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There is no way that climbing the stairs to the 10th floor will be as fast as climbing to the 1st or 8th floor, let alone the 10th floor. The same applies to working hours. There's no way you'll be as productive in the 10th hour as you were in your first hour.

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Brains aren’t like quadriceps. I get more productive as I work longer and build momentum. More and more concepts are loaded in memory, so to speak.

To me, it’s more like speeding up until I hit the wall on the tenth floor.

I’m of two minds on this a. It depends if we are building or thinking - building definitely benefits from more time, and feel like I get momentum (as you described), implementing something over 12+hr sprint is hugely productive for me. On the other hand if I have a problem to solve I’m completely unproductive trying to do it at 3am.

sure but cache warming works on the order of 30 minutes

I don't fully get the analogy. 10th floor is higher than 1st or 8th, so then you would get more work done? You can certainly climb 10 floors with the same speed as 1 or 8..

Replace 10 with the highest floor your muscles can go to before they are exhausted

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