Ask HN: How to hack myself to increase my work hour? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to hack myself to increase my work hour?

16 pointsthomasttvo19 comments

has anyone been able to work more than 40hrs/week and still healthy with bio-hacking?

The first hack is to only work 20hrs/week. If you are convinced that you only have half of the time to do the same amount of work you will stop wasting time, and ruthlessly prioritize.

The second hack is to be able to maintain that work ethic/productivity for as long as you want: 40hrs, 50hrs, etc.

Good hack, as long as you are paid by performance and not by arse-chair contact time.

Thank you everyone for your contributions. I've spotted and upvoted some very good answers. If anyone has more tips and tricks please chime in.

Some takeaways so far:

  - work schedule: do 1.5-2h blocks of work alternated by 0.5-1h blocks of non-stress activities, OR blocks of different types of work.
  - eat healthy
  - get enough sleep 
  - exercise
  - meditate
  - alternate sit/stand posture

Also, since a lot of you are asking, I thought I'd provide more context. I'm the founder of my current startup. My background is software engineering. Love what I do, love my team. I do prioritize my tasks. "Hacking"-wise, I've been doing meditation, eating very healthy (organic, lo-carb, no-caffeine, no-drug), exercising. I can usually bump to 60hrs if I do what I'm experienced with, but things seem to come to a limit of 45hrs under stressful periods.

Thanks to your answers, I now have some ideas of what to fix:

  - sleep: my total sleep hours is fine, but my sleep schedule is wild.
  - work schedule: gonna try balancing the work blocks with relax blocks. I usually get stuck on the computer coding for 3 hours straight. Will have to learn to leave it after 1.5-2h.

So far so good, thanks everyone! Remember to chime in if you have anything else to add.

Why would you even do that, unless maybe to work for your own company? So capitalism can suck you dry even more?

Motivation probably matters the most here. Own company or working on a project you love (w/ a team you respect and enjoy working with) is great.

However, 40+hrs/week after a while, might probably lead to some sort of burnout / dissatisfaction (something adverse), if it is only for capital gain.

  I consistently “work” over 60hrs/week. -> Sustainable for long term if executed well. 
  During “rush-weeks” I have been able to push 90hrs/week. -> Short bursts of 1-2 weeks at a time…. 4-5 times in a year (usually before a launch or an important event)

  60+hrs/week schedules are more likely to be sustainable if:
  1. YOU  LOVE YOUR WORK. 
  2. YOU LOVE YOUR TEAM. 
  3. You have an excellent support structure (Family & Friends)

  My schedule changes quite a bit depending on what's going on that week (events, travel, off-site meetings etc). But, I am able to follow this schedule for the most part:

  Monday-Thursday [44h, 11h/day]
  5:30am - 6:30am     -  Morning routines ||  
  6:30am - 8:30am     -  Creative Work Block-1 (home) [2h] ||
  8:30am - 9:30am     -  Breakfast + Get to work ||
  9:30am - 11:00am    -  Meetings- internal. [1.5h] ||
  11:00am - 12:00pm   -  Email Block-1 [1h] ||
  12:00pm - 12:30pm   -  Lunch ||
  12:30pm - 2:00pm    -  Meetings, calls & emails [1.5h] ||
  2:00pm - 3:00pm     -  Afternoon routines ||
  3:00pm - 5:00pm     -  Meetings- internal [2h] ||
  5:00pm - 7:00pm     -  Creative Work Block-2 [2h] ||
  7:00pm - 8:00pm     -  Email Block-2 [1h] ||
  8:00pm - 10:00pm    -  Family / social ||
  10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines || 
  11:00pm - 5:30am    -  Sleep  ||
  
  Friday [9h]
  5:30am - 6:30am     -  Morning routines ||
  6:30am - 8:30am     -  Creative Work Block-1 (home)[2h] ||
  8:30am - 9:30am     -  Breakfast + Get to work ||
  9:30am - 11:00am    -  Meetings- internal. [1.5h] ||
  11:00am - 12:00pm   -  Email Block-1 [1h] ||
  12:00pm - 12:30pm   -  Lunch ||
  12:30pm - 2:00pm    -  Meetings, calls & emails [1.5h] ||
  2:00pm - 3:00pm     -  Afternoon routines ||
  3:00pm - 4:30pm     -  Creative Work Block-2 [1.5h] ||
  4:30pm - 6:00pm     -  Email Block-2 [1.5h] ||
  6:00pm - 10:00pm    -  Family / Social ||
  10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines  ||
  11:00pm - 7:30am    -  Sleep  ||

  Saturday [3.5h]
  7:30am - 8:30am     -  Morning routines  ||
  8:30am - 6:30pm     -  Family / social   ||
  6:30pm - 10:00pm    -  emails, catch-up work  ||
  10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines  ||
  11:00pm - 7:30am    -  Sleep  ||

  Sunday [7h]
  7:30am - 8:30am     -  Morning routines ||
  8:30am - 9:30am     -  Breakfast + Get to work ||
  9:30am - 12:00am    -  Creative Work Block-1 [2.5h] ||
  12:00pm - 12:30pm   -  Lunch  ||
  12:30pm - 2:00pm    -  Creative Work Block-2 [1.5h] ||
  2:00pm - 3:00pm     -  Afternoon routines  ||
  3:00pm - 5:00pm     -  Creative Work Block-3 [2h] ||
  5:00pm - 6:00pm     -  Emails and calls [1h] ||
  6:00pm - 10:00pm    -  Family / Social ||
  10:00pm - 11:00pm   -  Night routines  ||
  11:00pm - 5:30am    -  Sleep ||

  Definitions- 

    Creative Work: 
  -Product related work.
  -Prep for meetings
  -Prep for pitches 
  -Prep for demos
  -Skimming through user logs
  -Reading engineering logs and commenting.
  -Skimming through code
  -Technical stuff 
  -Research (customers, competitors, market, strategies, etc…)


   Morning routines: 
  -Brush, wash, get ready. 
  -Cardio & stretches

   Afternoon routines: 
  -Meditating for 20 min or taking a power-nap (depends on mood) 
  -Run / walk outside in the sun (usually tagalong a teammate)
 
   Night routines: 
  -Meditate for 20 min
  -Get ready for bed (brush, wash, etc)


   Some “bio-hacks” I use: 
  -I try not to get distracted in the mornings (I turn off my notifications before going to bed). I FOCUS on the most important work on hand. I feel most creative in the mornings before everyone in my family wakes up and in the evenings when work day ends for most of the company and I don't have any meetings scheduled for the rest of the day. I also find that my creativity goes up after an exercise. It took me a while to figure out my “sweet spots”. Figure out when your body and mind will be “most creative”....
  -I make sure to get at least 5-6 hours of sleep every day and 8 hours over the weekends. Sleep is soooo underrated. It is key for optimal performance. Probably the most important “bio-hack” is SLEEPING (Quality of sleep matters. Also, I try to keep bed time and sleep-period consistent)
  -I eat HEALTHY (I am a vegetarian). I follow a healthy and holistic diet that gets me ALL the nutrition I need (no supplements or meat)
  -Exercise and the SUN. Can’t stress enough how important this is! I feel energized and creative after my workouts (especially if I am running outside in the sun).  
  -I Meditate at least once a day (for 20 min). I find that the techniques I use to “clear my mind” while meditating are very similar to the techniques I use to FOCUS and clear my min of other thoughts... 
  -I try to minimizing noise and other distractions as much as possible. (I sometimes listen to sounds of rain or waterfall or a stream flowing....)
  -I spend high-quality time with my family / friends. Every second counts. This is when I am living in their world and not mine.

  Getting on a schedule and cultivating healthy habits make a world of difference.

  I have been going 60+h/week since 2014. I have learnt a lot, I have come very close to burnouts and depression. Be careful. Your health is very very important. It is easy to loose track of the real world, so make sure you ground yourself in reality and have checks and bounds for your mental and physical health.

  Good Luck!

Meditate for 20 min in night routine.. this one activity will ensure that you have good sleep and calm mind

Awesome answer, Amogha_IO. Upvoted. I will try your work schedule. Thanks a whole bunch.

Working long hours has the following problems IMO that need to be addressed:

1. If sitting it is bad for your posture, back etc. Lack of exercise could be an issue.

2. If thinking hard it might cause fatigue in the mind, burnout etc.

3. If working in a stressful environment, e.g. working with dicks then longer exposure to this could cause psychological problems.

A good hack would be to do a job where you can stand / walk for at least some of the time.

E.g. a job where you do some stuff on a whiteboard, or present a lot in front of people, or can pace around and think would help.

A job where you don't work with dicks would help.

A job where you are not doing novel stuff all the time or working on complex code bases or issues all the time would help.

So my hacks are in the choice of job where you work the long hours, rather than along the lines of drinking soylent etc.

HOWEVER

Why do you desire to work long hours? This seems odd to me.

If it is just to get better results, then just aim for better results. If you run your own business this might entail setting up systems that take you out of the picture.

Thanks bbcbasic. I want to work more hours since my startup is in a very early stage right now, and thus requires me to push as hard as I can. Luckily I get to choose who I work with, so pheww, no dicks.

I don't work a lot. But have more energy. And you can use the energy for whatever you want I guess ?

Have you fixed food ? Only eat best food for your body (no meat, alot of vegs, fish, chicken) + supplements (fish oil etc).

Don't drink coffee and only use it for special occasions (to push more hours).

Exercise: swim for overall body health + running to fix bugs in your head and get high/relaxed (8-10km).

Quit drugs legal & illegal (or only on weekend).

Fix sleep.

How is eating no meat healthy?

It's not, but you shouldn't take my word on it. For a supposedly science focused crowd, most people here on HN don't know what they're talking about when it comes to diet. Programmers in general tend to be overweight and unhealthy.

I need special diet to get a six pack (naturally high body fat), but I can do half-marathon, kickbox etc.

It is very possible to be a healthy meat eater but in general vegetarians have lower incidences of common ailments that decrease lifespan in western populations like cancer and heart disease.

Here's a relevant meta-analysis: https://www.karger.com/article/fulltext/337301

And how is chicken not meat ?

No red meat, which is the real meat. In many countries you can call yourself a vegetarian and still eat chicken :-)

Most kinds of preserved meat (bacon, sausages) are very unhealthy. Other kinds have lots of artery clogging fat. Grilled meat can also be cancerous.

It is for me. My stomach doesn't like it, I actually enjoy it a lot :(. I do eat fish,chicken.

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