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Unless you're some sort of superhuman the odds of you consistently working well on 16-18 hour days are pretty slim, and the odds of you doing so without burning out at some point in the not too distant future are even slimmer.

I don't know where your work, or what you're doing, but unless you're on the verge of finding a cure for cancer I'm going to respectfully suggest that whatever it is isn't as important as your mental health. Take a break. See some sunlight, spend some time with friends, and think about something other than work for a little while.

This absolutely. I work long hours coding on my PhD (because I love it), then I come home and work the rest of the hours on side projects. Over the course of a few months my productivity wanes a lot - I can feel the burnout creeping on.

Over the last two years I've figured out that taking an hour out to go for a walk every day makes a huge positive difference. Sometimes, like this week, I take a week off and just do whatever I want as long as it's not my PhD. Afterwards I'm refreshed and ready to hit it hard again.

The main issue with doing work in 3 days that was scheduled for 15 under such circumstances is that your employer will start to expect such performance - and you might get a worse treatment for performing "normally" than your coworkers who never excelled (but weren't particularily unproductive either).

This doesn't mean that you should never put in some extra hours and work miracles when the situation is clearly improved by doing so, but be careful about the expectations you set. They might come to haunt you.

And in particular, learn to say "No". It doesn't make you "friends", like cutting 12 days off the schedule (and by the way, if your work is billed by days, that's actually a problem), but it's one helpful tool to keep your sanity.

Can't agree more about expectations. They make you live somebody else's life, when we know somebody's expecting something from us and have a +ve score of keeping that expectation in past, we naturally behave to build more on that expectation. It's kinda same principle with which 'In App purchases' in modern mobile games are making money.

I've read a lot about how overly-expecting boss make someone's life worse. But I am on my first assignment for a freelance job, so wanna make a +ve history. But probably I am hitting my limits. Got to be careful.

Also note that when you do 15 days of work in three 16+ hour days, what you've actually done is do 15 days of scheduled work in 6-7 days by being smart and competent, and then compressed those 6-7 days into three by being stupid and anxious to fit in.

Quit while you're ahead. If you can cut project times in half while working 8 hours a day, you probably shouldn't kill yourself working 16+ hours a day to quarter them. Halving is impressive enough.

Please take a step back and listen to yourself. You will fuck up your mental health if you keep working yourself this hard.

>> I thought my brain is behaving strange because it's tuning itself for more optimal performance

WTF? How can you possibly think this is anything other than a warning sign?

I've got a childishly optimistic imagination.

The OP is probably an extreme case, but the most important thing for YOU is to take care of yourself.

You're probably just lacking sleep at the moment (when I work crazy days like that, I have codemares, which means my mind never really gets a break from coding). You need to unwind properly this weekend, or whenever your next days off are.

Also, I'd recommend telling your boss how you're feeling, and what you've put yourself through. He might not understand, and may be surprised at how you're feeling about it, but you don't want him thinking you came in as a rockstar and burned out in a flash. You want him to know he can rely on you when things get rough, as they always do, but that you can't push yourself endlessly.

I'd go a lot further: take a day off tomorrow, no matter what the work schedule says. Of course do that after telling the boss that you're exhausted and unproductive due to overextending yourself with multiple 16 hour days.

In an agile, healthy work environment, this shouldn't even count against any leave budget given that you just gave them 6 workdays for the pay of 3.

Beaurocracy can complicate things and make it impossible to do that, but at the very least your boss should agree to let you go home early. If you get any negative feedback about this, I would seriously consider looking for a better place.

I am working from a home like place on a freelance project, so basically I am always at home. Nobody is forcing me to work harder, not even my employer. He knows I am new in this. It was my own stupid ass who thought of making an impression.

Look like tomorrow gonna be a holiday for me, or may be a half day off.

Half days aren't worth it. An entire day off is worth at least 3 half days. You still have work hanging over you for the rest of the day, and it usually ends up being far less time 'off' than you planned on.

People, especially young people, can push themselves quite far for a short period of time, but it takes a toll on you. Don't do this for longer than absolutely necessary. If you're in programming for the long haul, adjust your pace. It's not the 100 meter dash. Or if it is, make sure you take time to recover afterward.

Take care of yourself first. Even if you care only about work, you're no use to your employer if you're sick.

Why are you doing that? Have you an immediate and direct return in doing that?

Beware in creating unhealthy social expectation about you.

> This scared the hell of me. I am on my first programming assignment ever, putting extra efforts to do it quick and do it well.

Unless you're predisposed toward some condition, you're fine. This sort of thing will take years of locking yourself away in your cubicle doing work that guarantees someone else's promotion to send you off the deep end :)

Yep, sure that might be fine for a few days... but a candle that burns twice as bright burns out twice as fast.

Sounds like you should take 12 days off!

How is future you supposed to live up to the amount of work that you're putting in now? Beware of creating unsustainable expectations.