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Comment by anatari | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but I just don't buy this wishful thinking of low hour high productivity. Personally, I probably hit peak productivity around 60 hours although I rarely work for longer than 4 hours without taking a break to eat lunch/dinner or play with my daughter. People who hit peak productivity at 30 hours probably just don't like what they're working on as much and so of course founders select for the former. That said this only relevant if you're trying to be highly productive. I have nothing against people who choose to spend their energy on other things.

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Well, I can't say that it's true for EVERYONE, but my typical work-week includes about 30 hours of work, and I work on teams with others who work 40+ hours, and I consistently get more done per week than many other team members.

Maybe I'm just faster; my own experience is that I can push to 50 hours in a week, maybe 60, but then the following week I get about 20 hours of productivity in before burning out, so 60 isn't sustainable, at least for me. And those last 20 hours in a 60 hour week are really only good for brainless tasks.

God forbid I do any truly complex code in that time, or my net productivity will actually go negative, as I'll need to spend more time later fixing what I did as a zombie.

That's interesting, how do you define 'productive'? What can you do after 60 hours you can't do after 30?

I can get more things done in 60 hours. I'm looking at productivity over the long term. If I work 60 hours/week for a whole year I will accomplish a whole lot more than if I worked 30. But if I work 80 hours per week, I will only accomplish marginally more than 60 hours and maybe even less if I burn out. Everyone has different priorities and different breaking points, but I find it disingenuous when people claim more hours doesn't allow for more productivity. I'm certain there are people that can sustain much longer periods of productivity than myself and as a result accomplish more things.

Of course spending time alone does not mean you'll be productive, but assuming equal intelligence, someone who is able to sustain concentration over a longer period of time will accomplish more than someone who concentrates for a lesser amount of time.

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