
Step one is admitting you have a problem - tiffani
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2051-step-one-is-admitting-you-have-a-problem
======
stingraycharles
This couldn't come at a better / worse time for me. I finished college 3 years
ago, and spent the last 3 years building a startup. It's an extremely
stressful time at the moment, and we're in talks with our first "big fish" (>
1 million / year) clients. Basically, it either needs to work out in the next
6 months or the plug will be pulled.

Lately, I've been feeling socially isolated big time. I've been neglecting a
lot of friendships over the past few years, always feeling guilty when I'm not
working, not being able to enjoy the more important things in life, always
using the excuse that I have more important things to deal with my life right
now. "When my company gets going, I'll start spending things on the finer
things in life", I would say. I guess for me, part of it was a bit of a dream,
a fantasy image I would hold on to: this dream will either become reality or
fail in the next few months, and with this chance of failure coming closer and
closer, I guess something snapped with me -- too much stress, and putting way
too much pressure on myself.

Failure is not an option, because otherwise I completely blew it with a huge
part of my social life, and will have nothing left.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this, and it's not really a cohesive story, but I
I guess I needed to vent with people who kind of can relate. I guess this is
one of those phases in life I need to get through to realize what's more
important in life.

I have a problem.

~~~
pyre
> _Failure is not an option, because otherwise I completely blew it with a
> huge part of my social life, and will have nothing left._

That's the same logic that compulsive gamblers use.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Loss_aversion_and_the_sunk_cost_fallacy)

No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this
world. And the internet makes it easier than ever to find people to
'socialize' with (though not necessarily 'hanging out' in the physical sense)
outside of your immediate area.

There have been numerous times where I have basically cut all ties with
everyone I knew (even family) because I felt I was in a bad position (failing
classes, not 'making progress' towards 'success', etc). But I still have
friends and family that I'm in contact with now that I've 'cut off' before.
Unless you've really cut people off in the sense that you've pissed them off
to the point that they no longer want to be friends with you, you may be
surprised. Just reconnect with people, it's not as difficult as you might
think. (I just suggest _against_ reconnecting with old girlfriends/boyfriends
unless you keep your expectations low though)

~~~
_pius
_No matter how many friends you may have lost, there's lots of people in this
world._

Yes, but friends and family are not fungible. You can't just replace them with
new friends and family without consequence.

~~~
billswift
If you can't make new friends, then you've got bigger problems than overwork.

~~~
_pius
_If you can't make new friends, then you've got bigger problems than
overwork._

You're missing the point. New friends don't "replace" old friends the way a
new dollar bill can replace one you lost gambling. As I said, friends and
family are not fungible.

~~~
pyre
You're missing the point. While family members and 'old friends' are
irreplaceable, if you've screwed up all of your relationships beyond repair,
you've got to rebuild from somewhere no?

You can't say, "good/old friends are irreplaceable so why bother to make new
friends once I've lost them."

~~~
_pius
_You can't say, "good/old friends are irreplaceable so why bother to make new
friends once I've lost them."_

I'm not saying that; that's as extreme as what I'm arguing against. Obviously
you've gotta move forward ... you can't just give up on life if there's a
setback. And I generally agree with you that more often than not relationships
can be repaired.

But people shouldn't believe that they can just get all of these relationships
and lost time back: at best, they can do better moving forward. You can't get
your twenties back if you burn them in an office somewhere and you can't get
time with your parents back if they, for instance, pass away while you're all
wrapped up in your startup.

Pay attention to your life, you only live once, as far as we know. If you wake
up one morning to realize you've made mistakes, don't wallow in regret, change
your course for the better.

~~~
pyre
That was my original point. That he/she should make new friends/reconnect with
old friends. He/she seems to be in the mindset that, "things have been screwed
up, so just throw yourself even more into your startup because you've already
invested the loss of your social life as a 'sunk cost.'" I'm trying to say
_not_ to do that.

~~~
_pius
I misunderstood then, we're in agreement. :)

------
Tawheed
I think David has the right idea, but is framing the problem in the wrong way.
The problem is that startup founders don't know the difference between work
and play. When you're working, you better damn well be sure you're refreshed,
thinking clearly, and working on something that is going to get you a desired
outcome related to your business (i.e. meets the goal). When you're playing,
who gives a shit?! Do what you enjoy and do it for as long as you want, AS
LONG as your work is done.

What happens more often than we suspect is that since we enjoy what we do so
much, the lines become blurred. How much of those 14 hours of "work" were
_really_ aligned with a goal for your business vs. working on something that
you just enjoy working on. If you framed that activity with the idea that this
is "work" and that it needs to accomplish a goal and it needs to be of a
certain quality, would you take it on at 9pm with your tired eyes? Probably
not.

------
fizx
From the wikipedia article on Paul Erdős:

His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning
coffee into theorems", and Erdős drank copious quantities. (This quotation is
often attributed incorrectly to Erdős himself.)[6] After 1971 he also took
amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet
him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[7] Erdős won the
bet, but complained during his abstinence that mathematics had been set back
by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was
filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the
bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine habit.

~~~
GHFigs
I wanted to post a quote about the millions of other amphetamine users in the
world, but most of them don't seem to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines.

It's almost as though taking amphetamines doesn't make you as smart,
productive, and famous as Paul Erdős. Weird, huh? What's weirder is that this
seems to be true of all vices and all famous people!

------
fjabre
My first startup was a success and pays me a hefty salary now..

For the first year I was working late into the night while I had a day job and
it paid off. I didn't tell myself I need to work long hours to get this thing
done - it just happened that way. It took me that long to get everything done
and ready for release.

The real debate going on here sounds something more like this:

Camp Zen: Balance your life, family, and work and put it in perfect harmony.
After all - my team and I developed Google in just 1 hour per day in 5 weeks.
Either we have the right philosophy or you're just not smart enough to keep
pace.

Camp Starbucks: All else be damned. Stay up til 5am, get up at 6am to goto
your paying job - then start working on the project again when you get back
home at 5pm.. The project is the last thing on your mind before going to bed
and the first thing on your mind when waking up.. Health failing? Not to worry
- I'll be eating sushi and drinking green tea for the rest of life when I cash
out at the end of all this..

I think Camp Zen likes to think they have the superior philo.. They like to
point out that you shouldn't work just for the sake of work.. I completely
agree.. However, if your idea and project are of any real value to society and
have any chance going somewhere - _then in most cases_ \- you'll have plenty
of work to do and plenty of health to exchange for that payoff later. The work
is obviously cyclical in that sometimes you'll just happen to have a lot of
downtime and other times you'll be wishing you were dead but in general you'll
be putting your heart and soul into it..

------
josephruscio
I couldn't agree more with DHH here. Although addiction to "work's highs" is
one explanation, I think its often simply a noble-sounding excuse to not
expend the effort to exercise regularly or maintain a significant other.
Hacking is fun, working out and maintaining relationships are hard. I fell
into this trap when I was an undergraduate, sleeping 4 hours a night and
putting on a significant amount of weight. After I finally got my priorities
straight a few years ago, I lost the weight, started sleeping 8 hours a night,
and my quality of life has improved dramatically.

There are always going to be periodic crunch times when you need to pull out
all the stops to hit a deadline. However, if this is the norm rather than the
exception, I think you're doing it wrong. Note that I still agree that you
shouldn't be expecting to take vacations and enjoy lazy weekends, its just
that 8 hours of sleep a night and regular exercise should be non-negotiable.

------
amix
If you look at successful people - no matter if it's in business, sports of
mathematics then one thing they have in common is hard and challenging work
over longer periods of time. You won't get good at golf, programming or
business by not practicing it a lot - and others that work harder than you
will outperform you at some point, no matter what your initial talents are.

Is hard work an addiction? It probably is, but not like a cocaine addiction,
but more like a become-good-at-golf addiction.

Hard work and becoming really good at something requires sacrifices, no matter
if it's for sports or startups. And becoming really good at something isn't
for everyone.

I want to become really good at what I do, I love my work and I spend a lot of
time "working" (or at least practicing). I don't think hard work is a problem
and I don't think DHH should tell us that it's a problem. We all have
different values in life and we have different ways of achieving success. I
mostly work hard because I enjoy it and because I want to become better.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Hard work != addiction to work.

~~~
amix
From the outside hard work can seem like an addiction and this is what DHH is
seeing. What I see are people that are passionate about their work and
passionate about succeeding - - they breathe startups just like a upcoming
basketball player breathes basketball. And yes, there are some that don't
exercise, don't eat healthy, that ruin their friendships - - but I doubt these
people would improve their habits by doing something else...

------
bumblebird
I don't know anyone who is 'addicted'. I know people who put in 14 hour days
because they genuinely just enjoy it. I'm one of them.

You always have to try and get a good balance between work and family, but I
don't think the article really considers the instance where people choose to
work long hours because they enjoy what they do.

'Doing a startup' is surely enjoyable work. That's why people enjoy working
more, and why they put in more hours.

I keep saying I'll get an early night, then at 1am or 2am there I am just
finishing off some detail. That doesn't mean I'm addicted or have a problem,
it means I'm enjoying myself and loose track of time.

Was Mozart 'addicted' to writing music? Or was he just a prolific composer?

We've heard this same blog post 100 times before from 37signals though :/ -
"Listen to us and we'll show you our special system to allow you to work
less!"

~~~
rudd
Enjoying yourself such that you lose track of time -- when it happens all the
time -- is a bad thing. Imagine yourself saying the same thing about anything
else you can get addicted to. "I watch 14 hours of television a day because I
genuinely just enjoy it." "I drink 14 bottles of beer a day because I
genuinely just enjoy it."

~~~
swombat
Yes and no.

What if you were so excited about painting that you spent 16 hours a day
painting. You produce the greatest masterpieces man has ever seen, you change
the world of art forever... but yeah, you're an addict.

So what? What's so bad about being addicted to something worthwhile? It's
pretty usual to hear about musicians who will spend 20 hours a day in the
studio getting their songs just right. Artists of all types do the whole
obsessive addiction thing all the time, but we don't point at them and say
"hey, you better chill out, don't worry about trying to achieve Artistic
Nirvana, just chill out and have a beer with some friends instead".

Being an alcoholic or a coke addict is bad because it's an empty addiction
that produces nothing of worth and destroys you along the way.

Being an art or business addict is a different thing altogether. There's a
good reason why there's no "artaholics anonymous" group. Art is worth getting
addicted to. Arguably, so is business.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_you spent 16 hours a day painting. You produce the greatest masterpieces man
has ever seen..._

The cultural bias is staring at us right here: You've implicitly assumed that
working 16 hours per day is the way to produce great work. Not necessarily
true.

There are, of course, artists who do their work in intense sleepless binges,
because when the spirit moves them they forget everything else, even food and
sleep. There are also artists who can't work unless they're drunk or stoned.
But consider the possibility that this is not the source of their power. This
is a _handicap_ that they must overcome.

I know it's difficult to imagine a twenty-year-old version of Steve Wozniak
that was even _more_ productive. But everything we know about sleep suggests
that if Steve had been able to convince himself to get more rest in the middle
of his legendary weekend-long hacking binges, he would indeed have been _even
more productive_. Woz got through that, of course, because he had the brain
cycles to waste.

As for this:

 _Artists of all types do the whole obsessive addiction thing all the time,
but we don't point at them and say "hey, you better chill out, don't worry
about trying to achieve Artistic Nirvana..._

No, we don't, but that's a flaw in our culture. Are you suggesting that it
would have been a bad idea to try and get, say, Ramanujan to take some time
out to rest and feed himself, rather than letting him remain so addicted to
short-term mathematical highs that he let his health decline and died at an
early age?

Our romantic artistic culture idolizes burnouts and addicts: Kurt Cobain, Jimi
Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis. This leads to the illusion that
acting like a burnout and acting like an artist are aspects of the same thing.
But being a great artist is more about _persistence_ than intensity. It is
actually far better for your development as a musician, for example, to
practice a few hours a day for a long series of days than to try to pack more
practice into each day. Your mind needs rest to assimilate and organize what
it learns.

Another point: Many of the musicians who spend 20 hours a day in the studio do
so for economic reasons. Every hour of studio time costs money, lots of money,
and getting set up in the studio takes hours and hours of work, so once you
get set up you have to use the studio as intensely as possible before you have
to break down the instruments and pack them up. It makes one wonder how much
of the I-don't-need-sleep-I'm-a-superhacker culture derives from the days when
hacking took place in night-long binges because the computer's time was
cheaper late at night. That was a rational reason to stay up all night. But
now computers are cheaper than furniture and there's no reason for a tech
worker not to get some sleep. You'll think better.

~~~
swombat
I haven't stated that spending 16 hours a day painting is the only way to
produce great work. But it certainly has worked for some people. How many
geniuses do you know who were not insane by someone's definition?

The reality of the universe we exist in is that genius and insanity are not
very far apart (and sometimes hard to tell apart). There are no doubt
exceptions, but for most geniuses, insanity is part of the deal.

Your bias in this is also enormous, whether or not you're aware of it. You're
assuming that your chosen life goals (to have a healthy balanced life) is
valid for everyone. Perhaps Ramanujan didn't give a toss about having a
healthy balanced life, he wanted to solve mathematical problems, and fuck the
rest.

Do you honestly have the arrogance to walk up to a five-year-old Mozart and
tell him he needs to chill out and go play in the kindergarten rather than
compose symphonies? That he'll produce better work if he takes it easy?

You say:

 _But being a great artist is more about persistence than intensity. It is
actually far better for your development as a musician, for example, to
practice a few hours a day for a long series of days than to try to pack more
practice into each day._

But being a genius artist is not about "developing as a musician". It's about
something else - music is just the medium via which you convey it. Developing
as a musician is just one of the early steps along the way. And being a great
artist is not about craft, it's about that other thing - the intensity, the
passion, the flame burning bright. Craft is necessary like the wick of a
candle, but it's not the wick you look at, it's the flame.

Now, of course, most entrepreneurs (and artists) are hardly geniuses, let
alone world-changing geniuses, and I can only agree that working yourself to
the bone doesn't lead to a healthy life, but to then turn around and tell
those who choose to live their life in a certain way that they've missed the
point is incredibly arrogant. Not that that's very surprising coming from
37-signals. People (especially _driven_ , _passionate_ people) choose how they
live their own life, and they don't need a DHH on a soap-box to lecture them.

~~~
GHFigs
The problem being addressed is one of people choosing to do "insane" things in
the expectation that they will be geniuses. It's mimicry. It's behavioral
affectation. It's fashionable nonsense in every field, consumed and parroted
not so much by the driven and the passionate as ambitious poseurs who don't
yet have a strong sense of who they are.

It's just like our collective demand for "tips" and "hacks", except instead of
focusing on the trivial details, we focus on glorifying vices and unusual
habits as secrets of success rather than ways of coping with personality and
mood disorders. Ways which were often not conscious or willful choices at all.
Ways which were often sources of misery. Ways which were often ultimately
failures. We forget these things and we forget that we are not so different
from our fellow man that we are immune to the same fates.

------
dasil003
This is one of the supreme challenges of having a society with ample leisure
time. Just like all animals we are survivors, and are built to struggle. Once
you provide for the immediate survival needs, we are left on our own to define
what we want to make of ourselves.

There's no right or wrong answer. Maybe some people really can squeeze the
extra productivity out of working 100 hours (I know I can't). But to truly
answer the question requires brutal honesty with yourself. Are you running
_to_ your goals or _away_ from your fears?

------
patio11
I have this funny feeling that we could shout our lungs hoarse about 80 hours
being detrimental and not convince anybody. Social norms are powerful,
powerful things.

Instead, anybody want to get some data together? I track productivity. I can't
be the only one. (PLEASE tell me I'm not the only one.) Poor sample sizes,
self-selected reports, and non-comparable metrics aside, going from hoary old
wives tales to actual numbers has to be an improvement at the margin. (Data
collection on this topic at the day job convinced _salarymen_ that overtime
was overdoing it. You know why? Because the hours worked versus productivity
graph was so unbelievably borked that climatologists couldn't coax an upward
trend out of it, that's why.)

~~~
gvb
There is data, with references, here: [http://lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-
productivity-presenta...](http://lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-
presentation.html)

It was (very lightly) discussed on HN six days ago
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=971708> (I posted clickable links to the
references, so you don't have to retype them).

------
messel
The problem is not working long days. It's spending time inefficiently on
tasks that don't have a real impact on your bottom line.

I wish I knew which tasks were the most important, every day I try and guess
and follow my instincts.

~~~
mahmud
measure.

------
pyre
At my current job, I don't always feel the 'need' to go home, but that's
especially apparent when I'm working on something and I feel like I'm 'in the
zone' and being productive. I just want to ride out, since it's not always
there.

If I hated my job though, I would just be biding the time until I could clock
out and leave it at that.

------
jdlegg
I often see startups and software development referred to as "creative
professions." But the industry is lousy at practicing habits based on
knowledge of creativity from psychology.

Take the four stages of creativity, for example: preparation, incubation,
illumination, and verification. Work habits like those discussed here all but
destroy any potential for unconscious incubation of creative solutions.

Another oddity about this industry: perks like ping-pong tables, free food,
and Rock Band tournaments. These seem to be attempts to lessen the
psychological load, with the ulterior motive of getting longer hours from
workers. If you believe in the psychological theories of creativity, such
benefits should have no great effect.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incubation_(psychology)>

------
billswift
Many people have a big problem, that is that _other people_ seem to think they
have a problem. If you don't think you have a problem, guess what? Maybe you
really don't. No matter what some busybody a __hole says.

~~~
pyre
> _If you don't think you have a problem, guess what? Maybe you really don't._

But then again, maybe you do. Saying "I don't have a problem because I don't
believe I do" is begging the question. Many drug addicts don't believe that
they have a problem, but they clearly do.

------
scorpion032
Sounds like the first step of the "Four Noble Truths" anyway ;)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths>

------
jhancock
advice from an old mentor...

Take care of:

1 - Your health

2 - Your family / relationship with God

3 - Your work

The advice was given to me at a time when I was working 100 hour weeks. I was
told that even a 40 hour work week is unacceptable if I don't take care of
items 1 and 2 ahead of my work. As with most quality advice, it took years to
sink in.

~~~
Psyonic
Your mentor really put your health above your relationship with God? I take it
Job went about things the wrong way?

~~~
jhancock
The ordering of health/family/God is certainly debatable. This was his
ordering and I don't always do it that way, but the point that your work can't
be sustainable or offer your life much value without the right priorities is
the key. I've been fortunate to have had quite a few great mentors in my life.

~~~
Psyonic
Makes sense. Unless your work is a "higher calling," health and family should
be above it.

------
joshu
I kinda like the feeling of being sleep-deprived.

~~~
pyre
I feel more motivated if I'm slightly sleep-deprived for like a day because
I'm in a frame of mind where I have to force myself to do _anything_ so it
makes it easier to motivate myself to do things that I would normally
procrastinate (so it might just be the power of forward momentum). But that
only lasts for a day. If I don't catch up with sleep after that day, I just
deteriorate.

That said, it's kind of weird to look back at code I've written in such a
state. I usually don't recognize it. Sometimes it a good way, sometimes bad
(i.e. sometimes I'm amazed that I wrote something that good, and sometimes I'm
amazed that it works at all).

------
ryduh
Thank you for posting this :)

------
tiffani
I have a problem.

