

Why “Work smarter and not harder” is crap advice for entrepreneurs  - bootload
http://anthillonline.com/why-%E2%80%9Cwork-smarter-and-not-harder%E2%80%9D-is-crap-advice-for-entrepreneurs/

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loup-vaillant
Mabe he should read this: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971708>

Direct PDF link: <http://lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf>

One thing this presentation says: while working more than 40 hours a week
eventually lowers your productivity, your _self perceived_ productivity is
still higher.

Now, every individual is different, and I understand that he may have a
productivity peak at more than 40 hours a week. But 95?[1] 4 hours nights?
That is superman.

[1]: He took the example of 19 hours a day.

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patio11
How much of the constant state of emergency is unavoidable and how much is a
consequence of running to the limit of capacity such that you can't anticipate
non-scheduled black swan events like, um, Christmas?

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mnemonicsloth
The author of this post spends the first seven paragraphs telling us how busy
he is. Then he uses a metaphor that compares being busy to having a large
penis.

I am not making this up.

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philk
It doesn't get any better; later he complains that some of the members of his
retail workforce clock off as soon as their shift ends.

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kelnos
It's even worse than that... he _acts_ like he's not complaining, saying
something like, "I'm glad they've found their work/life balance," but then
goes on to say it's a _shame_ that they don't want to put in an extra hour of
work per day, because then they could carve out a more interesting and
exciting career for themselves. As if what his employees do outside of work is
a poor substitute for career development.

I think it's great that he's happy working his ass off making his business
succeed. But not everyone defines their self-worth based on their job.
Personally, I'm more concerned about making and maintaining connections with
the people I care about. Yes, I'm working like crazy at a startup right now,
but it's not my _life_. It's my job. It's a rewarding job helping to build a
product I believe in and am passionate about, but there's so much more to the
world than the office I spend most of my time in.

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philk
That article has some really shady analysis in it. An example:

 _Despite there being diminishing returns on my time beyond a certain point,
there are still positive returns. To elaborate, if my first 10 working hours
per day are worth $10 per hour to the investors, the 11th hour may be worth
$9, the 12th hour $8 and so on. Still my 19th working hour would still be
worth $1 to the investors. As long as I am not destructive and my work
produces value, and I can function the next day back at the $10 an hour mark,
there are real benefits to my company for me putting in my time._

He provides no proof for his claim that performance drops off in such a linear
fashion and he can consistently work nineteen hour days while being just as
productive the next day.

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loup-vaillant
His _perceived_ performance drops off in such a linear fashion. As long as we
don't have a way of measuring our _real_ performance, we are stuck with that
perception.

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xcombinator
I don't believe that his strategy is the best one, but if he does, more power
to him.

Burning your life only gets you so far. It must be terrible to see other
people that seem lazy to overwork you.

In my experience, the best workers I'd known were lazy bastards, from that
reaper that worked only in the morning because grass was fresh(dew) and did
more in one hour that all we in the entire day to the CNC machine programmer
nobody knew how he made simple programs in very short time and leave that
surpassed our own in the company.

His "having it big is good" argument is flawed too, I have a friend with an
enormous one that had real problems with girls.

