CS professor Cal Newport says that if you can do DeepWork TM for 4h / day, you’re hitting the mental speed limit
and:
the next hour worked at the 10h/week mark might have 10x as much impact as the hour worked after the 100h/week mark
Thanks Hauke that’s helpful. Yes, the above would be mainly because you run out of steam at 100h/week. I want to clarify that I assume this effect doesn’t exist. I’m not talking about working 20% less and then relaxing. The 20% of time lost would also go into work, but that work has no benefit for career capital or impact.
Yes—I think running out of steam does some of the work here, but assuming that you prioritize the most productive tasks first, my sense is this should still hold.
It seems to depend on your job. E.g. in academia there’s a practically endless stream of high priority research to do since each field is way too big for one person solve. Doing more work generates more ideas, which generate more work.
Another framing on this: As an academic, if I magically worked more productive hours this month, I could just do the high-priority research I otherwise would’ve done next week/month/year, so I wouldn’t do lower-priority work.
and:
Thanks Hauke that’s helpful. Yes, the above would be mainly because you run out of steam at 100h/week. I want to clarify that I assume this effect doesn’t exist. I’m not talking about working 20% less and then relaxing. The 20% of time lost would also go into work, but that work has no benefit for career capital or impact.
Yes—I think running out of steam does some of the work here, but assuming that you prioritize the most productive tasks first, my sense is this should still hold.
It seems to depend on your job. E.g. in academia there’s a practically endless stream of high priority research to do since each field is way too big for one person solve. Doing more work generates more ideas, which generate more work.
Another framing on this: As an academic, if I magically worked more productive hours this month, I could just do the high-priority research I otherwise would’ve done next week/month/year, so I wouldn’t do lower-priority work.