Work like hell

I love spending time with my family and running trails too much. The fresh air, the exercise, the wind and rain in my face!

'Work like hell' sounds a lot like, well ... Hell?

Working 14 hours a day, 7 days the week will not acomplish more than working 8 hours a day, 5 days the week. This is already true of factory production line workers. How much more true do you think this is for mentally exhausting activities like information workers.

This is what's called "dumb working". Dumb because your productivity will drop permanently more than 60% if you do it for prolonged periods of time.

And if you, somehow, can't measure the drop in your productivity and it seems that you're at the same level of productivity no matter if you're rested and relaxed as opposed to stressed out, overworked, sleep-deprived and on the brink of burnout, then you're not doing actual work. You're doing make-believe work, like sitting trough endless meetings and nodding your head.

Somehow a lot of smart people seem to think that bruteforcing your way trough a problem (despite solid statistical data of this not working) is a good thing to do. But let's suppose that even if you could achieve the imaginary boost in productivity (2.5x or whatever) for prolonged periods of time (which you can't), most of the time this will not solve your problem. Performance increases below a factor of 10x are not very juicy targets. No matter how good you are, you will not be able to cram 400 hours in a week, because a week only has 168 hours. The way to solve problems that are that hard that you'd need 10x the amount of time to solve them, is to work much, much smarter, so you can get to grips with the problem.

Working smarter can make it possible to attack a 10x as hard problem, whereas scaling up work hours even if it'd work does not.

I respect Elon Musk immensely for what he has accomplished. Leading SpaceX and Tesla to market dominance at the same time is insanely impressive! The guy is obviously very brilliant and very driven.

But I don't envy him one bit. I remember an interview with Elon where they asked him why he doesn't just relax, now that he has so much money. And he replied that he's not the type of guy who can sit on the beach. After a couple days he gets so antsy, he has to go do something incredible (like start the next multi-billion dollar company).

I would rather be the guy who is able to sit still and be at peace (even if it means I just have a "regular" job, whatever that means). Why? Because Elon doesn't have a choice. He HAS to start the next multi-billion dollar company. He makes it look like it's his choice, but it really isn't. Put him anywhere else, and he would probably be the most miserable person on the planet. Even if he DOES successfully IPO all his companies and becomes worth $10 billion (instead of just $1 billion), he will not be one bit more satisfied. Because it's not like the additional $9 billion will give him the thing he's missing. If it were like that, then the first $1 million would've taken care of that (or the first $2 million, whatever). And so after his current companies succeed, he'll have to do it all over again. And then again.

Compare this to someone who could decide to work hard and strive to be successful, but doesn't HAVE to. (i.e. he wouldn't feel terrible if he wasn't insanely successful)

So while I think Elon is a totally awesome entrepreneur, I don't envy being him.

Well I always like the following quote:

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

― Bill Gates

Luckily I don't aspire to be the next Elon Musk. So I don't read it as most to be successful you need to work like hell. To be like Elon Musk you need to work like hell. Successful is by every individual defined different.

I concur with the quote by Elon Musk. If your goal is to "achieve greatness", that is. That's not what a lot of people want to do. In that case, those people should work smarter for less time.

If you do want to achieve greatness, yes, you will burn out from time to time. Deal with it.

Yes, it's harder when you have kids, but it's doable, if you have a loving and supporting partner at home.

If you are hungry enough, you can do it.

If you're not hungry enough, that's ok. Enjoy yourself.

1. Yes, but he'll sustain his work rate for years while you'll burn out in one, therefore achieving less in the long run.

2. Yes, but do it for your own ambitions and projects, NEVER for a corporation -- they'll squeeze every bit of productivity out of you and then replace you once you turn in to a burnt out husk.

3. Yes, but set yourself a goal and slow down once you reach it. Then enjoy the wealth you've earned.

Source: Personal experience. I violated all of the above and suffered the consequences before becoming enlightened.

Edit: typo

I prefer:

"Work smarter". If other people are putting in a 40 hour week, then you can automate yourself and increase efficiency, then do a 20 hour week and do stuff you want to do rather than must do. In my case that means spending time with my family.

Elon does a miserable job of family by the looks.

ignoring burnout completely - even for the medium term (anything more than a couple of days), I very much doubt that someone doing a 100 hour week is 2.5x as productive as someone doing a 40 hour week

Why do we glorify this sort of thing?

Let's say you sleep 8 hours a night (and don't fool yourself into thinking you don't need all that sleep). In between work and sleep, that's 156 out of 168 hours accounted for every week. How the hell are you supposed to enjoy life with the 12 hours you have left?

Or you will simply burn yourself out , hate life, lose support from your family and friends, get out of shape, feel exhausted and make productivity go the drain way.

Elon Musk could do it because he loves his work so much he is not really working. But I met people that did the "100 hours thing" not enjoying it with so bad consequences(suicide, their children taking drugs or becoming prostitutes or joining gangs as they don't see their parents and are in constant search for love).

Back when I dropped out and went on my little "farming adventure" I was put in a position where I was working around 90 hours a week. So yeah, pretty close.

I didn't get more done than the other guys. One guy I met managed a 400 acre pecan orchard. He had an army of undocumented labor and expensive harvesting tech. Another guy, well, onetime he bought a $20,000 high-tech cucumber seed-sowing machine that you pulled behind a tractor. I remember him telling me that this thing was intelligent enough to plant seeds at the perfect depth and discard any bad seeds before it plants them, all using some sort of engineering wizardy that I've since forgotten the details of.

Me? There were these two kids who helped harvest stuff for me so I could focus on everything else I had to do. Farmer I was working for also had two Farmall tractors from the 40s or 50s. Pretty neat actually...when the good one worked, and the other was just there for parts, because the logic is if you buy two broken tractors then hopefully you can get one decent one by combining the two. Didn't always work out that way.

I worked like hell alright, but I sure didn't feel like I was getting anything done faster. I was working hard, but I sure wasn't working smart, not compared to the other guys

Unless you burn out, in which case you might achieve considerably less and have bad consequences.

But if you work for 200 hours a week you'ld accomplish the same in only 2 months. Think about that, Elon so-called Musk.

And then you die

If I worked 100 hours weeks I'd go nuts in very short order. I'd hate it. I've known at least one person who has probably worked 100+ hour weeks for most of his life. This person has a wife and a son, and he hates them. Well, perhaps not hate, but he certainly avoids them most of the time. If you tear him away from work for something, he'll insist on talking about work. If you go to a conference with him you can see him slowly going mad being separated from work for such an extended period of time, even if it's to talk to other people about work! He loves what he does and is ridiculously happy doing it, but that's all there is to his life. Retirement will kill him. He is very accomplished, but there are people who work 20 hours a week out there who are more accomplished.

Don't listen to people who tell you that you'll burn out if you work X hours or be a failure if you only work Y hours. Human beings are variable. Find your optimum.

Musk is a good general staff officer in the von Hammerstein classification system(Hey it makes more sense than myers briggs or that crap always posted here based on watching mediocre sitcoms.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord

I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief

Work like hell, time to time.

Sometimes you have to work very hard to get the ball rolling. Once it is rolling you can take it easy, relax, move onto the next thing, spend more time with your family and friends.

Most good things in life cannot be accomplished with half assed effort. So, you cannot do the 4-hour work week thing all the time.

I remember a few of us developers resisting a push for 10-12 hours days at a company I worked at. It was easy to find precedent in research and blog posts about how it wasn't sustainable.

It's been interesting to see what my wife experiences as a medical resident lately, in contrast to what I'm used to in the software world: 10-16 hours a day, 6 days a week, and it's incredibly normal, necessary, unquestioned. Today's residents have it easier with the lower 80-hour restrictions in place. When there's talk about the workload, it tends to center around how the lower limits might actually be bad (eg, this recent New Yorker piece http://nyr.kr/15hELxF).

I've seen software developers putting in 80-90 hour weeks. The general pattern was arrive 30 minute because they over-slept. Spend an extra hour not being productive because they are half asleep. 4 coffees later they start fixing the bugs they introduced last night because they were exhausted.

They don't/can't listen in meetings and as for any ability to architecture software at a high level, forget it.

One of the most stupid quotes I've heard for a long time. And working 10/4 as much gains you 12/4 productive hours, you actually become more productive? I simply don't believe any intelligent person really said this.

"If the goal of social development was to enable us to work maximally, we should go crazy.

The goal is to free people to create maximally. Dance, paint, sing. Whatever you want."

-Ernst Wigforss Swedish finance minister 1925-1926, 1936-1949.

I love Elon Musk, but Dustin doesn't work like that and neither do I.

Plus it is much easier to "Work like hell" if you are a boss of a couple massive engineering companies and people really need you all the time. It is harder to be creative AND self-motivating AND productive without missing details. The most I've worked was 87.5 hours in a week (I had to run 3 massive construction jobs because two guys got sick while one guy was on vacation) and then I got into a motor cycle accident due to sleep depravation.

I still work hard, but 100 hours is not sustainable.

A lot of people immediately start to talk about burnout. But it's important to understand that a burnout is not about working hours.

The fire burns out when no fuel is added. Fuel can come in many forms and shapes, like: working out, love what you do, gain energy from your work, eating healthy, sleeping well, and so on.

So the quote only applies to people who love what they are doing because they get there fuel from the job (which isn't a job for them but a way of living).

Question is ofcourse: why don't you do what you really love?

It's reasonable for Elon to say things like that as he truly found his life's work. As Steve Jobs once said, "You have to have a lot of passion for what you do because if you don't, any rational person would give up". Those of us who were not hard-working <strike>less fortunate</strike> enough to find IT, have to resort to more reasonable '4-hour workweeks'.

I think the more appropriate link to someone browsing hacker news should just be 'Do some work already would you'.

This is toxic advice and I'm glad to see most of HN agrees. Being ambitious is one thing but there's only so much a human mind and body can take. Banging your head against the wall 24 hours a day isn't going to produce better results than a healthy balanced life, in the long run it will be worse results.

By the way, here is my response to this post. 'Work like heaven': http://nowaternomoon.com/post/60922903254/work-like-heaven

That's just dumb.

The real problem is managing resources, which includes your health and energy. If you somehow can make yourself fit enough to work 100h, fine. But it is not just a matter of willpower. Not in the long run anyway.

You have to find your own pace, the pace which makes you most productive (in whatever terms you like to measure productivity). If that is 100 hours a week for Elon Musk, good for him.

Even if the quote is by Elon Musk, I assume it is not him personally that works like this, but maybe some of his co-workers, certainly not for prolonged periods of time.

Ha...unless you've got tunnel vision and started down the path of working on the wrong thing.

I find things like this to be hindsight accolades.

If you are a business owner that is.

As long as you do it for yourself and not some boss.

Burnout much?

"If you win in lottery, you make more money than others in many years of working"

Stupid truism!

What's the rush?

Lazy wisdom.

go fuck yourself