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Comment by iaabtpbtpnn | Hacker News Reader

It's quite a bit more tenable when you admit to yourself that anyone who is nominally putting in 60-hour weeks as a knowledge worker is only actually working for 35 of those hours anyway. Studies show reduced productivity after that point, so you're just going to burn out engineers, and all you'll have to show for it is a butt in a seat.

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You go from 30 to 35 straight to 60 when im thinking 40 hours a week. I dont know about you all but if i work 5 to 10 fewer hours a week i would get a lot less done

Have you tried it? I am definitely tired and have generally hit a wall after about 6 hours or so. If I call it and stop, I’m fresh for the next day.

If I instead stay at my desk consistently, my week is over by Friday morning.

60 hours is a joke, I have done 60 hours handful of times. When I was young and when our all systems got hit with ransomware and I was helping out the IT dept.

I agree and think 5-6 hours is the magic number. Then, I start making errors, taking shortcuts and producing shit code. However, if someone is a super human and can code for 60 hours every week, breath code and make $400k at some unicorn all power to them.

In reality, after $75k your happiness will generally not increase very much if you increase your income.

I find that my productivity, when I am specifically constrained to 30 or 35 hours a week, doesn't really change--because it puts a clear value on my time to other people.

Or, put more simply: I end up in way fewer meetings.

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