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How many working hours/day are ok?
for you personally :) when do you start feeling that you've lost your productivity and just working for the sake of working?
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Kevin Van Haesendonck
It all depends on what a project requieres. There's time for work and time to relax. Find the balance!
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Burnout taught me the hard way that there is a limit and looking back on my career, I see too many years pushing myself to be productive way beyond when I could be productive. So now, I try to find a better balance, especially since I also have a chronic health condition to take into account. I like to keep it rather organic so I can adapt my work to my level of energy. If I'm hooked on something and have a ton of energy, I let myself dig deep and hit the 9-hour mark in a day. But mainly I've found that my productivity dips too much if I go beyond 7-8 hours a day. I work all weekdays and weekends, but once a week, I let myself have a lightweight day of only 1-2 hours of work.
Honestly, saying that makes me feel like a bad founder as I constantly hear other founders talk about their 80-hour work weeks. However, life has taught me my limits and this is what works for me. I'm curious whether it's possible to be a founder this way and would love to hear if anyone else has experience with a similar setup.
@maria_hagsten omg, that's such a deep answer, thank you! I think that it's very important that you're trying to find this balance. I wish you the best of luck with your startup!
@maria_hagsten @judith_amarachi_ pomodoro is a cool method, I used it a lot when I was at uni preparing for the exams
@judith_amarachi_ @darya_antonyuk Love pomodoro too! It is such a simple and effective technique.
Depends on the person. For me I work anywhere from 10-16 hours a day, 7 days a week. On holidays, too. Hard to take a break when you're just starting up.
@chitterz wow, that's a looot of work. How do you manage to stay productive for so long?
@chitterz How long have you been able to keep up that workflow? Do you have "crash days"?
@brianhurst Yes, and not only that, but 2 autoimmune conditions, diabetes, and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm perpetually exhausted from those conditions but I can't let those things stop me. I do take time for my health by getting 20 minutes of direct sunlight and 1 hour walk per day, and I cook my own healthy meals about 90% of the time. The other 10% I eat out and let myself enjoy/indulge. I also play my guitar every time I take a break, and watch Netflix while having my dinner. So, there are periods of enjoyment throughout my day, and I listen to Spotify and drink hot beverages using a plugged in mug (to keep my coffee piping hot) while I work. I make it fun.
@evgenia_budrina1 I can relate, need to take a break or do some dull monotonous work that doesn't require much thinking
I generally work 6 days a week around 12h. But how much I'm productive, it really depends. Today I worked around 16h, still working :D, but I feel on fire, like I'm doing so much. But somedays even though I'm working let's say 12h I'm for sure not productive all of these 12h as today for example.
@relja_denic 16 hours... such numbers sounds almost impossible for me 😅😅 guess you really kove what you're doing
@darya_antonyuk I mean on the macro scale I love it, but some days are ofc not perfect.
Now I'm just hyped for the launch that's why I have a lot of energy :D
@relja_denic yeah, I can relate. I wasn't planning to work at weekends at all, but here I am checking PH every couple of minutes not to miss something exciting 😅
on a general note,
7*6
8*5 (sweet spot)
10*4
I mostly go with 8*6 or anywhere about that. :)
@senthil99nathan 8 hours 6 days a week is a lot! How do you manage to stay productive over this time?
@darya_antonyuk , maybe, it is. One thing is that I got used to it. And not all those hours are put to full-fledged work. Some of them go into finding inspiration, reading or watching good resources, etc.
Before the launch I work at least 10-12 hours. But in general, 8 - 9 is ok.
I often think of it as a gradient of productivity throughout the day. For me it's those 3-4 hours before lunch - the best performance for coding. I can work for the next 6-8 hours after that but this work is not a highly focused coding.
@arsen_batyuchok I'm also more productive during the first half of the day. Great that you've found what works best for you!
lots & lots :)
workaholic so I don't mind, but I don't expect 12-16 hour days out of my team
Depends, I could probably go a week working 12 hours a day, but that doesn't last long. A break of a couple of days after that streak is necesarry!
@anna_kasumova that sounds reasonable! do you manage to stay productive the whole time?)
8-9 hours are okay..
With right amount of sleep, even 15 hours in office will be with focus.. :-)
@leelz 15 hours in the office sound way too much for me 😅 do you have to do it often?
@darya_antonyuk not often lol, but take away is, without right amount of sleep, it'd be hard to focus for even 8 hours :-). I saw the thread "what's the good amount of sleep time", I should probably jump to that :-P
@sadlyfizzx that's a pretty packed schedule) do you manage to stay productive the whole time?
I think for each person the answer is different. Not only because different people have different levels of tolerance for work, but also because people work in different ways. Some people do work without stop for four hours, while others do bursts of work on and off four 10 hours. Whatever works best for you without burning you out.
It depends, however, the ideal number of working hours per day for maximum productivity is typically around 6 to 8 hours.
I usually work for 7 to 8 hours but when it comes to important tasks, I don't mind investing extra time and I'm even willing to work on holidays to meet deadlines.
@darya_antonyuk Not frequently, but sometimes priority work comes up so I need to work on weekends too.
I can be pretty productive for 4 days a week, 8 hours a day. But that last day of the week I start losing steam, i.e. right now on a Friday afternoon :P
@audreyliu1 Fridays are tough for me as well, hope you have enough energy to finish the working week!
In my opinion six days a week. You need to dedicate one day that you don't even open laptop or check email.
When you are in the beginning of your journey of building a start-up, your sleeping routine leaves much to be desired, at least from my experience. 10-12h of work per day, including weekends.
But then you learn to "work smart not hard", focusing on the most productive hours of your day and completing all urgent tasks during these hours. Everyone has their own experience, I guess:)
