
Many famous scientists have something in common: they didn’t work long hours - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/darwin-was-a-slacker-and-you-should-be-too
======
unabst
I suspect if you counted the hours they were thinking about their work, the
conclusion would be the exact opposite.

Granted, we are talking about "thinkers" here. We can think sitting on the
toilet or taking a shower, and maybe even better than staring at a book.

Walking to get your juices flowing surrounded by clean air and a soothing
environment would make any hiking trail a great office for any scientist or
philosopher.

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. "

― Albert Einstein

"Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a
genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present
in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every
time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of
your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will
be a hit, and people will say, 'How did he do it? He must be a genius!"

\- Gian-Carlo Rota, Indiscrete Thoughts

~~~
glangdale
Yes indeed! From TFA: "Yet when you look closely at their daily lives, they
only spent a few hours a day doing what we would recognize as their most
important work. The rest of the time, they were hiking mountains, taking naps,
going on walks with friends, or just sitting and thinking."

"Just sitting and thinking" sounds like part of their work, and the article
deploys a sleight of hand to define this as "not really work" so that it can
discover that these guys didn't work very hard.

~~~
laughfactory
But I still think the articles conclusions are meaningful: namely that, in our
overly hurried world, we need to make space to breathe, to think, and to rest.
If we're constantly racing off to the next thing, or sitting at our desks
trying to force a solution, or sucked into TV or our various devices, we leave
no room for our minds to percolate on problems, explore solutions, etc. And we
tend to worship those who sleep as little as possible. How radical would it be
if we started admiring people who take naps, who go on long walks, who sit and
leave space for thinking without pulling out their smartphone or turning on
the TV?

Before smartphones came along I did some of my best thinking on the toilet.
Now it's become time consumed with reading drivel on my news feed. And I don't
sleep enough, and personally can see how my productivity and emotional health
is impacted. Tough times which require greater self discipline, I think, than
times past.

~~~
glangdale
I quite agree with you. We should generally spend more time working without
seeming to work, which is part of the problem. I get a lot of work done
staring out the window, taking showers, etc. I don't recall any particularly
great ideas while on the can...

I think the appearance of doing work is now very important. So sitting and
thinking has the problem that you might be thinking about the problem or who
knows what? Possibly there's a causation problem here - if you are already a
famous scientist, you can probably be trusted to "sit and think".

------
YCode
> Scientists who spent 25 hours in the workplace were no more productive than
> those who spent five.

Anecdotally this is a concept I've run into in many areas of life, the most
overt one being school, I suppose because it's so easily quantified.

You can do a moderately acceptable amount of work on any given assignment and
get a C+, work hard for a B/A or work your hands to the bone for an A+, but at
the end of the day all three students graduate.

At a certain point you get diminishing returns for working harder. On the flip
side being able to be productive for those few hours consistently without
burning out nets you long term growth.

~~~
smokeyj
> I suppose because it's so easily quantified.

I wonder what's being quantified.. intelligence or obedience.

This would be like rating a strong-man competition by how much time was spent
in the gym and how much unnecessary pain was self-inflicted.

It's like there's a culture of "pain enthusiasts". They do things like talk
about running until it hurts, they tend to get injured often, and of course
they have nothing to show for their dedication.

I'm realizing that there's a mentality about these people. The idea of working
smarter and not harder literally offends them. The idea that the amount of
work is less important than the effectiveness of work offends them. These are
often the same people that voice their concerns about working from home and
why it can't work. My suspicion is because their value is measured by "time in
the gym" rather than tangible real-world results.

~~~
jartelt
Given that students are almost always graded on how well they do on
assignments/exams rather than how long they studied, your strong-man
competition analogy doesn't make much sense.

~~~
Qwertious
You're implying that grades are an objective metric of value. This is often
false, because the metrics for grading are oriented around what's easily
_testable_ , rather than what's _actually_ a sign of good work.

Kind of like hours spent in a gym, actually.

~~~
jartelt
No, I am just arguing that someone's grade on a test is directly linked to how
well they do on the test and not necessarily on how much studying they did. If
you don't like university tests, that is fine (I do not believe they are
perfect either). But, they do a decent job of determining if a student knows a
specific set of facts and can solve a specific set of problems. I have graded
these tests before and no where during the process do I ask myself how long
someone studied (because I don't know how long people studied). Very smart
people can ace tests with minimal studying. Some people do poorly after
studying a lot.

~~~
Retric
The problem is final GPA means almost nothing. High School Valedictorians are
an interesting population because they tend to do poorly in life. Prodigies
similarly underperform vs expected results.

So, when you look objectively you find the most highly paid author has zero
relevant accolades. _in academic terms, gave the appearance of doing what was
necessary ".[18] Rowling recalls doing little work, preferring to listen to
The Smiths and read Dickens and Tolkien_

~~~
selestify
> The problem is final GPA means almost nothing. High School Valedictorians
> are an interesting population because they tend to do poorly in life.
> Prodigies similarly underperform vs expected results.

Interesting, do we have any explanations for this phenomena?

~~~
Retric
Not sure how much research backs this up, but I think it's a change in what's
important. A 10 year old who copies someone else brilliantly is praised, an
adult doing the same thing makes minim wage.

"Even prodigies who avoid burnout and resist social pressures are unlikely to
make a big splash as an adult. The problem, notes giftedness researcher Ellen
Winner, is that to make a major contribution in the arts, and even the
sciences "you need a rebellious spirit and the type of mind that can see new
things." Most prodigies, however, are acclaimed not for their innovation but
"for doing something that's already been done, like playing the violin in the
style of Itzhak Perlman." Only prodigies who can reinvent themselves as
innovators, she says, are likely to leave a lasting mark during adulthood."
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200511/why-
prodigie...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200511/why-prodigies-
fail)

~~~
crazy2be
Well, I guess it all depends on what you mean by do poorly in life.

High school valedictorians and child prodigies (especially the former) are
disproportionately likely to hold positions of societal power. Just read the
bio of any president of the IMF or the World Bank or the Federal Reserve.
Essentially all of them graduate university summa cum laude or magna cum
laude.

Innovative scientists and people who move the world forward? Perhaps less
likely to come from this group, for a variety of reasons.

~~~
Retric
Sure, when all you need for 'successes' is to be accepted credentials are
useful. But, that just means you where picked it does not mean you actually
succeeded at something.

It's the difference between getting funding, and not just having an IPO but
actually pay real dividends for significantly more than total investments.

------
DannyB2
If their job was, say, picking cotton, then the hours they spent at work would
directly correlate to their work output.

So what is the difference?

Maybe scientists are still thinking about difficult problems when they are
away from work. Like when they are sitting in their porch swing with nobody
else around to distract.

~~~
CuriouslyC
Being creative is like tending a garden. Ideas grow on their own, and all you
can really do is prepare the environment to facilitate this growth. You do
this by clearly defining the problem, fertilizing your mind with inspiration,
and revisiting the problem periodically to keep it present. From there, you
need to relax and let your brain do its thing. Actively thinking/concentrating
actually inhibits brain activity in much of your brain to prevent
interference, and the brain areas inhibited are usually the ones that make
creative jumps. The rational networks of the brain should only be engaged to
sanity check/refine creative ideas.

~~~
kamaal
Not exactly:

 _" Opportunities multiply as they are seized." \- Sun Tzu_

One way to have good ideas is to have a lot of them and then filter.

Even in highly creative endeavors like say music and painting, volume of work
largely matters. You have to spend a lot of time(years) doing a lot of work
before you get anywhere close to good.

~~~
cableshaft
You can work on a lot of different problems and still do the creative garden
cultivation that the previous poster said. I do that. I've got about 10
prototypes for board and card games actively going at once at the moment, and
I write down fresh ideas that pop into my head to come back to later.

Even if months pass, I'll get spontaneous ideas to certain projects that
improve them a ton. But I have to feed my brain with fuel for inspiration
constantly, and actively try to apply any interesting idea to my existing
projects and see if they inspire anything new for them.

I can't find the quote now (It's written in a notebook I don't have on me at
the moment), but this is apparently how Richard Feynman approached work,
although by working on multiple problems at once, not projects (although all
of my projects have problems :).

~~~
kamaal
"creative garden cultivation" might be a poetic way of putting it. In reality
its just hard work and sweat at the end of the day. It requires you to go
through many iterations of success/failure loops testing outcomes of your
work.

Of course you can do more than one of this at the same time. In fact that was
precisely my point. The more of such you grab, the more come they come to you.

~~~
Senderman
"sweat" is poetry/metaphor in this context, too, so your description and the
previous one are equally valid "in reality."

------
cocktailpeanuts
They take a very constrained example and claim that "You should be a slacker
too".

This is at best an irresponsible piece of writing that's clearly targeting
discussions like what's happening here. This is the 1000th time I've seen a
post on this topic on HN, and every time it's posted here it's like groundhog
day, same comments. Well this is what publications like these want, they want
more traffic.

There are many famous athletes who worked long hours. Ask Michael Jordan.

There are many famous entrepreneurs (actually I don't know of a single
extremely successful entrepreneur who didn't work extremely hard) who worked
long hours. Ask Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and really any successful entrepreneur
who's changed how the world works.

Just don't ask some nobody writer who writes for a blog who just needs to get
more page views. They don't know what they are talking about.

In fact, you know what? MOST successful people work very hard. Surprising
right? Duh.

It's your freedom to choose how to live your life, but don't tell others what
to do based on your idiotic research clearly aimed at generating page views.
That's irresponsible.

Also, if you want to succeed, don't listen to these idiots. Statistically
those who work harder succeed more. Period.

That said, if your life goal is NOT about being successful but more about
living a balanced life with happiness, then go live your life whatever way you
want. In fact that's how 99% of the world live their lives.

But again, if you want to have huge success and achieve more than you ever
wanted in life, work hard. Don't let these people ruin your life. You will
really regret later.

~~~
anotherhacker
You're conflating knowledge work with manual work.

Knowledge work requires the brain to wonder...to explore a problem and
possible solutions freely.

Michael Jordan wasn't trying to create anything new, he was trying to develop
a physical skill. Physical skills are made via repetition.

Things like stress and distraction destroy knowledge workers. This is
something every experienced engineer knows.

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
i'm not conflating anything more than what this article is doing.

On the other hand, you are guilty of taking my words out of context. It's
convenient to just take michael jordan and use it as an argument, isn't it? I
also mentioned another "knowledge work" example.

I'm not saying scientists should be working 18 hours a day. In fact when it
comes to scientists and researchers I do agree that you should NOT work too
hard because you will burn out, and most creative ideas come when you're
taking a break.

But it's not cool to take that example and tell the world you should "slack
off" because it's "scientific". That's not how the world works. If you want to
achieve something, you can't win against someone who go all in. Simple as
that.

~~~
megalodon
You can't count productivity in hours. Someone who goes "all-in" 6 hours a day
can certainly accomplish more than someone who says they go "all-in" 12 hours
a day.

------
raygelogic
this is such a typical HN discussion; misleading headline provokes reaction to
the headline rather than the content of the article. nowhere in the article
are entrepreneurs discussed, or doctors, or anyone else whose work requires
many hours of clocked-in work.

the fundamental claim of the article is that deliberate focus in a creative
field cannot happen without deliberate rest. you can't always be on if you
want to achieve the types of breakthroughs which underpin the most significant
steps forward in science, literature, and music.

that's it. he never discussed Gates' work habits, except in context with
Gladwell's 10k hours for expertise thesis. he then goes on to say that those
10k hours do not exist in a vacuum, and that this number is often
misinterpreted; those 10k hours of focus also require a commensurate amount of
leisure and rest.

he even specifically says that "[scientists'] legacies are often easier to
determine than those of business leaders or famous figures", which to me says
that those individuals are outside the scope of his discussion. how so many
people here are projecting that conclusion is a mystery to me.

------
whistlerbrk
And then on the flipside there is Musk, Jobs, Gates and countless others who
work(ed) all the time.

All I'm saying is I see a lot of emulation-of-success articles posted here...

~~~
amelius
Those people are not scientists. Lookup Musk on Wikipedia and you'll find that
he has a BSc. only, and he started a PhD only to quit after a few weeks to
pursue his business endeavors. Jobs dropped out of University. And Gates is
probably closest to a scientist, although I'm not aware of any research by
him.

~~~
xiaoma
> _" Lookup Musk on Wikipedia and you'll find that he has a BSc. only, and he
> started a PhD only to quit after a few weeks to pursue his business
> endeavors."_

Three of the most important scientific papers in modern history—uncovering the
photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and the special theory of
relativity—were written about a hundred years ago by a man who could only sign
them "Mr." when first writing them. About 80 years before that, another
physicist who had no formal schooling past the age of 14 was pioneering
advances in humanity's understanding of electricity and magnetism.

Science isn't restricted to or based on credentialed people. If you look at
the history of science, credentials and recognition often _follow_
groundbreaking scientific work.

~~~
gammarator
A hundred years ago you could reach the frontier in theoretical physics
without a decade of intensive study. That's no longer true.

~~~
xiaoma
Regardless of the century, the credential is not the defining characteristic
of science.

~~~
arcanus
That's not why anyone gets a PhD. The training is designed to teach you
research. Unlike any other schooling, the degree has little class work.

The PhD is essentially an apprenticeship to a practicing scientist.

~~~
Verdex_2
I would be really interested in someone elaborating on this idea "phd is an
apprenticeship for researchers".

Several people have insisted that I should go into a phd program, but when I
looked into it I saw a lot of: learn how to do grant applications, publish
this non-reproducible and barely significant result just so you have something
published, work on a phd adviser's bad idea so he can take the credit, etc.

If you're working on an idea no one has had before, what kinds of support can
others give you and do modern phd programs give that support?

~~~
arcanus
Much more important than the idea is the process you learn how to vet and
research the idea. That is the 'support'. Now I can independently expand on my
own ideas, and reject unpromising ones. Some are born with this skill, but
many who think they have it... don't.

A PhD isn't really about doing something useful, although that is typically a
result. It's learning how to explore an idea and expand upon it.

Your advisor does not lead you as much as guide you. Hence the name.

While the dangers you mentioned are absolutely a threat, much of that can be
mitigated by choosing a good advisor. Personally I think taking a tenured,
well established prof is a better bet, because they aren't as worried about
their own career advancement. But everyones mileage varies.

To expand on my original idea: imagine being given an opportunity to work
closely with a recognized expert in your field. For years he will meet with
you, advise you and honestly try to help you also become a world authority on
this subject. Afterwards, he will always support your career and care for your
future. That's what I have, and while I certainly feel fortunate, I would not
call my situation atypical.

I'm happy to provide more info.

~~~
amelius
> Now I can independently expand on my own ideas, and reject unpromising ones.

Unpromising in what sense? Unpromising for you personally, or for the greater
good of humanity?

Research always comes with a risk. It is called "re-search" and not "re-find"
for a reason. You can learn some heuristics that will help you explore, but it
is certainly no guarantee for finding anything.

~~~
arcanus
> You can learn some heuristics that will help you explore, but it is
> certainly no guarantee for finding anything.

Agree. Those heuristics were precisely what I was alluding to. It is all about
how you explore that space. The best researchers have an amazing ability to
intuitively ascertain promising directions. Many smart folks I know constantly
spin their wheels working on problems that are intractable.

To me, that ability is the principle value add of a senior PI (aside from
funding, of course!)

------
j7ake
Richard Hammings anecdotes of famous scientists would suggest otherwise...
They may not look like they were working but They were always thinking on
their problem. Working on a problem doesn't need to be done sitting in your
desk but it can be done while on hikes with your colleagues or locked in the
attic of your room.

Their minds were constantly thinking of their problems.

~~~
bdavisx
I think about software development all the time too, but if I was in the
office as often as I think about it, I would be so burnt out and depressed, I
wouldn't get anything done.

~~~
Asooka
Or otherwise said - "Your get your best ideas on the toilet/in the
shower/walking around."

------
brlewis
_After that, it was all downhill: The 60-plus-hour-a-week researchers were the
least productive of all._

Could causality be in the other direction? Researchers who aren't getting
publication-worthy results spend more time in the lab desperately trying?

~~~
1propionyl
At least anecdotally the opposite is true.

Researchers who are getting publication worthy results are in general hustling
to manage multiple projects, run experiments, write papers, apply for
grants...

The most talented researchers I know are without exception the ones who
willingly live in their own lab. By their own admission they love it though. I
don't sense burnout.

~~~
dheera
publication worthy != famous

Publication-worthy scientists try to manage multiple projects, work slave
hours in the lab, interact with people 60+ hours a week, shaving themselves to
fit perfectly into the mould of the scientific community. Sure-fire 50%
improvements on existing results should be chased, because you'll get a paper
in your name. Low-hanging fruit should be chased, because you'll get a paper
in your name. Papers in your name gets you degrees, tenure, and more grants.
Forget chasing 10-fold improvements. 10-fold improvements are dangerous
because they're likely to fail -- too risky when you're trying to get grants,
get tenure, or get your PhD.

[http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1436](http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1436)

Famous scientists didn't care about tenure, PhDs, papers, or any of that crap.
They cared exclusively about 10-fold, 100-fold, 1000-fold improvements. Some
published papers in peer-reviewed journals, but many had a hard time getting
them reviewed because of their controversial ideas, especially if they were
theoretical.

Of course, for every famous scientist, there are hundreds of others that tried
and failed hard, and you never heard about them.

~~~
amelius
Of course, merely by statistics, there must be a few exceptions too, i.e. lab
slaves becoming famous by accident. And the question then is if those
exceptions are more abundant than those famous people going for the hard
results.

------
jordanmoconnor
I'm just spitballing my opinion here.

One of my favorite quotes is: "Most people overestimate what they can do in
one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years." \- Bill Gates

Working long hard inefficient hours might get you short term gains, but
consistent effective work over years will bring long-term success.

Typically (for me) putting short time constraints on projects amplifies my
focus and cuts down on wasted time. The best way to cut down time is to have a
well planned path of execution (know what you're doing before you sit down and
don't do anything else).

That's how you can be successful without necessarily working long hours.

I'm not successful in terms of my own standards, but I think this makes sense.

------
finid
_The rest of the time, they were hiking mountains, taking naps, going on walks
with friends, or just sitting and thinking. Their creativity and productivity,
in other words, were not the result of endless hours of toil. Their towering
creative achievements result from modest “working” hours._

If Darwin spent most of his time "hiking mountains... or just sitting and
thinking", guess what he was actually doing? Yep, he was studying, and
working. Just because he was not hunched over a table or a microscope does not
mean he was not studying.

~~~
arcanus
^ this. My best cited paper came to me while summiting a 14er in Colorado.

Did actually generating the results take long hours and serious work? Of
course. But the idea required freeform thought and subconscious mulling.

------
importantbrian
There was a poll on HN a couple of years ago that asked how many productive
hours each reader had in a given day, and if I remember correctly there was a
large plurality that picked 4-6 and a rather large group that picked 2-4.
Which seems to square fairly well with my personal experience and that of the
scientists in the piece. I often wonder how much actual work people who spend
80 hours in the office are actually getting done.

~~~
charlieflowers
I used to spend 80 hours in the office. Most of it was waiting around for
everyone to go home so I could get some programming done.

Now I'm much more balanced. I realized I want to have work I'm passionate
about, and go at it with all the gusto I have, but also limit it to a timebox
so it doesn't take over my life.

Everything that involves reaching "as far as you can" needs to also be boxed.
Otherwise, it's like a cancer cell that "grows as much as it can" until it
destroys you.

So, define a box for how much you want to work. Inside that box, work like a
single-minded barbarian. But outside the box, enjoy life, smell the roses, and
participate in hobbies. That's my formula now.

~~~
rawrmaan
As someone who has been on both sides of this equation, I think you've phrased
it very eloquently. Well said.

------
jfv
Maybe I missed it in this story, but this anecdote about Poincare himself is
apropos:

"The famous French mathematician Henri Poincaré was very interested in
mathematical creativity. He describes a period of hard and seemingly fruitless
effort to solve a problem, from which he took a break to join a geological
expedition. As he was stepping on a bus, he made one of the most important
breakthroughs of his life. The solution came to him out of nowhere, and was
accompanied by a perfect certainty as to its correctness"

(from this blog: [https://kjosic.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/creativity-and-
waste...](https://kjosic.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/creativity-and-wasted-
time/))

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Similar to what Gelman said about what he called the Feynman method: "Step
one: write down the problem statement. Step 2: think real hard. Step 3: write
down the problem solution."

His point was, I think, that not every scientist can work that way. Some are
real treasures, come along one in a generation.

~~~
gwern
There's a better Feynman method: [http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~cahn/life/gian-
carlo-rota-10-le...](http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~cahn/life/gian-carlo-
rota-10-lessons.html)

> Richard Feynman was fond of giving the following advice on how to be a
> genius. You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly
> present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant
> state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it
> against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in
> a while there will be a hit, and people will say: "How did he do it? He must
> be a genius!"

------
ljw1001
I will add a personal anecdote from software development. On one project I had
a difficult objective (to write a database that met certain criteria). I had
never done database work before.

For the first year, I worked with almost no supervision and developed a
routine where I would select an area to work on, give it a week, and if I
could find no good solution, would switch to something else. All the while I
read many related technical papers. Often after a couple weeks of "not working
on the problem" I would think of a clean solution and implement it fairly
quickly.

After that year, I got a new boss who insisted that I schedule my work using
agile techniques, which meant that when I started something I had to focus on
it until it was delivered, while trying to meet my estimates, planned to at
most a two-day delivery cycle.

My productivity in the second year was terrible and much of the coding I did
then sucked, as it was full of hacks designed to make my first, sloppy
approach work quickly.

For me, downtime, and reading papers that were indirectly related to my
problem area, vastly increased the quality and quantity of work done.

~~~
fuzzfactor
You've got it right, it works that way in computer science similarly to how it
does in natural science.

If you require balance relative to the mainstream, maximum scientific
creativity is probably not for you.

In expensive unique laboratories which often require years of assembly before
productive creation of technologies can begin, it is easier to appreciate why
the higher-performing individuals do not pursue much idleness.

Seeking eminence is also a major productivity drain for someone who would
otherwise be the most capable of breakthroughs at the bench.

Anecdotally over a lifetime, seeking recognition for a million dollar
breakthrough consumes the time & resources needed for more than one equivalent
breakthrough that could have been.

------
inputcoffee
I am as happy as the next person to accept that you can work less and achieve
more.

Ordinarily, I would protest that there is no data here, just some anecdotes.

But in this case, I say, let's just accept this claim at face value.

~~~
wainstead
For some data I suggest the following books, if the subject interests you:

"Peak: Secrets From The New Science of Expertise"

"Deep Work"

"A Mind for Numbers"

All are pretty engaging reads!

~~~
inputcoffee
Okay, before I read them, are you saying that these books contain evidence for
the rather startling thesis that hours of labor are not required for
achievement?

Because if they are just laying out what you need to succeed (focused
practice, immediate feedback, elemental skills or whatever the current theory
might be) then, although valuable, it doesn't speak to the matter at hand.

~~~
wainstead
> hours of labor are not required for achievement?

Well, you need to put in something like 3-8 hours per day, certainly. But it's
been documented over and over that 60+ hours a week does not increase your
productivity.

Each book does contain evidence for its claims based on research. Perhaps
"Deep Work" is more anecdotal than the others, but Cal is up-front about this.

------
tzs
Note that work hours mostly means hours spent at one's job site (e.g., at
their university in the case of an academic scientist).

My experience observing people when I was at Caltech, and observing a few top
software and hardware engineers in industry, is that the most productive
people do work the way Bruce Banner handled anger in the Marvel movie "The
Avengers":

Steve Rogers: Doctor Banner, now might be a good time for you to get angry.

Bruce Banner: That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry.

~~~
mod
I often remember a blog post or something that I read by a programmer--I'm
sure I discovered it here.

Anyway, he said that his wife was conditioned to not interrupt him no matter
what activity he was doing, because he might be 'programming' while doing
something like tending his garden.

I think all of us programmers have experienced the phenomenon where we get
stuck, then stand up and walk away and within 5 minutes we have 5 new possible
solutions in mind.

------
jorasta
Darwin was _thinking_ during his walks. During his writing tasks much of the
activity was mechanical or the consolidation of notions arrived at during
leisure. What society regards as 'work' largely comprises the application of
existing knowledge and the running of errands.

>He was passionate and driven, so much so that he was given to anxiety attacks
over his ideas and their implications.

Emotions driving emotions? No, he was right to be anxious about the
consequences of his work. Though marvellous and important and interesting, not
to mention _true_ , it set up a huge conflict in the psyche of the West due to
the competing claims of science and religion. Which still hasn't been
resolved.

~~~
cableshaft
I'd be perfectly happy if the takeaway companies got from this is to let
people get away from the desk and do some thinking about work during work
hours.

Let me take an extended walk and think about where I'm stuck on a problem
during the work day, instead of forcing my butt in a seat for 8+ hours, and
interrogating me if the time-tracker at my computer drops down below that.

------
SmellTheGlove
Reminds me of this:

[http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-had-one-piece-of-
advic...](http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/if-i-had-one-piece-of-advice-for-
todays-youth-it-w-18438)

I know it's The Onion, but irony being that Roy Halladay probably worked
harder than any other pitcher in the same span. Natural talent still helps,
though!

------
Lagged2Death
_[Darwin] was passionate and driven, so much so that he was given to anxiety
attacks over his ideas and their implications._

He many not have spent that many hours sitting at a desk, but he had to be
directing a tremendous amount of mental effort and attention to his work to
have this sort of reaction. The article describes his not-sitting-at-a-desk
time as "downtime," and maybe that's half-defensible. But that "downtime"
probably isn't something I'd recognize as _leisure_ time, either.

Here's something else that many successful 19th/20th century artists,
scholars, writers, and scientists turn out to have had in common, the other
side of the same coin, perhaps: sufficient economic prosperity (often
familial) to employ servants. They could devote great swaths of time and
attention to their work, even when away from a desk, because they were not
fretting about the grocery shopping, not wondering if they should be pushing
the kids harder on their ABCs, etc.

The class structure and sexism that made such arrangements common also surely
squandered enormous amounts of human potential.

------
raz32dust
Depends on whether whatever you are doing is something with a finite goal and
has clear steps (e.g, deliver a prototype, complete testing, complete a
presentation, prepare for a test etc.) or something that is more exploratory
and you are not really sure what you are looking for. Most of the work we do
is of the first kind. In that case, the amount of work accomplished is
directly proportional to time spent*focus. For the second type of work, there
is no correlation. You just have to train your neurons to try all combinations
until something clicks. People who are not doing research or art (i.e, most of
us, despite what we'd like to believe) can and will see more results if they
spend more time. You need to be able to recognize whether you are doing type 1
or type 2 work and plan accordingly. Time and focus is not going to help in
type 2 work beyond a minimum. If you are doing type 1 work and stretching
yourself, recognize the trade-offs you are making and don't burn out.

------
cocktailpeanuts
Since so many people here are talking about how "in science it's different,
you need to just chill out. Science is all about creativity and you shouldn't
work hard if you're in a "creative business"", let me just leave this link
here: [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-
hard/](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/work-hard/)

If one of the best mathematicians of our time is saying "Work hard", it
probably means more than some rando who writes for some blog.

If you want to just "chill out" and live a fun life, feel free to do so, the
world would suck if everybody worked hard. It's actually great that you guys
decide to believe working less is good for achieving what you want, because
the ones who actually know what's up have higher chance of success.

~~~
taocoyote
I would argue that "working hard" and "working long hours" are not the same
thing.

~~~
zymhan
Yes, merely staying late to work every day won't lead to a breakthrough.

Being so absorbed in your work that you forget to stop working is a by-product
of really enjoying your work and wanting to learn more. You can't force
enjoyment of (or a breakthrough in) a subject just by slaving away for hours
after the office closes.

------
kamaal
Teslas and Edisons did insane work hours most people would consider suicide
these days.

In my experience these are largely a function of volume, quantity and
relationship with your work. Most managers I know can get by even 2-3 hours of
work/day. This is true because the work is largely meta- Delegating, tracking
things et al.

If you are involved in your work at a lot more micro level, then the speed of
the project is the function of your involvement with the project.

This fantasy of achieving extra ordinary things doing just 5 hours of work/day
is largely a millennial thing. As a Indian millennial myself, I find this
attitude sick. Our fathers used to largely look these things as 'opportunity'.

------
nerfhammer
I bet famous scientists spend almost every waking hour actively _thinking_
about their subject of study, even if they're not necessarily sitting around
pushing a pencil at their desk.

------
overgard
Mixed feelings on this -- I don't think sitting at a desk for 12 hours is
useful for anything other than social signalling, but, there's a Stephen King
quote I love: "Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get
up and go to work." Sometimes you just have to grind. Some of my most
productive days have been when I _really really_ didn't want to work, but I
had to, and somehow the inspiration came out of that.

------
bencollier49
This is stupid. The article completely misinterprets its source evidence:

Darwin, from the article:

8am - 12pm: Work; 1pm - 3pm: Work; 4pm - 5.30pm: Work

That's a 7.5 hour, day which is pretty standard in the UK at the moment. The
fact that he fitted a one-hour walk into his lunch break doesn't make him a
slacker, and neither does the fact that some of that work happened to involve
answering letters in an aviary.

------
misja111
They also didn't have iPhones or televisions.

------
itamarst
Evan Robinson has collected a whole bunch of evidence that long hours don't
result in greater output
([http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons](http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons)).
This has been known for something like a century at this point.

------
erikb
Actually what I can read in the article is that they have in common to work
long hours.

The very first example about Darwin already mentions that he gets 3x 1.5h
stretches of dedicated work in, _every f 'n day_. That's way more what the
common 80h/week employee gets in with all the meetings, cross-office talk, and
water-cooler waits. Even if you don't consider that "every day" probably also
includes weekends.

Famous scientists apparently didn't just work a lot, they worked very
efficiently to achieve something like that.

------
mythrwy
The guys on the article were walking about on huge familial estates and had
servants.

I on the other hand have a mortgage to pay.

Out of the box creative thinking as the result of leisure is great. Sometimes
it pays off. More often it doesn't. Sadly most of us don't have the luxury of
finding out. At least for now.

~~~
Fricken
I spent my early 20s working 2 shifts a week at a bar. It doesn't cost much to
buy yourself the time and headspace needed to get from 0 to 1 as a creative
worker. It was a rich life. It still is. All that's changed is that I travel
more. Priorities, man.

~~~
mythrwy
Oh, fully agreed. It's not like it's 1874 and we pretty much all have a fair
amount of leisure relatively speaking.

It's just I've noticed a fair number of "great contributors" to human
knowledge and civilization appear to have had a lot of trivial things in life
taken care of out of the box. As opposed to those who come up scrabbling (who
often wind up wealthy but aren't necessarily great contributors in an
intellectual sense). The Greek philosophers, Buddha, people like Thomas
Jefferson, the people in this article. All some degree of wealth and leisure
and other people (initially at least) taking care of the small things for
them.

There are always the Ben Franklins though so I guess it's not a universal
truth.

Just kind of makes me wonder what humanity could be if so many people weren't
born into a world that required a hustle or die mindset. Meh, probably just a
lot more video game screencasts on YouTube:) But maybe not.

------
merraksh
I wonder if the maximum aspiration of any scientist is to be famous, or even
"successful", for whatever definition of success is out there.

I would imagine a scientist as someone who wants to make a positive impact on
the life of his fellow human beings by investigating a field of science, or
maybe is just curious about said field and just works to find out what
intrigues her.

Whether she becomes famous in the act is only a side effect, and maybe not
even a necessary condition to fulfill her desire. I have the impression that
just aspiring to fame is not conducive to "good" science.

This said, I'd like to see articles comparing the working days of people who
accomplish something important in science, regardless of their fame (or lack
thereof).

------
JeffR1992
This article resonates with me in so many ways. I barely managed to get into
any university in my home country, but once I was accepted to one, I set up a
strict and timed schedule of 5 hours of concentrated work each day, outside of
classes and other mandatory requirements, and left each evening for recovery.
A few years later the structured work payed off and I am now completing grad
school at Stanford. I honestly thought I would be working in a video rental
store in my tiny hometown for the rest of my life. Let's home the structured
approach continues to help into the future.

------
DrNuke
I am not Einstein but in my 40s and definitely doing a lot with my time: on
one side it was hard commitment and fierce hustling for 15-20 years in the
past, on the other side hustling increases efficiency and high-level
productivity dramatically, so that I can now do a lot (and well conceived /
designed) in a very short time. Low-level implementation is invariantly slower
though, be it by yourself or delegating. As an analogy with more talented
people, I suspect scientists finding their Eureka! moments easier worked very
hard for a long period in their past.

------
prginthebox
What a load of bullshit. Most of the scientists have spent a long time
actually working, especially in the modern era. None of the successful
physicist/mathematicians of those whom I have seen slackers. Each one of them
(without exception) have worked extremely hard. Also, more importantly, I have
seen level insight into solving difficult problems being directly and causally
proportional to the amount of work people have put in trying stuff that hasn't
worked till now.

------
martingoodson
As a counterexample, Hans Geiger was a workaholic. Rutherford said he "works
like a slave… [He] is a demon at the work and could count at intervals for a
whole night without disturbing his equanimity" [1]

He eventually discovered the atomic nucleus, so I guess it paid off.

[1] [http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-
technology/ph...](http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/science-and-
technology/physics-biographies/johannes-wilhelm-geiger)

------
laurentdc
Yet Another Article With Initial Caps Telling Me How To Live My Life

~~~
Veen
No one is telling you how to live your life. This article merely points out
that there's evidence that common assumptions about the relationship between
the amount of time worked and productivity aren't accurate.

What you choose to do with that information is entirely up to you. You may
enjoy working 80-hour weeks and achieving as much as a person who works a
20-hour week. Others may differ.

------
adarsh_p
This may have been true during Darwin's time, but it simply does not apply in
today'a academic world. The level of competition for grants, publications,
etc. is way, way higher than before. Not that I've conducted a survey, but I'm
pretty sure every professor at an R1 university works at least 60 hours a
week, if not more.

Source: Am finishing up my PhD in theoretical high energy physics.

------
anoplus
I am quite interested in "how" the working hours are spent, rather than how
many. Personally, it's when I forget about time, that I am more efficient,
engaged and satisfied. Today I cleaned my house for 5 hours and almost forgot
it suppose to be daunting.

Did the same trick, imagining I have plenty of time. Just taking my time...

------
loup-vaillant
That seems to be in direct contradiction with what Hamming said on the matter:
[http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

Maybe some people thrive by slacking, and others by working their ass off?

------
supergeek133
There is being at work for long hours and actually being productive during
that time. They are different things.

There are still many jobs and/or management mentalities that see "butt in
seat" as productive time. Especially in "brain labor" jobs versus physical
labor jobs where your time working is inherently productive.

------
AngeloAnolin
"The rest of the time, they were hiking mountains, taking naps, going on walks
with friends, or just sitting and thinking"

I think in most likelihood that the creative mindset of these people ticked
when they were doing these stuff, hence, once they get back to work, their
focus is so sharp and intent on finishing.

------
lkrubner
" or just sitting and thinking. "

Put another way, these people worked long hours, so long as you recognize what
kind of work they were doing. I mean, they were not shoveling coal. I think
humans have some bias such that we don't recognize thinking hard as hard work.

------
linkmotif
I'm just going to drop this here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10882202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10882202)

You can listen to the guy who wrote this article. Or you can listen to John
Carmack. 0_0.

------
erikb
I think there is a sweet spot of 30h a week. 60 hours and you are tired as
hell and don't get the rest of your life managed. 20 or less and you don't
really focus on it and take forever to get a little step ahead.

------
pebblexe
The best book I know about research is "Apprentice to Genius: The Making of a
Scientific Dynasty":

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801847575](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801847575)

It's a fantastic book.

------
femto
The thing I want to know is how did they achieve the independence, whereby
they could focus on their problem of choice and not have to continuously
context switch to problems of other people's choosing?

------
samirillian
Poincare is an interesting example, because he seemed to have a process of
rotating between subjects of thought.

I am also reminded of Guy Debord, who espoused the implicitly Marxist dictum,
"to never work."

------
CamperBob2
That's because a lot of people we think of as famous scientists were really
politicians. Rest assured the people who did the actual research weren't
working 40-hour weeks.

------
kensai
OK, forwarded this to my PI... will let you know tomorrow. :D

------
z3t4
Your subconscious grinds away, even when you do not _work_. Then you see or
hear something, a final piece in a puzzle, and an idea is born!

------
officelineback
One point about these guys is they were men of means. They were hyper-rich for
the time, had vast properties and many servants and such.

------
coss
No desire to be famous but I can't see myself getting to where I am without
working hard. I'm just not smart enough.

------
intrasight
Maybe they are famous due to serendipity and luck. I don't believe there is a
correlation between long hours and luck.

------
jackhammer2022
So Survivorship Bias in play in this article?

~~~
bbig3831
Exactly what I thought. Lots of not-so-famous scientists didn't work long
hours either. This is just another case of the "Halo Effect".[1] Let's select
a group based on an outcome (i.e. being a famous scientist) and then work
backwards to find similarities that fit a narrative.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions-
Manage...](https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Effect-Business-Delusions-Managers-
ebook/dp/B000NY128M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1490891896&sr=8-2&keywords=halo+effect)

------
schintan
They also had another thing in common; they didn't care much about money

------
paulcole
Roger Bannister found time to break the 4 minute mile while in med school!

------
plg
logical fallacy

\- these people are famous/successful

\- they also have characteristic X

\- therefore if I want to be famous/successful I should aspire to
characteristic X

it's a logical fallacy

------
Safety1stClyde
Is this article really worthy of so many votes?

------
jhonatan08
Another something in common: they are famous.

------
blizkreeg
What did Darwin do to pay his bills?

------
mannykannot
The title is misleading - Darwin was pretty much always 'on the job', as we
can see from his notes and correspondence.

~~~
_of
In his early life he was a neglectful student, an underachiever. He was a late
bloomer.

~~~
sova
As a poet I must contend that no flower blooms late for its own rhythm.
They're all right on time.

~~~
joslin01
Though I admit I'm mused, this is Hacker News, so you're gonna have to specify
time signature otherwise this is just conjecture.

------
itisalex
So much of our "work" these days are only paid by the works ur in the office,
where as most of the answers come to us at other hours of the day. Number of
times I've emailed code snips to work....

