On my own company, when single, and living in my one room apartment? Absolutely.
With a family, children, with tons of responsibilities and in someone elses employ? Not on your life.
We have been conditioned to call things like this a waste of time but it doesnt mean it is. Not for everyone. Capitalism would have us believe we must constantly be delivering value that is defined by external standards but that is a dangerous game.
4000 Weeks is a pretty good book with more on this topic.
> If you have a family, then there's no way you have time for 70hr weeks
The argument is _not_
> If you do not have a family, then you _do_ have time for 70hr weeks
I don’t think you should overwork yourself cuz you don’t have kids. Do what you want with your life.
I love working (activity) -- coding is a hobby I long ago made the mistake of monetising haha.
My stuff? I'll spend a weekend chasing a dead end without a second thought.
General sort of cog in the machine day to day work? You're paying me to be a bit bored a lot of the time. Not a complaint or anything, just the routine stuff that can't be automated yet.
Fun comes from learning new things, money comes from being paid for what you already learned.
Of course this is just me, if everyone was like me the world would suck. Absolutely no judgement if you get your fun outside of an IDE!
E: bit of context I'm currently single and have no dependents, I would imagine (hope) my priorities would change if that changed
Working for somebody else, where I have little stake in the company? I won't just put in the bare minimum to not get fired, but I also won't work absurd hours, especially on a salary.
My own stuff? I'm ready for the 40 (job) + 60 (my own projects) work week!
For reference, I'm very young and no where close to having a family.
Since you said you're very young I assume you're still at school/university and haven't had a tech job yet.
This doesn't work. Time is not the biggest factor, energy and focus are. You can only put in 40hrs and be extremely drained.
It's very unlikely you're going to be able to perform well at work and then be productive for another 60hrs on personal projects, especially not at your first job when you're learning a very large amount of new stuff.
Even just 60hrs of personal projects is probably way too much time relative to energy and focus (Your energy and focus will likely be drained before the 60hr mark).
I see it in smaller business. I once got a phone call from my then boss, a sort of VC, who was clearly drunk, who could not make my meeting because he was doing BD. They worked collosal hours on this, in the corporate entertainment suites of the local sporting venues, in the city bars etc. Even lunch was a work activity for them.
Nobody is saying single people have "nothing better to do". Just that they very often have more flexibility with what they can reasonably choose to do.
If you’re around 20 maybe. Before you’ve already developed a hair-trigger on chronic disorders.
Speak for yourself. I have hobbies, a workout routine, friends to meet up with, family members to visit, and beauty sleep to catch. If you're working 70h a week you're sacrificing most if not all of those things.
You can fit working out in there (~30-60 min a day, plus travel time if you don't have your own equipment) if you're willing to burn the candle at both ends like that. At that point you will have committed the overwhelming majority of your time, and if you try to add anything else to your life, any kind of unexpected outing or emergency, or even just waking up one day and not feeling up for it, will have to come directly out of the time you've budgeted for your work and health.