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Comment by sharpercoder | Hacker News Reader

It has become clear to me that sub-40 hour work weeks don't really work from many perspectives. The most important factor is that many jobs require a minimum degree of attention. More focus does translate into better results.

So instead of sub-40 hour work weeks, we should maybe introduce partial yearly roles. So for example if you want to do 30 hours per week, simply work 3/4 weeks per year (39 of 52), but do work these weeks 40h.

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This has not been my experience, not at least in research or IT/research sector. More hours do not translate in more results _or_ more focus.

I've seen also an inverse relationship in quality of work and work streaks also in other fields, for example a direct experience for me was automated textile production. More hours in this case has a direct relationship with more product, but results in more stupid mistakes and more importantly I've seen less overall feedback from the production line, where employee are just more eager to say "fuck it" and simply do the work as opposed to try to help in improving the production process. There is a fine line between using your employees as a resource or a brutal work-force.

This was an eye opener for me. There is definitely a balance in every part of the production line, and less work is generally good for everyone.

I used to work strict 35 hours weeks in Germany. I think my productivity was higher then. Most people were actually working during that time. Now I often sit in meetings where nothing gets done and people just go through the motions. Having a hard upper limit is an incentive for management not to waste time.

> It has become clear to me that sub-40 hour work weeks don't really work from many perspectives

Can you elaborate? This seems interesting and not intuitive to me. Personally, I feel more productive at around 20-30 hrs/wk

1) I personally need a certain amount of focus to be really productive. Pure focus on one thing with enough "cadence" brings me in the zone. 2) Employers often have the idea as well. Although part-time jobs grow year-over-year, the ones getting promotions are still usually the employees dedicated 40 fulltime. I don't know if this is just a matter of perspective or based on tangible results (e.g. proven better productivity). 3) The "10 000 hour rule"

I should emphasize that the 40 hours should be spend well and the employee should use enough time for relaxation, rest and leasure. 40 hours for e.g. a head of family in busy waters may quickly be detrimental.

If you ask me a 40h workweek is very susceptible to Parkinson's law

>work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

I'm less focused sometimes because I know I have time to do something than if I know I don't. And I might be doing more work if I had less hours to fill and knew I had to use them.

>It has become clear to me that sub-40 hour work weeks don't really work from many perspectives. The most important factor is that many jobs require a minimum degree of attention. More focus does translate into better results.

I work best when I'm relaxed and able to focus. Long workdays are very detrimental to my focus and attention.

I wish I could remember where I read it, but I did see something about the ideal workday being around 6 hours at the most. Any longer than that, and the extra time is simply wasted on not being productive.

40 seems pretty arbitrary don't you think? Why isn't it 45 or 35? It's probably because everyone else is doing 40. So you are missing others' office hours if you do 35. But you have to consider everyone doing 35 as the alternative here.

Maybe I should say (and maybe I mean): 5 focused working days.

I've always found I am most productive during short, intense intervals.

A 40 hour work week for 50 weeks a year is 2000 hrs. I've never been able to do it, but I believe I could be far far more productive working 25, 80-hour weeks or 20, 100-hour weeks - probably split into two or three separate chunks.

Why do you make the leap from "more time" to "more focus"?

You can try more things and thus fail more often and thus become succesfull sooner.

... but "try stuff until something works" is not how most people work at all.

The standard workweek in Denmark has been 37 for quite a few years are and has not really shown any issues. In most physically demanding jobs thought theres a 1:1 or higher "afspadsering", which means you save up 1 or more hours paid free time for ever hour of overwork, kinda like what you describing, but never for deskjobs.

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