Not wanting to donate more than 10%. (âThere are people dying of malaria right now, and I could save them, and Iâm not because...I want to preserve option value for the future? Pretty lame excuse there, Jay.â)
Not being able to get beyond 20 or so highly productive hours per week. (âIâm never going to be at the top of my field working like that, and if impact is power-lawed, if Iâm not at the top of my field, my impact is way less.â)
Though to be fair, the latter was still a pressure before EA, there was just less reason to care because I was able to find work where I could do a competent job regardless, and I only cared about comfortably meeting expectations, not achieving maximum performance.
Over the years, I have talked to many very successful and productive people, and most do, in fact, not work more than 20 productive hours per week. If you have a job with meetings and low-effort tasks in between, itâs easy to get to 40 hours plus. Every independent worker who measures hours of real mental effort is more in the 4-5 hours per day range. People who say otherwise tend to lie and change their numbers if you pressure them to get into the detail of what âcounts as workâ to them. Itâs a marathon, and if you get into that range every day, youâll do well.
For me, I have:
Not wanting to donate more than 10%.
(âThere are people dying of malaria right now, and I could save them, and Iâm not because...I want to preserve option value for the future? Pretty lame excuse there, Jay.â)
Not being able to get beyond 20 or so highly productive hours per week.
(âIâm never going to be at the top of my field working like that, and if impact is power-lawed, if Iâm not at the top of my field, my impact is way less.â)
Though to be fair, the latter was still a pressure before EA, there was just less reason to care because I was able to find work where I could do a competent job regardless, and I only cared about comfortably meeting expectations, not achieving maximum performance.
Hey Jay,
Over the years, I have talked to many very successful and productive people, and most do, in fact, not work more than 20 productive hours per week. If you have a job with meetings and low-effort tasks in between, itâs easy to get to 40 hours plus. Every independent worker who measures hours of real mental effort is more in the 4-5 hours per day range. People who say otherwise tend to lie and change their numbers if you pressure them to get into the detail of what âcounts as workâ to them. Itâs a marathon, and if you get into that range every day, youâll do well.