Ask HN: How many hours do you work?

Most programmers have stated on HN that they work on avg 4 hours per day. Most ppl cannot work more than that. Of course there exceptions but about 4 hours of pure programming (reading documentation, writing/refactoring code) is acceptable. Otherwise you risk burn out.

I run my solo bootstrapped SaaS business and have put in consistent 80-100 hour weeks (total computer time) for the past 4 years and am 60-85% "productive" (according to RescueTime). Of course there have been some odd weeks of only 20 hours (...and some 120). Not really proud of it. It is what it is. It's been working. I think in the next 2 years I'll be able to figure it all out and taper down (which I really look forward to!). It's just that every hour adds such clear value to the company... so I keep going. The hours come easy when its all yours. I've had a programming job before and could hardly stay awake for the 8 hours... let alone be productive!

I think the average person's capacity for deeply focused work is generally considered to be around 6 hours per day. I've found that to be the case for me as well. However, I can be maxed out at my day job, but go home and work on an unrelated side project for several more hours.

I highly recommend Cal Newport's blog as he writes phenomenal content on "deep work", the importance of focus, and how to maximize your "deep work" output. --> http://calnewport.com/blog/about/

Separate out "deep work" (design, coding, problem solving) from "shallow work" (email, social media). Do as much deep work as possible every day, but then fill in the rest with shallow but necessary work.

P.S. My average day-job working time is 8 hrs.

9:30 AM: Arrive at office. 11:30 AM: Stop working 11:50 AM: Go to lunch. 1:30 PM: Get back from lunch. 4:55 PM: Go Home.

2 hours a day.

I recall reading interviews of some top mathematicians (probably at the end of the Princeton guide to Mathematics), who stated that they couldn't work on their problems deeply more than a few hours a day. The rest of the day would then be spent attending seminars, reading papers or typing. So yes, it is perfectly normal to be "mentally exhausted" after uninterrupted hours on a mentally challenging task, albeit you could probably spend 9 hours straight on some routine programming without problem, except perhaps boredom.

Frontend lead (basically a js engineer tbh) for a moderately large site, and I put in 4 hours of proper serious work, 2 of less focused work where I refactor, tweak stylesheets, try to smooth things out, and then the rest of the day is spent swanning around, smoking and chatting shit with the guys in design, marketing, qa and ask the parts of the business we don't generally talk to enough.

The later part of my day is often the most productive - fag break meetings have initiated most of the best work we've produced by having an informal chat before something becomes a thing.

Working hard is genuinely admirable, I did startups and put in some serious deathmarch shifts, but I honestly believe that if you're delivering what you signed up to do, and using any leftover time productively, you're making a positive net contribution and probably becoming a better developer as a result. It's a win-win and you won't burn out.

Write beautiful, elegant code, deliver everything you've promised you will, the rest of the time just enjoy doing something you love.

As someone operating a start-up, about five hours of serious production work per day, seven days a week. About three hours per day of problem solving, research, dealing with various issues, and a dozen other things that go into trying to build a business out. Productivity stays high so long as the production side of the work stays under 50 hours per week. Occasionally I'll blow off a day on the weekend and use it for whatever I feel like, I find that relieves any feeling of creeping burn-out; and I allow myself to do that any time I want to, it acts as a pressure valve.

Total time invested is typically 50-70 hours per week depending on what I need to get done. I don't have a family, so that makes it a lot easier for me personally. I take breaks throughout the day whenever I feel like it. I try to heavily restrict demands on my time, I find that's hugely beneficial both to my work and non-work life.

Pair programming eats up so much time. If I'm just given a list of tasks, I usually work 7-8 hrs at work (1 hr. break). Return home do an extra 2-3 hr. non-work related coding.

Few months ago I started working on my new startup http://betapage.co , so I have to work hard. I am working 7 days a week, I spent my 11-12 Hours in my office on product development and marketing , and 2-3 hours at home in reading new things about startups and blogs, mostly I read questions and answers on quora.

I try to put in 15 hours a week max (4-5 hours a day, 3-4 days a week), so you're way outperforming me :)

The first 10 years of my career were spent trying to work more and more hours to make more and more money. These days I try to work as few hours as possible while still maintaining a decent standard of living.

I tend to work in two bursts during the day when working from my home office.

I work 10 - 1 have an hour break and then do 2 - 4.

I find I can get most work done using that framework whilst still allowing me time to get other stuff done in the morning/late afternoon that might otherwise be a distraction!

About 9 billable hours after being there 11 and a half hours. I struggle with exhaustion. I was trying to do 10 - 11 billable hours a day but cut that back to 9; doesn't do the client any good if I make a major mistake because I'm tired.

That's exactly my problem, I can't work for more than 5-6 hours because of exhaustion. But in my case, I'm still in school and work full time, so that may be part of the problem.

Since Facebook employees are (almost) required to have the website open for chats and groups while working, I'm just curious:

how distraction-free are you able to keep your pomodoro work intervals?

I average about four hours of programming per day. That's been pretty consistent over the past ten years. Attempts to increase this over the last couple years have been in vain.

3 hours actually working, 5 more in the office, 3 hours a day commuting.

Around 5 billable hours a day.