty of experience), it only screws with your priorities (you think you can
do anything while you're on it) and makes you completely useless when you're
not taking it. I was prescribed it myself for several years, and only recently
went off. I've replaced Adderall with a little bit of caffeine, and lots of
exercise. And yes, Adderall has a bunch of negative side effects. Try it once
if you want, but don't make a habit out of it--you'll regret it long term.

~~~
Zarathu
I actually found myself quite annoyed by distractions. I felt like I was God,
and I wanted to get my project done as soon as possible. Felt wonderful.

------
ggruschow
I don't work hard anymore. I try to eliminate the need for it. If that fails
and it's more than just assembling or moving a desk, I try to pay someone else
nice to do it. I'm happy that our society somehow considers typing to be more
important work than roofing.

I'm in my office around 45 hours a week.. somewhere around 5am-3pm M-F with
probably 5 to 10 hours of errands, lunches, and lazy times cut out of that.

I'd say I average 2 hours a week right now writing out "code" that I'd
describe as my "work." That seems insanely low, but given a good typing speed,
that's enough to write the K&R C book in a month. I wish my quality were that
high, but I'm trying.

I think at the office I'm probably down to ~10 hours a week of "unproductive"
time now (e.g. reading this stuff, writing this comment, gossiping with
friends about someone's date).

------
agotterer
I work 10am - 6:30pm everyday at my day job. Usually come home, eat dinner and
work on my startup from 8pm - 12pm. At the office though, I probably spend 30
min a day between person email, tech news and stocks. Maybe another 20 min
chit chatting with people. I like to think I'm pretty productive though!

------
swombat
As I previously posted on my blog
([http://danieltenner.com/posts/0002-counting-hours-doesnt-
mak...](http://danieltenner.com/posts/0002-counting-hours-doesnt-make-
sense.html)), counting hours doesn't mean much in terms of how hard you work.
A much better question is how much of your energy you spend on your work vs.
other things.

I spend most of my waking energy on my start-up. I used to spend about 20-30%
on my relationship, but that's not happening anymore, thus resulting in an
increase in available energy. I spend about 10% on my blog. I probably spend
about 10% keeping up with tech news via HN and other means. It's a sizeable
investment, but worthwhile - it does impact my job to be aware of all this
stuff and connected to the community.

------
safetytrick
I'm in class from 8 am until 4 with a two hour lunch, I spend the two hours
working on freelance projects or my tiny little startup (its already paid
itself off!). From 4:30 to 8ish I work at a web development shop. Every day I
program in C++, C#, Java, and PHP (with SQL, javascript, 3 different JS
libraries and a templating language all mixed in). I move between Eclipse and
Visual Studio for Java, C# and C++ at school. For my startup I use Vim and
Netbeans (trying to learn Vim but I'm not all that effective in it yet so I
move to Netbeans or Notepad++). My startup work is done on the weekend when I
boot into Ubuntu. At work I use Textmate on a Mac.

After adjusting to my new environment 4 times in a day I manage to complete 40
minutes of real work.

~~~
notdarkyet
With school and personal projects I often find my self in similar positions. I
have been working on becoming proficient using Vim and what helped is using
the Vim plugins for each editor. I pretty much forced myself to use Vim or
some derivative for every thing I do and it has worked wonders so far.

The link for the netbeans plug-in is here
<http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=3653>

It is a java implementation of vim and works pretty well. The plugin for
ecplipse places an instance of Vim withing the editor window but I found it
was quite buggy and slowed things down a bit (at least on my laptop). I don't
know if there is a plug in for visual studio but you could check.

I am so glad I forced my self to use it because it payed off. Just keep a
cheat sheet by your side and within a few days you will at least be able to
get stuff done, and then just pick up a new trick each day to really learn to
fly. Just start now because once you get going you will wish you made the leap
sooner.

------
dmillar
8am-6pm at my "real" job, and 3-4 hours a night on my startup. I can usually
get in 8 hours on a Saturday or Sunday. It's going much slower than I want,
but I feel like I am maxed out when also considering my other obligations.

------
thismat
I currently work a daily 8-5 job doing .NET and some (at 27 years old, you can
laugh at this) COBOL.

on the side I freelance web work and am considering trying freelance full
time. While I would end up working longer hours, I actually enjoy the
freelance and I wouldn't be stuffed in a cube daily and forced to use really
weird tools.

So, when I'm on a freelance project, total I pull close to 14 hour days for
about a month straight (and work weekends), but then the job will complete and
I'll be waiting while they spec out another one for about a month, I use that
time to work on side projects.

------
swolchok
I'm a first-year Ph.D. student. I attempt to "work" a 40-hour week, but I
count classes and classwork as part of that 40 hours and try not to count
unproductive hours. Toward this end, instead of taking a full weekend off, I
often take Thursday through Sunday "half off". I'm not sure whether this
results in more or less work getting done than would otherwise. During my
first semester, I felt very unproductive, but I've been fairly successful at
getting things done this semester.

------
csbartus
i'm a freelancer, working around 8-10 hrs a day with small pauses.

however i'm taking at least 30% of the year off, cannot be productive 11
months in a row.

lately i've found out that working sharply less hrs/day and taking less
vacation produces more quality and longer lasting knowledge in my head.

but my biggest concern is the i/o rate: how much time one takes input
(learning, reading, networking) and produces output (code, results, blog
posts)

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stewiecat
Not very. My paid job is typical enterprisey CRUD apps in java. Most of the
work comes from fixing others mistakes and battling with poor decisions around
what tools we use (ClearCase?!?!, a good 1+ hours/day wasted there). I'm more
productive at home on my side projects but by the time I finally hit the
groove it's bedtime.

------
vorador
As a sidenote, it's amusing to see that working hard == spending much time at
work.

------
Oxryly
Too hard.

