The 80 Hour Myth

I keep reading and hearing about this crazy idea in certain fields such as Finance and Consulting and Executive management where people are constantly working 80+ hour weeks. Just think abou that for a second. That's just under 12 hours/day. We're talking 7 days a week. I've read of crazy stories where Mom brings the kids to the office to see their Father. This is just ridiculous. A fantastic blog recently discovered via Infectious Greed writes to this phenomenon and the author quite eloquently describes my criticisms of it.

At Startup Boy (which I can't recommend highly enough for those curious about small business and venture funding), Naval Ravikant talks about the problems with such long work weeks. They revolve around (the lack of) people's ability to keep focused and produce good work for anywhere near 80 hours in a week. He argues that a whole lot of wasted time is padded into that number. Bathroom breaks, IM'ing, checking email, gaming, etc. are all necessary to sustain so much time at the office. Additionally, you have blank stare into space periods of inactivity. Most important is that he offers solutions to increase productivity such as putting more than one person in a room so that one person's up-time helps motivate the other.

I'm curious to hear back from people. What have been the longest weeks you've pulled? How many in a row could you sustain? Looking back, how much was wasted time and how much was actually productive? What could have been done to allow you to maximize your work as well as your free time?

Raul