
Ask HN: How many hours do you work? - fantominous
I joined Facebook as an engineer straight out of college a little less than a year ago. During my time here I&#x27;ve constantly felt like I&#x27;m not working hard enough. I spend around 9 hours a day at the office, but not all of that time is spent working.<p>To get a better idea of how much time I actually work I started using the pomodoro technique a few weeks ago. I&#x27;ve noticed I do around 12 pomodoros (about 6 hours) of solid work before calling it a day. Usually by the end I&#x27;m mentally exhausted (is this normal?) and want to go home.<p>I&#x27;m really curious to know if six hours of work a day is normal. How much time do people spend <i>actually</i> working at the office? A lot of people at Facebook put in long hours, but I feel like that may be because they spend some time browsing reddit, reading hacker news, etc., rather than working.<p>So far after compiling feedback I&#x27;ve received from my manager and peers I&#x27;d say I&#x27;m performing above average but not exceptionally.<p>I hear about people working 60 hours a week and I wonder how they do it. Do you compromise on productivity? How do you stay focused for so long?<p>How many hours do you put in at the office? How many of those are spent doing productive work?
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atmosx
Most programmers have stated on HN that they work on avg 4 hours per day. Most
ppl cannot work more than that. Of course there exceptions but about 4 hours
of pure programming (reading documentation, writing/refactoring code) is
acceptable. Otherwise you risk burn out.

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bambang150
cool information btw, thanks a lot

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jblake
I run my solo bootstrapped SaaS business and have put in consistent 80-100
hour weeks (total computer time) for the past 4 years and am 60-85%
"productive" (according to RescueTime). Of course there have been some odd
weeks of only 20 hours (...and some 120). Not really proud of it. It is what
it is. It's been working. I think in the next 2 years I'll be able to figure
it all out and taper down (which I really look forward to!). It's just that
every hour adds such clear value to the company... so I keep going. The hours
come easy when its all yours. I've had a programming job before and could
hardly stay awake for the 8 hours... let alone be productive!

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Someone1234
I can understand the motivation of investing so much time when you personally
get to reap all of the rewards, but do you ever worry about burnout? Seems
like you've been going at 100% for two years now, how long more can that
continue before your mental or physical health takes a beating? When was the
last time you took a vacation/holiday?

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jblake
Worrying or thinking about burnout would condition me to inevitably burnout.
It doesn't really even enter my mind, because I know it will just make me and
the business weaker. I simply look at it like: I want a successful business
that gives me freedom to do what I want. Bootstrapped, staying small, and
making money is the path towards that for me. I've been going 100% for 4
years, so I think if I were to ever burnout then that would have happened
already. I take "workcations" somewhat regularly.

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feedthebayer
I think the average person's capacity for deeply focused work is generally
considered to be around 6 hours per day. I've found that to be the case for me
as well. However, I can be maxed out at my day job, but go home and work on an
unrelated side project for several more hours.

I highly recommend Cal Newport's blog as he writes phenomenal content on "deep
work", the importance of focus, and how to maximize your "deep work" output.
\--> [http://calnewport.com/blog/about/](http://calnewport.com/blog/about/)

Separate out "deep work" (design, coding, problem solving) from "shallow work"
(email, social media). Do as much deep work as possible every day, but then
fill in the rest with shallow but necessary work.

P.S. My average day-job working time is 8 hrs.

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fantominous
> I highly recommend Cal Newport's blog as he writes phenomenal content on
> "deep work", the importance of focus, and how to maximize your "deep work"
> output. -->
> [http://calnewport.com/blog/about/](http://calnewport.com/blog/about/)

I used to read his blog quite regularly in college - perhaps I should go back
and reread some of his stuff again.

I found his piece on deliberate practice also worth a read:
[http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-
do...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2011/11/11/if-youre-busy-youre-doing-
something-wrong-the-surprisingly-relaxed-lives-of-elite-achievers/)

> Separate out "deep work" (design, coding, problem solving) from "shallow
> work" (email, social media). Do as much deep work as possible every day, but
> then fill in the rest with shallow but necessary work.

That's an interesting thought - in general I've noticed writing email and
attending meetings tend to require far less mental strain than focused work.

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Rockdtben
9:30 AM: Arrive at office. 11:30 AM: Stop working 11:50 AM: Go to lunch. 1:30
PM: Get back from lunch. 4:55 PM: Go Home.

2 hours a day.

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zippy786
Did you miss the time between 1:30 PM - 4:55 PM. Shouldn't it be 5 hrs. ?

~~~
Rockdtben
11:30 AM: Stop working

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heinrichf
I recall reading interviews of some top mathematicians (probably at the end of
the Princeton guide to Mathematics), who stated that they couldn't work on
their problems deeply more than a few hours a day. The rest of the day would
then be spent attending seminars, reading papers or typing. So yes, it is
perfectly normal to be "mentally exhausted" after uninterrupted hours on a
mentally challenging task, albeit you could probably spend 9 hours straight on
some routine programming without problem, except perhaps boredom.

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S4M
Fair point, but I would say that a mathematician might require more intense
concentration than a programmer.

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ry_ry
Frontend lead (basically a js engineer tbh) for a moderately large site, and I
put in 4 hours of proper serious work, 2 of less focused work where I
refactor, tweak stylesheets, try to smooth things out, and then the rest of
the day is spent swanning around, smoking and chatting shit with the guys in
design, marketing, qa and ask the parts of the business we don't generally
talk to enough.

The later part of my day is often the most productive - fag break meetings
have initiated most of the best work we've produced by having an informal chat
before something becomes a thing.

Working hard is genuinely admirable, I did startups and put in some serious
deathmarch shifts, but I honestly believe that if you're delivering what you
signed up to do, and using any leftover time productively, you're making a
positive net contribution and probably becoming a better developer as a
result. It's a win-win and you won't burn out.

Write beautiful, elegant code, deliver everything you've promised you will,
the rest of the time just enjoy doing something you love.

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adventured
As someone operating a start-up, about five hours of serious production work
per day, seven days a week. About three hours per day of problem solving,
research, dealing with various issues, and a dozen other things that go into
trying to build a business out. Productivity stays high so long as the
production side of the work stays under 50 hours per week. Occasionally I'll
blow off a day on the weekend and use it for whatever I feel like, I find that
relieves any feeling of creeping burn-out; and I allow myself to do that any
time I want to, it acts as a pressure valve.

Total time invested is typically 50-70 hours per week depending on what I need
to get done. I don't have a family, so that makes it a lot easier for me
personally. I take breaks throughout the day whenever I feel like it. I try to
heavily restrict demands on my time, I find that's hugely beneficial both to
my work and non-work life.

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zippy786
Pair programming eats up so much time. If I'm just given a list of tasks, I
usually work 7-8 hrs at work (1 hr. break). Return home do an extra 2-3 hr.
non-work related coding.

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jiten_bansal
Few months ago I started working on my new startup
[http://betapage.co](http://betapage.co) , so I have to work hard. I am
working 7 days a week, I spent my 11-12 Hours in my office on product
development and marketing , and 2-3 hours at home in reading new things about
startups and blogs, mostly I read questions and answers on quora.

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MalcolmDiggs
I try to put in 15 hours a week max (4-5 hours a day, 3-4 days a week), so
you're way outperforming me :)

The first 10 years of my career were spent trying to work more and more hours
to make more and more money. These days I try to work as few hours as possible
while still maintaining a decent standard of living.

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adzeds
I tend to work in two bursts during the day when working from my home office.

I work 10 - 1 have an hour break and then do 2 - 4.

I find I can get most work done using that framework whilst still allowing me
time to get other stuff done in the morning/late afternoon that might
otherwise be a distraction!

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atsaloli
About 9 billable hours after being there 11 and a half hours. I struggle with
exhaustion. I was trying to do 10 - 11 billable hours a day but cut that back
to 9; doesn't do the client any good if I make a major mistake because I'm
tired.

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ekr
That's exactly my problem, I can't work for more than 5-6 hours because of
exhaustion. But in my case, I'm still in school and work full time, so that
may be part of the problem.

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fantominous
> I'm still in school and work full time

That sounds incredibly stressful. Out of curiosity, how many hours do you
typically put in at school (attending classes, studying, working on
assignments, etc.)? What sort of work do you do?

I've thought about studying for a Master's degree while I work here - always
wanted to experience a 'real' education since my undergrad was really
disappointing as far as academics were concerned. A top school from a
developing country still doesn't come close to an average school in North
America or Europe unfortunately :(

~~~
arathunku
I've been doing that for the last 2.5y - university(Soft. Eng.) + work. For
the first 6 months I've been working 40-45h a week + 20h at uni and around
10h-20h (depending on the week) more to do assignments. I just needed to
change how I do stuff for uni, instead of always listening on
lectures(obligatory), I'd study something else. I've not skipped any classes.
It was __very stressful __and I 'd not recommend that to anyone, after 6
months I've switched to 30h a week and it's very good right now. What came
surprising for me it's that while it's 25% less, I didn't do much less than I
had before.

type of work - Ruby and JavaScript coding in a software house, remotely, with
very flexible hours.

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jnpatel
Since Facebook employees are (almost) required to have the website open for
chats and groups while working, I'm just curious:

how distraction-free are you able to keep your pomodoro work intervals?

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fantominous
I usually keep one tab with Facebook open, but I simply ignore any messages or
notifications during the work period and check them during the 5 minute rest
period.

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danielvf
I average about four hours of programming per day. That's been pretty
consistent over the past ten years. Attempts to increase this over the last
couple years have been in vain.

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santaclause33
3 hours actually working, 5 more in the office, 3 hours a day commuting.

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chrisbennet
Around 5 billable hours a day.

