Ask HN: How many hours do you work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

36 pointsxupybd57 comments

I keep finding my self working 50-60 hours a week. Is this normal?

I work from home, and typically I’m “In the office,” about 32-40 hours a week.

I find that I can sustain a max of about 4 hours of focused work (programming) a day before I’m just mentally worked over. If there isn’t more project management/coordination work to do, then I’ll just call it a day.

There have been short seasons where I’ve averaged quite a bit more, but I don’t know that I was ever actually more productive. For me it feels like I hit a point at which there is no more work to be wrung out of me, no matter how long I sit in a chair.

At the same time, I find that work is often on my mind during the rest of my life, and here and there an idea pops up while I’m engaged in another activity.

I used to do contract programming and found that was the hardest part - my brain was at work a lot of the time outside of “work hours,” but how was I ever going to Bill the client for that?

“For me it feels like I hit a point at which there is no more work to be wrung out of me, no matter how long I sit in a chair.”

This sentence made me laugh a little bit to hard. I know where you are coming from.

Don’t forget to do a small weird dance every hour or so. To move those muscles and the keep blood flowing to all corners of body.

Standing desk keeps me alive, for sure.

I have RescueTime installed and so this is what it says for last week:

61h 54m logged 87 is productivity pulse

29% software dev 29% communication & scheduling 16% design

I'm a CEO of a data startup. I'm still coding a lot & do all the product design. Comms has increased thanks to more sales meetings etc.

What's missing from this is ~1hr of emailing in the morning & again in the evening on my iPad Pro every day (no tracking on the iPad).

Have been doing this for months and it's rough as hell. Hoping this is the last month as we'll be hiring people to start filling in the roles I don't have time to do any more.

I'm also very aware that none of this sustainable.

Used to work (IT, game/web development) 40h max a week. And could barely handle it. As I grow older (33) the tolerance is going down. My body asks for more exercise and less sitting (or standing doesn't matter) hours. So 40h a week is too much now. I'm at 25-30h tops. So I try to make the most with that time. Of course I must say that I have a condition, since I was a kid, that makes me feel terrible if I sit for too long (more than normal). Circulation or something. My pressure goes way down I guess when I'm concentrated (going to the movies was hell). So I learned to be effective and do a lot in less time. I now only work at home. Thank god. My goal is to work 3, 4 hours a day tops.

Can you elaborate on how you learned to be that effective? I’d much rather work less, but I find I can’t get work done in 40 hours, and my coworkers doing the same work can. I often need to put in some extra hours here and there.

I'm also working part-time, although I had a lot of full-time jobs with varying intensity. I noticed for me most time gets eaten by tasks that I'm either stuck on or that progress really slowly for various reasons. E.g. something I do all the time is too slow like the editor, the build/test cycles or finding the reason for an exception because there are no logs. Usually I always make myself time to also optimize these things and also communicate that in meetings. And when planning of tasks happens, I try to get involved, understand what kind of work that would mean and discuss that. (Estimation is undervalued I think) And of course get a deep as possible understanding of the core technologies, that makes work also more fluent in the long-term. This way you also have increased idle times between tickets/pull request and it's possible to put more time into such general optimizations.

At least that's my strategy. It's definitely not a career-booster but the results are good.

you can emulate extreme restlessness by wearing electroshock pants (set to increase voltage every 30 minutes) and drinking coffee continuously!

Well, I think there's some factors. I can focus really easily into something and get completely absorbed in it. That helps immensely. There's a huge part of your mind that only activates when you're completely shutdown from outer stimuli and completely focused into something. That part of your mind is hundreds of times more powerful and efficient than your normally used part. If I can't focus like that my productivity drops drastically. And that can happen any time for a variety of reasons.

I feel very similar to this.

About 15 hours a week. I sometimes ramp it up if I've got a new project that I'm excited about but over the long term it always drifts back down again.

When I look back to my employee and contracting days although I was on site for eight hours a day I wasn't really doing any more than three or four hours worth of work.

What do you do that you can work 15 hours per week?

I actually wrote about that yesterday: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830

I’m doing roughly four hours of 30m calls a day (which completely destroys any real productivity I have), plus around two hours of actual “focus time”. The overhead and fragmentation implied pushes this to a 10-12h daily range, which is becoming a serious issue as I can’t find the time to plan or do quality work right now.

I feel the same way! I don’t know how to get work done when there are so many meetings and random events, and yet my employer expects us to get it all done within 40 hours (and will be concerned if you can’t).

My current occupation (consulting) has a mix of billable hours and _quality assurance_ that makes this especially challenging.

Exactly!

I try to work my minimum 40 hours. After doing more for years and not getting rewarded/promoted, I don't see a point of doing more. Everybody else works more than me, so I'll never be promoted again but at least I won't be wasting my life. It is very stressful though.

As an independent contractor, I worked 5 billable hours a day and an hour or 2 on top of that.

I worked alone with almost no distractions. Just me and 3 dogs in the country.

Sounds like you're living the dream. I want land in the country but my wife won't move.

Before COVID, I was in the office about 35 hours a week and had about 10 productive WFH hours in the evenings.

Since perma-WFH, I "work" for maybe 65 hours and get at most 15 hours of actual work done.

Probably 20-30 hours per week? I'm paid for full-time. Company is very happy with me. I wish I could give them more, but that's pretty much my maximum.

24 hours a week over 3 days. I went part time the other year since working 37.5 official hours (actually more) was full of arguing, battles and stress at work. I realised having a life was more important than work.

Work is part of your life, not your life. I work to live, not live to work. No gravestone ever tells you how much money a guy made. It only mentions being a loving father, husband or son.

Are you still able to pay all your bills? What do you do? I'd love to do something like this but the opportunities seem to be few and far between

Yes, I ensure that my outgoings are low. I have a mortgage to pay (it isn't a luxurious area, so the house prices aren't astronomical) but before moving to 3 days I ensured that I cleared debts on cars/credit cards (eg. do you really need a brand new car?), so it isn't an overnight change. I have a strict budget (just a spreadsheet) where I allocate a portion of money to "going out", an allocated amount to fuel and then other bills and rates, car maintenance and insurance (saving up over the year so you can pay at a lump sum when required, saving up in advance, as it is cheaper to pay a lump than pay monthly for car insurance) and any left over goes to a holiday fund or savings. The secret is to religiously stick to the budget! And over-allocate for each section; when you spend less on a section you will be pleasantly surprised and have spare cash, eg. assume 400 for food when you know it is only 300 (just an example). Alternatively, put a smaller figure for your monthly income than you actually earn and you will always have spare cash at the end of the month, eg. if you earn 1000 put 900 and try to live off that. You'll always be 100 better off at the end of the month then.

I do not have many services that I rent, eg. I only have Netflix. I don't have a contract phone - I went SIM-only and bought an Honor Play phone outright since the cost of that was far less than a contract phone per year. I have a large music collection that I bought when I was younger (spent all my money on that really), so you might consider a music subscription service good value but I don't need it myself. I occasionally rent a film, or make use of an Amazon Prime offer to watch stuff on there for a week (and then cancel to avoid an on-going debit) or Google Play movie offers. It is cheaper than going to the cinema and you don't have to listen to someone else eating popcorn with their mouth open.

Sure, I have less to go out and spend on luxuries (a couple of CDs a month perhaps, a book) but I get to spend more time with my wife. Who cares what you eat if you are together (do I really need a gourmet meal to enjoy my wife's company?). You end up enjoying nature more instead of "things".

I see some of my contemporaries being unaware of what they spend per month (literally no clue), and have leased cars, many foreign holidays (pre-lockdown), and rent many services eg. music subscriptions, Grammarly ?!, VPS they don't need, Sky, TV licence, the list goes on and on. And then they are confused why they work so much, and always "run out of money" by the end of the month. It's blindingly obvious - they spend too much on things they don't need, and don't have time to use because they are busy working to pay for them...

Many of these subscription services rely on you not noticing that small fee going out of your account, yet they all add up. If you add them up and work out how much they are per year, you would likely be shocked and consider it poor value. You would probably rather spend the value of the subscriptions on something else - perhaps a holiday or a trip.

If you can aim to live on half or two-thirds of your income, you can save a lot and then you have a bit less worry about incoming crisis bills (eg. broken fridge). We are careful where we shop for food. If you can make a meal plan for the week you will spend less on food since you only buy what you need for those meals. You will throw out less. I am eating a lot more rice these days as potatoes seem to upset my stomach, and the good thing is that rice can be bought in giant bags very cheaply. It is also filling and goes a long way!

For a job, I write software. I try to occasionally supplement it with contract work but I am more of a programmer than a salesman so my success in this area is quite limited!

I was not able to do this when I was younger since I did not earn as much, and foolishly spent all my money than I earned. Getting into debt taught me to keep an eye on what I spend and be strict about spending, so that was a beneficial lesson from that perspective. I wish you success - just look after the pennies, and the pounds will surely look after themselves.

I don't know about it being normal but it's not out of line. I tend to work 10 hours/day 5 days a week and have been doing so for the past 35 years. There have been times when I've worked 60-70 hours/week and I can tell you that's less productive than working 50 hours/week because fatigue makes things worse - those extra hours are actually working against you. As a result I've learned you can't work more then 10 hours/day and you need at least one day off per week. That means the max you can work is 60 hours/week, and that's not sustainable. You can do that a few weeks but you can't sustain that. 50 hours/week is both sustainable and doesn't work against you. As with anything, YMMV. 50 hours/week is what I have found I can sustain. Your sustainability rate may be more or less. You need to find what works best for you.

Early in my career, I routinely worked 50 hrs/wk. Not on purpose; I just preferred to get to the office early to avoid the morning rush hour, and I often stayed around late to get a drink with co-workers after work. I was always productive, and it wasn't until years later that I realized that 50 hrs/wk adds up to an extra 3 months/yr.

Same job, about six years into it, a major project came up that I had staked my reputation on. For almost six months, I was working 80-100 hrs/wk. It destroyed me. My metabolism shut down, my thyroid was damaged. My body temperature dropped from 98.6F to 97F, and overnight while I slept it dropped to 96F and I had trouble waking up in the mornings. I found out later that if it had dropped any lower than that, my body would not have been able to warm itself back up. It took about a decade for my temperature to return to normal, but I still need thyroid medication. And my ability to work long hours has never returned; it's a good thing productivity continues to increase with experience. I work a lot smarter now.

EDIT: the project was a success, at least. My boss was awarded employee of the year, but I was awarded second employee of the year, which was the only time they did that. I also got a little engraved glass plaque, the kind that comes from a corporate gifts catalog. Maybe a $50 gift card too. So worth destroying my metabolism for over a decade.

Figures your boss would win it...

So much of “normal” depends what _your_ objective is.

If you are very career driven, work at a startup, or would like to generate additional opportunities for your own advancement - 60hrs a week might be normal.

In my own experience, you stop measuring work by hours at that point, and convert to measurement by results (which, if you are ambitious, leads to more hours actually worked).

If you want to work fewer hours because you don’t want to prioritize your work or career (to spend time with friends or family, other passions, etc), that’s fine. There are probably folks with that mindset who would view 30 hours as normal.

Personally, I am at my office working 12hrs a day 5 days a week. Then about 10 hours on Sunday.

But that’s because my objective at this phase of my life is to build a winning business and maximize the value of our equity.

Your objective is probably different from mine, but hopefully not different from those you are working with.

I spend about 4-6 hours a day (M-F) in meetings or doing focused work, and probably another hour or so per day doing less taxing things like organizing my notes & responding to emails.

I've definitely had busier times throughout my career where I've worked 50-60 hours a week, and I know others who work those hours pretty regularly, so OP's schedule is "normal" for some situations or types of people -- but definitely taxing enough to cause burnout and not a schedule I'd recommend maintaining long term if there's any way to reduce those hours.

I agree with the other responses in this thread suggesting that you can really only get ~4 hours of focused work done in a day.

OP, if you can cut some of your low-impact hours where you're working but not really getting much done, that's probably a good place to start.

My work week is generally 30 hours or so, which provides me more than enough to provide for both myself and another, as well as excess for savings.

If you're working that long, I feel the other parts of your life may be suffering. Do you have a fixed time contract or are you contracting?

Fix employment and yeah it's a strain on my marriage. The business is going through a transition and needs some help. I'm doing what I can. It's just been a few months now and I've seen it at previous jobs. I don't mind a little extra here and there but I'm not sure if I should push back on work or on my wife's expectations of me being home more

I think it's normal to work 50-60 hours a week if you don't actively track your time. When I was going to the office, I actually worked a lot less. I averaged around 35-40 hours. Now that we all are remote, I find myself working 45-50 hours a week. It's too easy to accidentally go over since I do not have to worry about leaving the office at a particular time due to commuting. However, in general, I feel much more relaxed then before and I do not mind the extra work. I do not let it get out of control since, every hour I work extra, my salary per hour decreases. I like to keep it as high as I can since it makes me feel that my time is worth it.

"every hour I work extra, my salary per hour decreases"

It amazes me that more people don't realize this. I work for a financial company and most people don't realize this. My company also expects people to be happy with a 7% raise when being promoted, but they expect a 15% increase in hours.

I personally think it’s not “normal” in this century to work so many hours a week especially for someone who reads/posts on HN. If you’re referring to whether it’s “common”, that depends on which industry, country, company you’re in and the kind of work you’re doing. For some professions (like lawyers in certain countries or doctors almost everywhere), 80-100 hour weeks are common.

If you’re in tech and you’re not automating your tasks as much as possible, then you need to dig deeper on doing that. Even if you’re not in tech but you use computing technology for work, you should look at ways to avoid repetitive manual work.

Currently I'm working as a contractor, with a pretty low cap on the number of hours I'm allowed to bill. My current schedule looks like this:

Monday: 9am-4pm

Tuesday: 9am-2pm

Wednesday I take off.

Thursday and Friday I do childcare.

There is a little bit of flexibility, but on average I'm working 12 hours a week. I'm going back to working "full time" soon, which will involve 9AM-4:30PM Monday-Friday. On the one hand having more work will be good, but on the other hand losing the extra time spent with our child will be hard.

50ish hours give or take 10. I'd say a good 10-15 of those hours are researching and studying material on how to improve current projects and my own development. It's greatly beneficial for the company I work for and myself in my opinion.

A good example is gRPC. We all can use it no problem, but using it correctly and efficiently is outside the scope of some teams so I like to spend the time to understand it deeper and spread that knowledge within our groups.

I’m a full time software engineer and it depends for me. Some weeks I’ll work 30-35 and others I’ll work 45-50, depending upon what projects are in flight and at what stage we are at in the project. I don’t mind the weeks where I’m working a little longer as my job is well-paid and flexible where I’m able to “leave” (I work from home) early for the day fairly often when I feel I’m at a good stopping point.

I aim for four chunks of pomodoros per day, split in two sets by a long two hour lunch (plus gym some days). So that’s about 8.66 hours of focused work time per day.

But in reality I miss about 1-2 pomodoros every day due to unforeseen events, procrastination, latenesss and so on.

I work mostly 5 days per week, but sometimes I’ll work on Saturday too if I’m feeling good that day and nothing else better to do.

I’m a freelancer and building my own product.

Maybe 2 hours a day, max. There just isn't that much work to go around where I am, honestly.

40 hours most weeks but when a project deadline is nearing then it might be 45 hours. You don't generally get any utility from working longer and actually are more productive with a lesser schedule. Burn out is very real.

I'm a student having summer holiday. Right now I'm programming 10-12 hours every day trying to launch a MVP before I start Uni in September. I basically only take time off if I have to visit family or friends.

As a consultant with large clients (Cloud Platform Engineering) - 40 hours.

Previously I worked as an Ops / Platform Team Lead for a NFP that was around 130 people - 40 to 70 hours as I was very emotionally invested.

Only as many hours as are necessary to get the work done. I'm done trying to use my own graft as a means of getting ahead, which is why I'm a manager.

SrSDE / Scala. Not normal. I used to do 37-38 hours as contractor. Little bit more as a fulltime, but there is some overlap with my hobbies.

10 to 14 hours a day

HOWEVER

A) Around 4 hours of this is on 'must do and not very productive work'

B) So in effect there is just 6 to 10 hours of work a day on vital stuff

Are you hourly or salary?

Plan for 35 hours a week, but expect to work 80 hours a week periodically. Averages out around 45 hours.

6-8 hours a day, rarely productive more than that and actually only hands on 4-5 hours max

It depends. Do what works for you. How productive do you feel? There is no right answer.

About 2-3 hours per day.

Not normal. 32 hours/week.

that's fairly close to what i typically do :-/

probably around 48-55

40 per week

Not normal.

20, though I am recently unemployed. :)

40 maybe.

How many hours does it take?

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