
Stop Working More than 40 Hours a Week - jhack
http://business.time.com/2012/04/26/stop-working-more-than-40-hours-a-week/?iid=biz-main-lede
======
PakG1
Honestly, for people who work more than 40 hours a week, how many of them are
actually working more than 40 hours a week? Sometimes it feels like half my
day is spent reading HN and the like. If I could focus much more, I'm sure I
wouldn't need to spend more than 40 hours a week to get my stuff done.

~~~
Shivetya
having grown up on a farm, forty hours came and went usually mid week. In the
business world its not the hours I work that wear on me, its the non
productive hours during that do.

I guess the difference between the farm and business is that the former
doesn't have non productive work. It is amazing how much energy I lose in
meetings or similar.

~~~
capisce
While hunter-gatherers spend only 10-20 hours a week on obtaining food, how is
farming an improvement on that? <http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html>

~~~
juan_juarez
A farmer working a 40 (60... 70... 80...) hour week can produce enough food to
feed hundreds of people, freeing them up to do other things. If you've ever
played Civilization, agriculture is a prerequisite to doing any sort of
technological development.

~~~
flyinRyan
>If you've ever played Civilization, agriculture is a prerequisite to doing
any sort of technological development.

What on earth do you think this proves?

------
typicalrunt
Every office is different with regard to the hours worked as well as when
those hours are worked. I find the latter is more important than the former.

At my office most people get in around 9:30am to 10:00am, and leave around 8
hours later. What I found was that I couldn't get any work done around that
time because productivity slows down to a crawl in the middle of the day,
usually due to meetings, figuring out what they need to do for the day, or the
usual inter-cubicle communication.

I fixed this for myself by coming in early, around 7:00am. That means I have
approximately 2-2.5 hours of uninterrupted time when I have peak energy. Then
when everyone gets into the office I don't mind the interruptions. Those are
the pros.

The cons are that I have to wake up at 6am to drive into the office (~40mins
drive). As well, 8 hours from 7am is 3pm, but there's no way I can leave at
that time without losing face. Instead, I leave at 4pm. I currently
rationalize this extra hour of "work" by saying that I take a 1 hour lunch
that I don't charge for.

Timeboxing myself into a 8-9 hour timespan means I really need to prioritize
my work for the day. Once the clock strikes 3:30pm, I make it a mission to
take the next 30 minutes to wind down and prepare for the next day. This has
helped me reduce the stress associated with the work day.

~~~
majelix
> without losing face.

Honestly, isn't the crux of the problem? Even if you are a superstar, you'll
_still_ get typecasted as smart-but-lazy and find yourself on the outside.
Generally speaking, this is an _organizational_ problem.

~~~
hvs
In many offices, you need to be around when things come up. There are very few
jobs where you come in, work by yourself for 8 hours and then go home.
Communication is important, and if you aren't there, it's hard to communicate.

~~~
greedo
Email, sms, voice can cope with crisis that arise. In a small office face is
important; less important in an environment that's geographically distributed.

~~~
bskap
Sure, but when that emergency crops up in the middle of that 40 minute
commute, you aren't going to be helping the team very much.

~~~
greedo
It's no different than being out to lunch. You're 20 minutes away from the
office in your scenario, and hopefully you're not the only person who can fix
things. No one should be the company savior, and if you can't leave the
office, you have bigger issues than working different schedules.

------
timedoctor
Most people who think they work 50-60 hours actually work 40 hours. Most
people who think they work 40 hours actually work 30 or less. I've seen that
for myself, working very hard from morning to mid-night taking breaks only to
eat and tracking every minute, adds up to only 50 hours of REAL work per week
(not counting Saturday Sunday). People work a lot less than they think they
do. Track your EXACT time worked and see how much you really worked ... I've
been doing this for at least the last year.

~~~
rschmitty
I find that most of the "most people" who fall into the category of "working"
that many hours but actually only doing 40 hours of work related work are the
younger/entitlement generation (I'm 35 fwiw)

When you are at work, do you work. You shouldn't be browsing reddit or
checking facebook/twitter or fantasy football/espn. You shouldnt have a chat
client open with friends/family (create a work only one)

At our office we are allowed (and encouraged) to read tech blogs such as
hackernews, but no one abuses that and reads for hours on end.

We use RescueTime and part of our 8 hours includes email, irc (work #channel),
instant message (work only 'friends' screenname), reading rss on top of the
actual coding. No one is looked down on for having a high google/stackoverflow
time in a week.

Two 4 hour blocks of coding is not that hard (and normally broken up with
meetings or some form of communication anyways)

I find people that have to work 10+ hours to get in 8 actual work related
hours are the same people who used to "NEED music" to study. Just have some
self discipline and focus.

~~~
enraged_camel
Downvoted for using the term "entitlement generation." Seriously, get over
yourself.

------
nicholassmith
I've worked frequently where 40 hours is long in the rear view mirror by the
end of the week, but it's completely unsustainable over a long term period. I
saw a few friends I'd not seen for a while and when they asked what I'd been
up to all I could think was "um, work?", which completely defeats the point of
working. Building something awesome is, well, awesome, but for the most part
you also need to have a life and enjoy yourself.

~~~
jiggy2011
Yes, I had about 6 months to a year where I didn't really do anything but work
and pay off debts.

The worst part is meeting up with friends who you haven't seen in a while and
realising that you are officially the most boring person in the world because
you have _nothing_ interesting at all to talk about. It wasn't even like I was
building something exciting that I could talk about.

~~~
xradionut
Then you realize that all they have to talk about is television or sports
teams or LOL cat pictures or the toys they bought on credit.

~~~
pilgrim689
... or recent travels or instruments they play or people they've seen or
concerts they went to or adventures they've had or sports they play or side
projects or dates or ...

~~~
xradionut
That's only the retired folks and trust fund kids...

------
jakub_g
Unfortunately the statement that 40 hrs a weeks is optimal for each and every
person is yet another fallacy. I've started my first full-time job a year ago,
I work in France as a dev on a 37.5 hrs contract (extended French 35 hrs in
exchange for more days off, which is pretty standard in tech companies here
AFAIK).

For the first couple of months, I've been drifting away mentally after 6.5-7
hrs. Now I'm used to it, and of course, sometimes when I'm in programming
nirvana, I deliberately stay longer to finish some logical part of the task to
avoid the recreating-the-context problems next day, but anyway even with avg
of 37.5 hrs a week, in the long term I'm exhausted.

Long commute (2x1h) and living alone (everything's on my head) certainly do
not help.

~~~
capisce
If you live alone, why not move closer to the office?

~~~
jakub_g
The company is located in the middle of nowhere ;) But I'd have to consider
this soon indeed.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If you can, avoid working at companies located in the middle of nowhere.
Location is the first thing I consider when working for a company, and if it
means a real car commute or living in the middle of nowhere...the better tech
companies understand having a decent location is very important in retaining
talent!

------
purplelobster
I work at a company that has a mean age of probably 35-40. It has the great
effect that 9-5 is pretty pervasive. I can take a half day without giving
notice, work more or less than 8 hours a day. Doesn't matter as long as I get
my stuff done. Honestly, if I'm having a productive day, I can't get more than
8 hours of work out of my brain anyway.

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Argorak
Take the "Germany bans 48 hours weeks" with a grain of salt. In certain
branches, working 50 hours and more is still considered part of the codex,
especially in advertisement agencys. Hours are rarely logged. Working long
hours is still seen favourably in Germany.

The big problem is that basically working an unbounded amount of time without
logging it hides problems: your work environment sucks and make you slow? Just
work more and the problem goes away.

~~~
threedaymonk
Same goes for the UK, to some extent: our politicians are generous enough to
have secured for us the ability to "opt out" of the 48-hour limit. The result
is that almost all employment contracts contain a clause opting the new
employee out.

Having said that, I've personally never exceeded 48 hours in a week, and it
may be that the prevalence of the opt-out is more due to a disinclination to
add bureaucracy that to a desire to exploit workers.

~~~
Nursie
I'm pretty sure opting out is optional, and you can't be made to do it as a
condition of employment. The alternative is often that they'll have you do a
lot of extra time-tracking to make your life more difficult.

I have gone over 48 hours by about 12 hours a week for a period of a month,
because this stuff had to be done. I got a promotion out of it.

Now I'm independent people have to pay me up front if they want that.

------
mchusma
I get this in the context in which it was initially studied: repetitive work
that nobody would be passionate about, but I would theorize that with passion
and variety you can extend this. In other words, you can only do 40 hours a
week of factory labor, coding, sales calls, etc. However, you can do
networking breakfasts at 7, alternate between a variety of tasks, do lunch
meetings, product discussions, sales calls, and network until 7 Monday to
Friday, then check email intermittently totaling an hour or two over the
weekend.

So this is something like 60 hours and it sounds pretty sustainable to me,
particularly if you have resources to avoid doing non paying work, such as
chores. Anyone know if there is research to support this theory? Obviously
that is relevant to startups.

~~~
DanBC
I tend to agree that European Working Times Directive was especially useful to
protect low pay low skill (or semi-skilled) jobs such as factory work. Some
fast food workers were expected to turn up for work, and when the restaurant
wasn't busy they'd have to clock out, but stay in their waiting room until
they got busy, when they'd have to clock in.

That's clearly abusive, and those workers needed protection.

If someone loves their job and wants to work 50 hours; or can work and enjoy
the occasional 60 hours, well, it's their choice and they should be able to.

But most people do not enjoy that, and recognise it's not healthy, and do not
want to do that, but are pressured either by bosses or by work culture. And so
this flexibility has been removed because some companies were not self
regulating.

60 hours a week is 10 hours a day, with one day off. That doesn't include
travel time. Let's say 30 minutes each way. Does it include lunch hours? (UK:
No, but tea breaks are paid). Let's call lunch another 30 minutes. That's 11.5
hours a day. 7 hours for sleep makes 18.5 hours a day. That leave 5.5 hours a
day (plus that one day off) for everything else; your parents, your partner,
your children, your friends, your bills etc, your life.

~~~
rmc
_Some fast food workers were expected to turn up for work, and when the
restaurant wasn't busy they'd have to clock out, but stay in their waiting
room until they got busy, when they'd have to clock in._

That counts as work under the EWT. Any time you have to be on the premises,
counts as 'work' under the EWT Directive.

~~~
DanBC
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Before the EWT they were expected to do this, and
were losing pay, and had little recourse.

The EWT comes in, and now they have legal protections.

------
tyang
Not really buying this.

Bill Gates and Elon Musk and their inner circle worked very long hours
consistently to build something great.

How do you compete with those who work smart and work hard doing something
they are very committed to and passionate about?

This is the issue I have with investing in most startups outside the Valley.

On average, are they not going to lose to those singularly focused on being
the best?

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UNFjRkq...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UNFjRkquCewJ:www.mycomeup.com/Business-
Opportunities/What-Was-Bill-Gates-Work-Ethic-Like-In-His-20s-Check-Out-His-
Daily-Routine-When-He-Was-Just-Another-
Millionaire.html%3Fprint%3D1%26tmpl%3Dcomponent+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
asveikau
You've got only 1 life, and even among a pool of the most bright, hardworking
people (take a sample that works as many hours as you like), there's only so
many Bill Gateses. I'm thinking just one.

Even after all his success, I wouldn't be surprised if a guy like that now
regrets some of how he spent his youth. I'm sure he could have done it just as
well and been a little less crazy, had some more time outside the office. I'd
be surprised if a rational person wouldn't admit that.

Passion and determination are fine, but your idea (or my reading of it,
anyway) that places outside the Bay Area are less worthy because they've got
fewer kids willing to waste their life away ... it seems pretty low.

~~~
avenger123
Couldn't agree more with what you said.

I just find it amazing that Steve Jobs, who could have retired multiple times
over, was still spending 10-12 hour days at the office, on a consistent basis.
This was at the expense of spending time with his family.

I understand passion but balance is important in life.

------
wildgift
Is anyone interesting in working on a long term project to change the laws
about the computer professionals exemption from being paid overtime? Drop me a
note johnk@riceball.com

~~~
rmc
No-one should be exempt from being paid overtime.

------
yeureka
I recently had a phone interview that went rather well for a very interesting
position but the company asks a minimum of 45 hours per week and that is a
deal breaker for me.

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logn
I manage full-time contractors who can work any hours they choose and have an
endless stream of work. Many of them are paid 4-5x average pay for their
countries. I've noticed that most of them end up working 30 hrs/week. They're
required to stop tracking time for every break, verified by cam/screen shots.
Additionally, many end up taking on a second job. I wonder if that's because
they can extend their productivity by doing completely different things.

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withinthreshold
Last week I worked 63 hours. The week before - 58 hours. This week i will
probably reach 60 hours. I work in public accounting.

~~~
ambiate
You forgot to mention it is during the quarter one financial crunch.

------
eranki
The problem is corporate culture and chasing secondary indicators of
productivity (hours spent in the office, lines of code written, emails sent).
The actual output of knowledge workers is hard to determine and bursty (you
can spin your wheels on a problem for days but have a break-through in
minutes) so people come to rely on these proxies.

I don't even think the problem is employers [in Silicon Valley]. Employees
themselves, unaware of how best to show their worth, _choose_ to optimize for
these proxies because it's perceived as a safer bet.

That said, I think when I've worked 80 hour weeks before I've gotten twice as
much done as 40 hour weeks, but only because I felt driven to produce a
certain output, not because I cared about the hours.

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alexrson
I think a more precise message would be "Stop caring about time rather than
productivity"

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orangethirty
Oh how I wish I could settle down to 40 hours a week.Im actually looking
forward to it. Currently work about about 60, and thats without counting the
extra work I do on weekends. Anybody got a remote position for a Python guy?
:)

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ozgung
This is a year old post although the title is very attractive. Does anyone now
a newer, more comprehensive and scientifically solid article having the same
claim?

~~~
lutusp
> Does anyone now a newer, more comprehensive and scientifically solid article
> having the same claim?

As to "scientifically solid", you may be reaching beyond the plausible. Such
studies are in the domain of sociology, and sociology is less scientific even
than psychology (in fact, sociology is located at the very bottom of the
science heap). One reason is the fact that you can't run controlled
experiments with such luxuries as control groups and experimental discipline.

~~~
ozgung
Thanks, you're right. What I really meant was something backed by data. This
is more about business management practices or motivational psychology and
"optimum working hours" must be a well studied topic. There must be more than
some weak anecdotal arguments about Sheryl Sandberg or Ford Motor Company in
early 1900s.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There was a presentation given by a programmer that looked at the research. I
seem to recall that 40 hours was optimal for manual labour but it was actually
less for mental work like programming, but the real kicker was it compared
actual productivity with self-perceived productivity and claimed that you felt
like you were making progress even when you weren't.

This isn't the presentation I was thinking of, but it covers similar ground
(and quotes 35 hours as the optimum for brain-based work):

[http://fr.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of-
productivity-2756...](http://fr.slideshare.net/flowtown/rules-of-
productivity-2756161)

------
ahoyhere
If you want a book full of studies on this very topic -- many of which show
the perils, yes, of trying to do non-manual-labor for extended hours -- get
the book Be Excellent at Anything, which is a misnomer. The book used to be
titled The Way We're Working Isn't Working, and it was a huge overview of
studies that show, well, the way people are working isn't working.

