

How to Work 80+ Hour Weeks - jmtame
http://jtame05.wordpress.com/2008/07/02/how-to-work-80-hour-weeks/

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martythemaniak
"The real truth is, entrepreneurs have a much greater respect for life and the
purpose of a startup is to condense much of what would have been a very dull,
very boring 9-5 for 40-50 years into a fast-paced, stress-intensive 4-7 year
startup."

The real truth is, that won't happen unless you hit a jackpot, so if you're
actually banking on working 100hr weeks in startup, so you can relax later on,
I suggest taking 30mins a week off and visiting the local lotto booth.

~~~
krschultz
The real question though is why you would WANT to retire in 10 years? He would
be 32 or 34, and he will have spent his entire 20s elminating time for
friends, relationships, and hobbies. So you get to the 30s, and suddenly you
have 10 million dollars and what are you going to do? Stop working and do
nothing? He already said he doesn't want to do that. And if you try to meet
someone for a relationship - it is somewhat overshadowed by your money. Your
friends (who you labeled a distraction in your 20s when you lived with them,
how likely are they to be friends with you in your 30s?) will probably have
moved on. You have no hobbies because you spend little time on them. So what
do you have? A bunch of money and no life.

My solution - find what I enjoy working on, work on it 60 hours a week, and
enjoy the other 40 hours a week with my girlfriend, traveling, playing my
sports, learning beyond just what I do for work. I don't watch tv, I don't
waste time on a lot of silly things, but I do enough that I have a healthy
balance. He struggled to uninstall his video games and he is going to tell me
that is a healthy life balance when it includes no time for friends, family,
or a girlfriend? I would rather work on what I like for 40 years, and spend
the whole time enjoying it along the way, than work really hard for 7 years
and hate my life during and after that. Just the fact that you have a large
bank account does NOT make you happy. It is what you do with it that MAY make
you happy, but even then - there are a lot of ways to be happy with less money
than you think.

~~~
Hexstream
Myself, I want to "retire" early so I can start working more exclusively on
what I love without having to worry when and how I can monetize my work. I'd
rather have 500k in bank and complete independence than 100 millions and
having to report to someone.

~~~
rw
"Complete independence" is partially based on net wealth. If you have 100
million in the bank, you can tell your boss to buzz off, so it's a moot point.

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ibsulon
The question I have, of course, is how does one keeps their mental clarity of
working even 70 hours a week over a month? For all the workaholics I've seen,
most are not able to do so, lose sight of the big picture, and end up doing
worse work than if they'd kept a normal schedule.

~~~
kirse
I never bothered to count how much I typically work in a week until I read
this article.

Usually my weekday schedule goes something like this:

\- 1hr in the morning for breakfast and centering for the day

\- 8hrs at the 9-5

\- 1hr at the gym

\- 4hrs on the startup

\- 1hr to read, relax, and disconnect

Total work time = 12 hours a weekday. On weekends I'll typically do 10-12hrs
on the startup. So ~70-72 hours.

So what helps the most? Good Sleep... and Timeboxing - Focus into an activity
and disconnect when your time is up. I make sure my mornings take an hour,
don't rush, and relax and center myself for the day. Going to the gym is an
awesome energy boost and stress reliever. And finally, similar to my morning,
I set aside an hour at night away from the TV, computer, etc. to just relax
and disconnect from the day. I need sleep, and this gets me 8 solid hours each
night.

On weekends I'll hang out with friends at night and limit any drinking as much
as possible. Really though the foundation is a good sleep... if I'm not
getting the 8-9hrs I'll scale back everything and get my sleep in order first
before resuming the busy work schedule.

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mhartl
If you're working 80-100 hours/week, what are you maximizing apart from time
spent "working"? Even if you're trying to maximize _productivity_ (and I'm not
sure that's the right thing in life to maximize), I bet 80+ work-weeks are
supra-optimal.

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sdpurtill
working more than 80 hours a week isn't sustainable over long periods of time,
if anything it will just hasten a huge burnout. anyone can work 80-100 hours a
week - it doesn't mean they're going to get more done. work in bursts when you
are most efficient, that seems to work best for me.

~~~
dhuck
Maybe for you, but some people can pull it off.

Jeff Immelt, CEO of GEO
([http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_04/b3767079....](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_04/b3767079.htm))
boasted that he worked 100 hour weeks for two decades.

I've heard plenty of stories of people working crazy hours (the Mint.com guy
built his prototype doing 100 hour weeks I believe) and then pulling back to
something more reasonable (or not.) Sure, it might not be sustainable in the
long run - but hell, life in general isn't sustainable in the long run.
Sometimes you gotta chase those dreams, regardless of the cost.

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vaksel
Personally I don't subscribe to the notion that you need to work 100 hours per
week to be successful mentality.

You do need to be serious and work on your start up full time, but you will
most likely be able to get just as much done working for 60 hours as you do
working 100.

The reason for that is because you can actually stay focused on your work for
60 hours. Don't get me wrong if you actually have something to do, its
perfectly fine working for 100 hours. But don't try to force yourself into
working a 100 hour week, just to convince yourself that you are taking it
seriously.

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quellhorst
Work 80+ hours, get no exercise, put on weight, have no friends or a social
life? You'll wake up at 30 and realize you are getting old and wasted the best
years of your life for ideas that didn't make you rich.

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edw519
Any coincidence that OP has exactly 168 karma (as of this post)?

I clicked on this when I read "How to..."

Nice stream of consciousness essay, but I'm still waiting for the "how to".

<http://www.stevepavlina.com/> has lots of good answers to OP's original "how
to" question.

I also love this quote:

“Sincerity begins at a little over 100 hours a week. You can probably get to
110 on a sustained basis, but it’s hard – you have to get down to eating once
a day, showering every other day, and things of that sort to really get your
life organized to work 110 hours a week.” - Len Bosack, Cisco co-founder

~~~
jmtame
I think I arrived at the same conclusion as you did... it's very difficult,
and I'm not sure I have the one-size-fits-all answer. Would certainly be nice
if I did =)

And having 168 karma (the number of total hours available in a week) is no
coincidence. I of course plan these things out well ahead of time. That's very
observant that you noticed though.

~~~
edw519
I really like reading blogs of hn members. I usually click on their name to
learn more about them and see how long they've been here (and to see if they
became a member just to promote their blog).

"168" jumped off the page. The universe must think you're on to something.

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pbnaidu
I think how many hours per week you can work is an individual thing. I need
atleast 7 hours of sleep to think straight and produce meaningful stuff (code,
designs, conversations, etc).

~~~
0x44
I don't need seven hours of sleep to think straight and produce meaningful
stuff. I need seven hours of sleep to be able to convey the meaningful stuff
to other people. I tend to talk a lot faster than people when I haven't gotten
much sleep, and change subjects pretty quickly.

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JesseAldridge
hours spent working != hours spent being productive

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jobeirne
Methamphetamine!

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Mistone
honestly i only got half way through - its really long and i cant be bothered
to read long stuff unless its really good.

this guys seems really motivated to succeed and not afraid of truly digging in
to get what he wants, so of course, best of luck bro!

