Have those measures like taking more vacations and adopting a 4-day week really increased your productivity? How have you measured that?
Of cause one can deliver more per hour when working 8h/d instead of 12h/d. But the output of a 12h day will still be massively more than from a 8h day.
There's been a fair bit of research on that topic. Largely the studies I have read have found that especially in creative intellectual labor (perhaps some programming could be excluded), overwork leads to negative productivity, compoundingly so in the long term.
Unfortunately, the edit window has passed. I didn't mean it as a swipe but I can see it being read that way too easily, sorry dang and everyone else. You would be welcome to remove or edit that sentence.
[edit: perhaps "There's been a fair bit of research on that topic. Largely the studies I have read have found that especially...]
That's a great change which totally solves the problem. I've merged it in your comment above. Thanks!
Edit: I of course believe you that you didn't mean it as a swipe. The trouble is that these things can all too easily land that way anyhow, since intent isn't directly readable. Past posts about this in case of interest: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
When I push past my mental capacity, stress, drain circling, anger, all that starts to seep in and it destroys my ability to think through hard problems, complexities, details and so on.
I’ll end up banging my head against the wall for hours, stressed and exhausted from some misguided sense that my worth is in my output and all of it will plummet for several days afterward.
I’ve studied myself. When I work extra hard when I can’t think anymore, even if it’s just to “get over this one hump”, my productivity is near zero and my agitation is up for 1-3 days of work after, *even with a weekend break*.
But with stable, consistent work that works out to 4-8 real work hours a day, usually around 6 or 7 but sometimes only 3, rarely 9-10, I have made huge amounts of progress on projects and done things more complex and complicated than I have ever done before. And it’s almost felt easy.
Your comment is reasonable and hackers shouldn't down vote it or try to bully you like they did.
I would say that there is a productivity advantage of having extra time and extra energy. That's when you have the peace needed to make more profound improvements of the work being done. And these improvements have exponential effects.
I wouldn't even considering that bullying, it's just an observation.
When people with this guy's mentality get into power, they are awful to work for.
Do you want to work 12/h a day for the same pay? No, right? Okay, then everyone is on the same page. I don't think we need to advocate against ourselves in search of some principle or some type of moral high ground. It's not a virtue to be self-destructive.
Not really, at best its linear if your job is like an assembly line. Office work rarely benefits from longer hours. 8h days already have diminishing returns after 4-6h on average.
Many pilot programs have found that 4 day weeks are at least equally productive compared to 5 day weeks.
Of cause one can deliver more per hour when working 8h/d instead of 12h/d. But the output of a 12h day will still be massively more than from a 8h day.