Alexander Borisenko asks:
We are a small, early stage startup from Russia that is getting ready to get out of the concept phase into development. Coming from an investment banking background of 18 hour days…sometimes I start to question if we are doing enough, if we have to be working on weekends, etc… And although after starting to keep track of my time actually working I realized that 10-11 hour days are just as effective if done right, it still would be extremely helpful to know if successful company like yours works on weekends and on average, how many hours a day. I really hope I can get an answer from you on that, as it would solve the last big puzzle that I have before starting execution.
37signallers can set their own schedules but I’d say, on average, we work a typical workday (8 hours) and we don’t work weekends. (Unless we’re really feeling a project and don’t want to stop. Then we’ll take that inspiration and run with it.) But normally, it’s a typical workweek.
Investment bankers may work 18 hour days…but look at the state of the investment banking business. It’s not the quantity of hours you work, it’s how you spend the hours you do work and what you’re working on that matter.
Too many people think they have to work 80-100 hour weeks. They think, “No amount of work is too much work.” They pull all-nighters or sleep at the office.
But you don’t have to work superhuman hours. A normal workweek should be plenty. Even less is ok. In fact, being short on time is a good thing. It forces you to focus on the essentials. There’s no time for things that don’t matter. There’s only time for the basics. And if you want to build something great, you have to nail the basics first.
Basecamp, our flagship product, was created on the side while we were still doing client work. With just 10 hours a week of programming time and 10 hours a week of design time, we made a product that took off.
We didn’t have time to focus on anything other than the basics. It did a few things and did those few things really well. There were no distractions. It did what people really needed and nothing more. It was only after it took off that we decided to devote more time to it.
Also, keep in mind you’re setting up habits that you’ll continue to follow. If you work endless hours now, you’ll probably never stop. Once you start running the hamster wheel, it’s tough to get off.
Worry about the quality of your hours, not the quantity. That’s what really matters.
David Minton
on 04 Mar 09I am curious as to what you consider an “average workday?” I am always wondering what should be considered a fair amount of time to ask staff to work per week. How many hours do salaried staff web designers and developers work per week, on average?
Should the downtown in the economy motivate employees to do more work than they are asked, or do most see them working the same amount they did when times were good, and quality employees were hard to find?
Sukh Dugal
on 04 Mar 09Well said. It is like a habit.
Happy
on 04 Mar 09Right on 37signals. Quality of hours is much more important than quantity.
Alexander: Also, don’t forget that there are so many other things in life than work. From Jason and David at 37signals, to Tim at 4HourWorkWeek, to Gary V: successful people in this tech-enabled reality will be the first to tell you to expand your focus from non-stop work and have a life in the real world.
Being perpetually stressed and harried is no way to go through life or business. Products produced in such an environment will invariably feel stressed and harried – not the qualities you want your product to exude.
Take it from someone who’s been there and has now found Happy work methods. Purposeful, consistent, quality effort is much-much-much more valuable to you than a full-out, non-stop push with no end in sight.
“10-11 hour days are just as effective if done right” I literally laughed out loud. That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day. Combining the phrase “10-11 hours days” with “effective” is like combining “politician” and “likable”. A politician can come off as likable for while, but it doesn’t take long for reality to set in. Same with 80 hour work weeks. They may seem productive at first, but just wait…Peter Cooper
on 04 Mar 09I follow both groups including folks like 37signals who emphasize “less” as well as groups including folks like Gary Vaynerchuk who emphasize “hustling” all the time. The split I notice is that one group is focused on developing products whereas the other is trying to build a brand.
I’d say that, yes, if you’re building a product, then for the actual technology work, less time can provide a restriction that results in genius emerging. BUT you should then also be “hustling” for as many hours as possible to actually sell and market your product and build up your brand. A product is nothing without sales and a great product alone won’t (usually) sell itself.
So.. less time developing, then 10-11 hours a day hustling, being your brand, talking to people, engaging with your community, and actually getting those sales.
Jamis Charles
on 04 Mar 09I like that. I usually have 1 hr a day set aside for development projects. This forces me to plan how I am going to spend that hour ahead of time.
I’ve found that doing this greatly increases my productivity because I can refine ideas in my off time during the day.
James
on 04 Mar 09I generally work a four day week, and about 6 hours a day (10-5 with an hour for lunch). Sometimes I work evenings or weekends instead of weekdays.
Working less makes me work better. When you only have a limited amount of time, you really have to think about what’s worth doing; and if some way of working is causing delays, you notice almost immediately.
I worked in a really corporate environment in the past, and I’m sure that about a third of what we did was unnecessary. We could have achieved as much, if not more, in two thirds of the time.
Andrew
on 04 Mar 09Didn’t Jason blog recently about needing fast internet at his w/end house? I think to be fair, you need to define ‘not working’ at w/ends, otherwise you’re overselling your methods….checking email for 30-60 mins on each w/end day is still work!
Sahalin
on 04 Mar 09Matt, thank you again for picking up my question. Although I think you shouldn’t have omitted my second part on “mixed signals” as it is more relevant to tech. IB was just a prelude. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/15/how-many-of-our-startup-executives-are-hopped-up-on-provigil/)
Completely agree with you, and was expecting this type of answer after reading “Getting Real.” Just wanted to confirm.
Happy: 10-11 hour days on a 5days/week basis = 50-55 hrs. Check your math ;) If you include things like reading, catching up with blogs toward the end of the day, it is not unreasonable, and having been on the other end of the scale, it is pretty damn good!
gas mask filters
on 04 Mar 09Many believe the hard you work and the longer the hours the more productive but the reality is there is such a thing as spinning your wheels. It is different for every business. You need to figure how much more net profit can be made by working those extra hours. Of course you will make more money but you will find that there is a correct % amount. What I mean is you will find doing 5 deals in the long run is more productive than 6 or 8 hours is more productive than 10 or 12 hours, but is different for every business.
Happy
on 04 Mar 09Sahalin: You’re right re: the math. I was considering weekends too, 7×11 and then I rounded up to 80 for effect.
On a related note: Don’t get me wrong, when I say quality of hours is more important than quantity, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put in the time necessary. I believe, as Malcom Gladwell has shown in “Outliers”, that “Virtually every success story we’ve seen so far in this book involves someone or some group working harder than their peers. Bill Gates was addicted to his computer as a child. So was Bill Joy. The Beatles put in thousands of hours of practice in Hamburg…. Working really hard is what successful people do.”
Yet, the motivation to build and promote a product has to be because you love doing it, not because you are trying to hit a number of hours. (I know the original poster was not specifically asking “How many hours should I work”. I’ve diverged a bit from the original question.)
And though every hour working should improve ones chances for success, working at the wrong pace on the wrong things does not lead to success. With each hour worked, burnout and inefficiency are one step closer. In this I agree with the prolific Peter Cooper; that constrained time in development can result in a more focused, quality product, resulting in both a product that is easier to sell and more time for selling it.
Chad
on 04 Mar 09Work as many or as few hours as it takes to get done what you need to do to make the kind of money you want to make in the specified time period.
It’s kind of like the difficulties Microsoft faced with IBM developing OS/2. IBM wanted to pay by the lines of code written, and Microsoft (they really veered away from this concept) wanted to write leaner, but more effective code. On the other hand, there’s no cash coming in without a product to sell, so you might want to nail out the hours to get a quality product out faster. It really comes down to what ’s more important to you. But then again, winter in Russia…. ya might want to throw it to the wall, since there’s not really much going on til summer anyway….
John
on 04 Mar 09Most of the time, work will not take any less time to complete than you allow for.
So if you set up the parameters of a workday being 18 hours, your work will take that long—regardless of whether it should or not.
Martial
on 04 Mar 09My boss says, “If you’re here after 5 every night – and coming in early – in order to get your work done, then I’ve given you too much to do.”
On top of that she actually notices who is staying late, sits down with them, and figures out why. If someone is being inefficient, she teaches them better work techniques/habits. If she really has given someone too much work, she helps them prioritize and even makes the decision right there to cancel what turns out not to be necessary. Have I said I love my workplace?
Dana
on 04 Mar 09I believe in balance in life. I work a straight 40 hours, spend a lot of time with my family, and a then little with friends. I find that’s a pretty enjoyable mix.
Micheal
on 04 Mar 09I’m curious to see a comparison between yearly income vs. hours worked in a week
I’d suspect that it would be a bowl shape “U”. (income on x-axis and hours worked on y-axis).
Where on the low side of yearly income, people are working a lot of hours (people working 12+ hours a day at minimum wage). Most middle income individuals work 8 hours per day. Then most high yearly income individuals work 12+ hours per day.
Then
Still happy
on 05 Mar 09“Starbucks Saved My Life” is the book by a fired exec who has found happiness now working at Starbucks. Saying he would turn down a six-figure job if offered it again: “I know the price. The price is you have to give up your life. 12 hour days, 20 hours days.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/02/05/starbucks.saved.my.life/
The story: “Michael Gates Gill was a high-flying, six-figure-earning advertising executive years ago before he was abruptly fired. He had created huge campaigns for companies like Christian Dior and Ford and lived an even bigger life, with luxury automobiles, lavish vacations and fabulous clothes.
These days, however, he’s traded his $3,000 Brooks Brothers suits for khakis and a green apron; the big bucks for a $10 an hour job as a barista at Starbucks. But Gill says he couldn’t be happier.”
If you’re doing something you love and have a calling for, the number of hours doesn’t matter because you’ll find you want to do the work. There wouldn’t be a question of how many hours should I work.
If you’re doing something just for the money, then that’s when you start asking: is the time I’m putting into this worth it?
If you find a job or a way to be self-employed that maybe does not pay a fortune yet lets you enjoy life as well, that, I think is a good deal.
Jason Pontius
on 05 Mar 09I’m not sure I buy it, guys. I think your point is a really good one— that sometimes hours worked reaches a point of diminishing returns— but in practice, I’m skeptical.
I guess part of it defines what you mean by “working.” I run a small Web shop, and in fact I probably do spend maybe 6-8 hours a day sitting at the desk. But if you count the hour before work I spend checking email, the hour after work at home writing blog posts, the hour and a half I spend over dinner spaced out thinking about a Web design instead of paying attention to the food I’m eating, it definitely adds up to 10 plus.
At SEED last year, this question came up in the panel discussion, and Jason gave a pretty breezy “hey, we work six hours a day” kind of answer. But when someone (okay, me) asked later if he, Coudal or Segura had any difficulty drawing a line between work and life, he kind of hemmed and hawed and said, “yeah, I work too much.”
The basic point is totally valid. But it’s also true that running a business (or being an integral part of one) just takes up a lot of your life, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
joelfinkle
on 05 Mar 09I’m a lucky bastard - I’m a telecommuter, and able to keep to a “reasonable” workday. There are days when nothing practical happens but thinking for the next step - and to an outward observer, it may look like too much solitaire. There are days when I’m still firing all cylinders at 6PM, and yes I’ll probably take the family dinner time (I might even cook, but I’ll often ask my wife if she’ll cook in that circumstance) but odds are I’ll run back upstairs right afterward. But that’s rare. Most of the time, it’s 40-hour weeks… and I’ve got a reputation for being a producer, a hard worker.
Use the hours the best you can. There are good hours, and useless hours. Working six extra hours that day won’t necessarily get more done. I’ll take a long shift mainly for things I don’t want to do tomorrow—get it over with (I just got through with 16 hours of taxes and financial aid forms, because doing it late was better than putting it off). But that’s thankfully an uncommon case.
And it sets a bad precedent. Instead, use an occasional overtime for pulling a “Scotty”—do the impossible one evening, and you’ll have cred to last.
Andrew Mitton
on 05 Mar 09Jim Collins of the Good to Great fame says the following in an interview he did at Hossli.com:
Question: What does a leader need to do if he wants a live? Collins: It’s a choice. Some leaders choose to have a life defined not entirely by work. And some choose to define their life entirely by work. Work is infinite, and time is finite. The sheer amount of things that we potentially could and have to do totally dwarfs the number of hours we have. Working more hours will never get you there. The real choice is how you use those hours. You have to manage your time, not your work.
Sachin
on 05 Mar 09If you love your work ….then its different…but otherwise 8 hr/day is the most I can do.
Larry Salibra
on 05 Mar 09Quality definitely of work time matters over quantity. However, I find that when I’m in the “quality groove” where productivity is high and inspiration is flowing whether that be just for a day or a few weeks, I just go with it even it means long hours.
Artificially breaking time up into workdays adds a lot of overhead to me. Too much time trying to get back mentally where I was the day before.
The same can be said about weekends and holidays. I was feeling in the groove from our conception of the Pay4Bugs software testing marketplace concept around Thanksgiving and pretty much cruised through the American holiday season working on it every day until Chinese New Years at which point it was pretty much ready for launch.
I like to balance out those periods of “overworking” with periods of “underworking.”
By the way, if anyone from 37signals reads this, it seems your blog code is outputting only_path=”true” on the comment author headings. I assume this isn’t intentional.
Tom G
on 05 Mar 09You have to decide if you live to work or work to live.
There are times in life when work should become the priority. Part of being successful is to keep the promises you make and if you have committed to a deadline you have to do what it takes.
That said…
Too many people lose sight of the reason why they work. If you put in incredibly long hours telling yourself you must in order to support your family, you may be in fact depriving your family of yourself.
Everyone must discover their own healthy work/personal life balance.
In creative endeavors quality always trumps quantity.
Only
on 05 Mar 09Honestly I feel like I get more done in 10 hour days than in my 8 hour days. Then again I’m used to it, and we’re only talking 8-6 here. I also have lots I need to do on the weekends, but that’s more chores & such, not so much work related.
There’s got to be some range of effective hours per day, otherwise if smaller always higher hourly quality same amount of work done we’d all be working 1-hour days.
Only
on 05 Mar 09Eh meant to type
...if smaller always equals higher hourly quality equals same amount of work done…
but apparently double equal signs no like
Sean McCambridge
on 05 Mar 09I like the 37signals mantra. There must be an ideal range of hours logged that equals the best return on your time. If you’re not putting in enough time, obviously you’re not going to get much of a return. And if you’re putting in too much time, you’re probably getting the same or slightly less return as if you put in that ideal amount of time.
I think the vast majority of the 37signals cult gets it. Those of us who work for ourselves can control our time. I just feel for the poor souls who still slave under oppressive bosses who don’t understand.
I used to work for a company who insisted we log a certain number of billable hours. That number would quietly creep upwards. It was plain to me, working those hours, that the mind-numbing work I was doing was getting harder to do the more the company pushed to eke out a few more dollars.
In the end, the same job took longer to accomplish. And there was an unspoken implication to let the clock run to satisfy management.
Before, I had been proud of how fast I could get a job done, but the honeymoon faded and my productivity slipped like everyone else’s. The company was making more money by taking longer to do the work on the backs of unhappy employees and overbilled clients.
Especially in the design/development world, you’re going to make way less mistakes and do way better work if you come in happy and rested.
This is key: the better you feel about your job, the better you do your job, the less mistakes you make, the better you feel about your job. It’s a cycle. Just make sure you aren’t spinning your wheels as someone said above.
And remember that inaction takes as much energy as action, so don’t fret if you’re getting a block. Get up, take on a different task, whatever. Just don’t force yourself or guilt yourself into pushing so hard that you start to see your effectiveness drop.
Stefan Seiz
on 05 Mar 09Matt: so did you stop your 4-day-working-week experiment? If i remember right, you once had a post up on svn, that 37s is doing a 4 day working week without much drawback. Curious to hear why you stopped that, if you did.
Thanks!
Martial
on 05 Mar 0937signals seems like a place where productivity is easily measured. You – as a team – know what needs to be done. You – as an individual – do your piece. Iterate.
Many jobs/bosses don’t want to define productive work in order to box employees into certain standards.
The first step to knowing how many hours your job takes is defining productive output.
Drew
on 06 Mar 09Martial has it:
“Many jobs/bosses don’t want to define productive work in order to box employees into certain standards. The first step to knowing how many hours your job takes is defining productive output.”
I’ve seen this over and over again in places where I’ve worked. Flexibility in the workplace is a luxury for employees that is paid for by additional work on the part of management. It takes a very good manager to define and track genuine metrics for success beyond “well, he’s been here on time every day for a year”. More’s the pity, as most of us seem to recognize that more relaxed, happy workers are more productive, and at higher quality, than those who are just grinding hours.
David
on 07 Mar 09When talking about working weeks, I wonder who I would like to do surgery on my son. A doctor who has been up for the last 18 hours? Who has worked 100 hours this week? No way.
I want someone who is fresh and wide awake (as well as well trained and experienced). And what makes people think that software (even in an investment bank!) is less cerebral than medicine?
This discussion is closed.