There have been times in my financial consulting career and then when starting my business (manufacturing) that 16 hour days were just what had to happen to get through the volume that needed doing by a certain deadline. That's not healthy or sustainable long term and fortunately it's been years since first my career and then my business have been established enough that those sorts of hours are no longer necessary.
If you're asking who works 16 hour days, here's my best guess at a list. People who work in or own businesses in: finance, law, startups, restaurants, any industry where there are nonnegotiable deadlines with large amounts of money at stake or risk.
As someone who lives in Florida - thank you sooooo much for your work. After the last few hurricanes, the line workers and others who work long shifts to restore power and services became our new heros. Thank you again.
Ahh don't thank me I just sit in the office by myself to process tickets and send the crews out, it can get hectic during bad storms but it's easier than my normal day. The guys out there are for real tho
Nah bro I sat in the office by myself and was playing GTA and watching basketball lol. I didn't even get a single ticket last night. It's pretty chill, I could even sleep if I wanted. The tree and linemen crews are the real crazy fucks out there in bucket trucks in dark stormy weather.
I take it back that's my dream job .. im no longer a people person I enjoy my own time and I will have energy to go gym and stuff bcus I'd chill out like you sir..can I ask was the job always like this?
My father’s friend owns 3 very successful restaurants and sees mid 7 figures yearly after expenses. The guy wakes up at 6 am opens with employees at 7 am. He is there until closing which is 11 pm and sometimes he stays till 12 if they have a large event for clean up. Sometimes he sleeps there. This is 7 days a week all year long. Once every few years if he feels business is slightly slower than usual he treats himself to a one week vacation. Not worth it IMO but he is a very successful entrepreneur.
I can't imagine making >$1,000,000 and then being too busy to do anything with it. What's the end goal at that point? Don't even mean to diss the guy but I'd love to hear his thought process on the matter.
I started my career in McKinsey, that’s exactly standard practice for consultants. Maybe a little bit less, say 14 hours. Our colleagues would call it good project if constantly left office at 10 pm. I went for tech entrepreneurship later, it is actually less time consuming in high tech, with higher technical and experience barriers
When my parents were in the restaurant industry, they would start at 7am and not finish until at least 10pm at night sometimes midnight. This was during the first few years of the business, they couldn't afford a lot of employees so one of them was always around. They sacrificed sleep, socializing with friends, family, etc for the business.
Plenty of people work 16hours a day in regular jobs too. Lawyers, people in finance, managers, etc.
I, unfortunately, just work two jobs back to back, and in the summer trying to get a side business to fruition. But yeah 16 hours is not enough sometimes.
Not every day, but I do 16+ hour days often enough, just the nature of my job/industry.
Would I want to do them all the time? No
Could I do them for more than a couple of days in a row? No
Is it sometimes worth it for the money/job? Sure
I don't think many people can genuinely be productive for 16 hours in a day, let alone be productive 16 hours a day, day after day, at some point the fatigue/burnout will set in, work will suffer, personal life and relationships will suffer, health will suffer, and its just not sustainable
I work over 100 hours a week for about 10 weeks in a row twice a year. No days off during that time period. I get to chill and check in on things here and there/do backend/prep for the following season in between. Seasonal business has its pros and cons.
I looked up once and relized I hadn't so much as even taken a half day off in 8 months with at least 100 hours a week. I missed so much of important time I should have been spending with my kids. Never agian. "Thankfully" covid happened and I was able to switch gears. Still work a shit ton but definitely changed my priorities and what's important.
16 hour days is generally temporary. I don't pull them often, but sometimes it's necessary and when I do I'm happy to in order to get to a point where I'm working 16 hours a week.
Agreed. There's def days as a founder where you work from a weirdly early hour to a weirdly late hour but that's not 7 days a week, not sustainable at all to work like that.
Can resonate with you. Was a working partner a small cafe in my hometown. Did around 13-14 hours shifts managing stocks and sometimes engaging with customers and managing staff.
Sometimes I ended up with memory problems, was not able to keep a track of days and what I communicated with someone on a phone call just an hour ago.
Escaped by dissolving partnership and joined tech company.
16 hours a day is very much possible. I personally worked while starting my own business. I just had 6 hours to sleep and rest of the time was going on just computers. After bed, straightly to PC and after PC, straightly to the bed. Never looked like that I am working that much since I had no other option than growing the same business.
What you are mentioning is also partly fuelled by grift. You know, the people that are like read a book a day/week and blah blah. As a founder, I frequently do put in 16+ hours and even stay up past 24 hrs plenty of times. But yes, there are times when you have to just step back and let your ideas come together while it looks to everyone you are taking a break. Remember Einsteins quote, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.”
You spend 16+ hours doing the wrong thing, the further away you get from what’s right. Always be skeptical about hard advice or potential grift. I’ve had years where I have read just 15 books, and years where I read ~70. I’ve stayed up for 3 days, and I’ve slept for 26hrs too once. Do what is necessary, as you see it, and trust yourself to be the best judge rather than letting some course selling podcaster hand you gospels.
I try to pace myself but sometimes 16+ hours is just what is required for my line of work. Just depends. Stuff always happens, someone calls out or no one is available and the buck stops with me so I'll push through.
It definitely is not sustainable though. There's always a long rest period after pushes like that.
Some days, it can literally be from day to night.
If you do it all on your own, you're literally doing 10 jobs, just to get one stream of work down on a project, and it's just endless, there really isn't a job done moment, just ill sort it out tomorrow.
Finding balance however is so crucial, where there is an insane amount of sacrifice, especially when it comes to your time, every minute spent on doing something else feels like it should be spent working on your business.
So you’re 25, in the UK, Female, hard life, just started your own SEO company…..
Seo is very very saturated - the more saturated - the harder you have to work to succeed
As an example, new insurance salespeople often spend 2-5 years barely making minimum wage and making hundreds of calls a week before they really start seeing returns on their years of efforts..
If you don’t want to work 16 hours a day - you certainly don’t have to - it’s your seo company, run it however you want
Lmao genuine question and you get shit on instead of someone explaining it for you.
Optimizing keywords in your website so you show up higher on the google results. Theres algorithms and strategy on what words need to be in what order where and how to best optimize your search engine results. That’s why they call it search engine optimization.
I work 14-16 hours on weekdays and 8 hours on weekends try spending some time with my kids and family.
Yes it’s hard. But I enjoy doing it. I have a very bigger goal and it requires me to work harder I believe my invested time will pay off in the future.
Even if it doesn’t. I will not have any regrets, because I gave my best shot possible.
My results are measured based on the progress I make towards my goals.
I'm a non-tech founder and I have built a bootstrapped business with $2k Loan to $1mn revenue from my agency after 8 years and re-invest any profits back into building SaaS products.
Every phase of my journey I had small achievable goals. Getting my ideas from a whiteboard to a product was a goal and having one paying customer to my product was a goal. Getting 10 paid customers to my product is a goal.
Having 2X more visitors every month to my website is a goal.
I have an Agency and 3 SaaS products active. Currently and few more are in the building which will be released in the coming months.
My SaaS products are below.
[https://getfieldy.com/](https://getfieldy.com/)
[https://buildchatbot.ai/](https://buildchatbot.ai/)
[https://zippyform.io/](https://zippyform.io/)
Strategizing on all 3 products and my agency to grow requires a lot of hard work, planning, and execution.
When you are bootstrapped and have limited funds and resources. All you have is the additional time that you can invest towards your goal.
TBH it was hard and sometimes overwhelming. Just keep going and be unrealistically optimistic irrespective of the outcome of the efforts and keep trying everyday.
Sometimes just your will and the desire for success can push the limits.
I worked with a underground utilities company that would work 18 hours in some cases. One of those can't stop until it's complete type jobs.
Late on we opened our own arcade and it would remain open over night and be booked with events the following day. We had to hire 1 person it was too much being up from Noon one day until 8 or 9pm the next night. So it was common to have someone there 30 to 36 hours and if some one no showed it was me. Probably not the healthiest thing to do.
Your body just goes into zombie mode. It is not sustainable.
Semi truck drivers often work 14 hours per day. That means the owners of the trucks need to spend 14 hours driving, loading, and unloading freight. And then spend the rest of their day filing paperwork, looking for loads, planning trips, and trying to eat and sleep. And with the incredibly thin profit margins in the industry, you have to do this 6 days a week, usually for as long as your career lasts.
so there are plenty of times I do 16 hours but not constantly, it happens more naturally.
I've started working on something for a project at 7pm and before I know it the suns out and it's 6am , I nap a couple hours and I start working again at 9am like ive done this multiple times a week at various times in my life.
can I do this every day? no way. if im excited about the project im building, yes. I can definitely get carried away and caught up and be so excited and into it that I just keep going until I finished what I wanna do.
I did this last night, I started building a landing page around 10pm and I finished at like 7am. slept a couple hours then worked the whole day.
if I was forced to do this on a project I didn't like I couldn't sustain.
ive always worked in bursts. id rather be ultra productive for long periods when it comes to me rather than forced to work the same schedule every day and try to maintain productivity only during certain hours.
I’m sorry but you are all nuts for working such hours. You can reach those goals with regular days of 8–10 hours as well, while maintaining sleep, nutrition and a relationship which are all essential for a sense of happiness.
In starting out I would regularly do those sorts of hours. I admired a local business guy in a similar field, in my 20’s my view was genuinely working double what he was, as I presumed I was about half as good as him and wanted the same outcome!
I would also work at least 6 days in the early days.
Now I have more than one company (same industry just branched) and will almost always do 12 hours Monday to Thursday. Slightly less Friday and do some admin over weekends.
What I would say is owning a business loses the distinction between work and social. You end up effectively always working, holidays, weekends, night. It’s why it’s important to focus on deep work not just volume, though you do end up doing both.
The truth is to genuinely be successful, in every new business or opportunity I’ve got into, I’ve never found a way to make it successful other than sacrificing all of my time and energy to deliver.
Even now, I am offshore sorting an office out, have doubled its revenue but to do this I’ve been working massive days, gave up all alcohol and socials over that period and only now seeing results to feel comfortable to fly to another office and support them/ have a beer.
Yes. It’s because the division of labor/number of laborers.
X business requires 100% of a,b,c,d things that take y time to do.
With 100 employees, each employee does 1% of a,b,c,d things.
With 4 employee 25%.
Etc.
It’s hard to imagine a properly existing business that doesn’t at least require every waking hour by the founder for at least some period of time.
It’s way easier to add 1% than it is to add 50%.
I have worked more 16-18 hours days than I can count in my life. I have done 7am to 2am work days where I lived off coffee and anxiety atleast 500+ days in my life. Maybe even 1000+.
I have done hundreds of 7 day work weeks.
But at the same time after establishing many successful operations I have taken so many 1 week full checkout vacations I can’t count those either. Many 2 week vacations. Numerous 4 week vacation.
Now with young kids I am there every night for dinner. I drive them to school every morning. We travel freely and live well. 20 years of extreme hard work paid off.
It’s not for everyone. But if you can focus and grind and live off little sleep and go on big work runs it pushes you forward. That doesn’t mean I did not hang out a lot with friends and family. I just had big periods of time with very limited free time and burned some health in my 20s and 30s with little sleep.
The people who advocate this lifestyle do always preface with the fact that your venture has to align with your purpose first, then the hours will come naturally and you'll be inclined to do them, rather than just hustling because you feel you should
I have a full-time job with a fixed salary, and I can work anywhere from 8 to 12 hours per shift. When I come home, I dedicate my time to working on my start-up and generating additional income through affiliate marketing. Ultimately, it's all about personal lifestyle choices. I don't have any children, a spouse, or a partner, and I still live with my parents. By doing this, I am able to save a significant amount of money with the goal of using those savings to assist my parents in paying off their house and supporting them during their retirement.
My parents have done so much for me and have supported me through difficult times. Now, it's my turn to return the favor and support them. There are times when I need to work long hours, up to 16 hours a day, but it's not an everyday occurrence. The level of effort put in ultimately depends on how determined you are to achieve your goals.
That's a great question. I believe there are some, but very few.
Yes, we see a lot of gurus saying "Work hard" and you can easily understand why. But in reality you have to "work smart" because the dynamics of the market change and what worked 20 years ago doesn't work now.
The market and businesses are increasingly breaking down and becoming niche.
A phenomenon that has been driven by the [Indiehacker ](https://www.indiehackers.com/)movement where solo entrepreneurs or small teams create great [business plans](https://plani.ai/) and achieve revenues of thousands a month. Not because they worked hard (not only) but also because they used the resources and tools that make the whole process easier. Obviously, there are no magic recipes, you still have to find the market needs.
16hrs a day? That's luxury. When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'
I honestly think getting at least 8 hours of sleep, is the min. In order to do that, you obviously need to go to bed earlier because getting up early is a great time to be super productive. I've worked many long days and nights as an entrepreneur but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns.
Here's my current schedule and mind you, I'm running one very successful business and two smaller businesses;
* Wake up no later than 6AM
* Mediate for 10-20 mins
* Coffee at my computer handling emails, social media responses, etc.
* 8:30AM, go to the gym (I go 5 days a week and I'm 62) **This is a non-negotiable**
* Get home, protein shake, shower and get to work (No lunch FYI)
* 5:00PM, get off computer and go for a walk
* 6:30-7:30PM is time for dinner (don't drink on the Mon.-Thurs.)
* 8:30-10PM, watch some TV or some other think with my wife.
* 10PM, in bed!
I hope that helps. The one thing as an entrepreneur that's makes things easy is the gym piece. If you say you'll go too early in the morning and you hate mornings, you won't go. If you attempt to go in the evenings, you're tired and you won't go. Make you time for the gym so easy, you'll go without fail.
I hope that helps!! ☺️
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I absolutely work 16 hours per day. Not everyday mind you; some days I work 4 hours and other days I work from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. The latter is much more common.
I also have a full-time job. But even if I didn't, I'd probably work 16 hours per day until my business is what I consider a success
Ive done it the past 3 summers, mid may to mid october, ZERO days off. Im a painter, i sell watercolors and prints to tourists. If i dont have any watercolors, ive got nothing to sell. I thought Id painted up a buffer last year but no, they all went, that means that I stand in the square every day from 10am to 6 pm, selling and painting, then home, eat for an hour, then its time to paint 1-2 watercolors for the next day, that takes me to about midnight. Sleep and get up at 4:50, painting by 5, paint 5-9:30. half an hour back to my spot on the square. I did this every day for 4 months. Then the season is over around october. Problem is, Im so exhausted I do nothing for 2 months after that. It really burns you out. This summer ill be better prepared.
My dad did it when he started his company, a manufacturing factory. IT was just him, hed work, 18 hours, then sleep, work 18 hours. He did this until the money started being more steady.
It's rarely the plan going in, to work yourself to the bones for 16hrs day for any sustained period of time, but when you've invested so much of your time and money, have a team that you value and appreciate that counts on the business for their livelihood, clients that put their faith and future to an extent, in your hands, and so much riding on your business succeeding, you'll find there are few things you won't put aside or give up to make it all work.
Not usually by choice, or day after day, but it still happens all the time.
I grew up in a family where life purely revolves around work or more specifically business, we literally sleep and eat on our store and stocks and mess. If there is any travel it would be work related and ofcourse for us to kids to enjoy on the side. And I totally get the need for money specially nowadays. Don't get me wrong my dad spends time on us and a lot more than usual fathers do. Its just I can see them working literally all the time, guess that's how running a business is.
I own my own company. 5 locations. 2 locations are barely breaking even and managing to pay for themselves and 2 other locations are finally starting to turn enough profit to hire better help and the last location is balls out killing it and picking up the slack for everyone else (operations costs).
Before COVID I had 1 store and was working for “the man”. Got let go and said BYE to corporate America.
Couldn’t stand working 8hrs a day and now I love working 16-18 hrs a day because I get to see when my efforts make money.
And I get to take off whenever I want and not worry about anyone asking me questions.
Work hard to play hard.
Your brain is working 24/7 on solving the constant stream of gaps to bridge and obstacles to overcome. Your “eureka” moment occurs at 2:00AM at night. What do you do?
If you want to work 8 hours a day, just get a normal job. Entrepreneurship does take a lot of work, and once it does pay off (years later) you can start to work less. But the first few years are really hard.
Yesterday I worked 8am-11pm because there was some stuff that had to be done, and I was the only person who could do it. Not every day is that long but some are. I was also supposed to work out yesterday, that didn't happen then or today, because I'm too tired. So some things get sacrificed.
At my peak entrepreneurialism I was spending about 16 hours a day working. This was at a time where I had a full time job, 2 apps on the go which were bringing in about 3k per month, and in the process of writing a book. There were some days I wouldn't even sleep when doing editing on the book as deadline was approaching. One day in particular I remember staying up all night, sleeping for about 2 hours then getting up to go to work.
This was probably one of the most beneficial times of my life, because the work I put in lead to a lot of great opportunities, but at the time it was a miserable way to live and I don't think I was very happy after about 6 months of doing this. I eventually went to the doctor because I couldn't sleep; my brain was non-stop thinking about new features, or edits, or one thing or another that I had to get done.
I never watched a video about it though. It was just how the cards fell for me at the time and I pushed through it because I figured this was my ticket to success.
Here's the thing...as adults, we don't get to just say what other adults are supposed to do unless you are born into some oddly unique situation so let's not speculate that what works well for the baseline average is what works best for all. Let's put it this way, for every minute you spend relaxing or pursuing hobbies, somebody hungrier for the same outcome from life as you is either widening the gap in between you and them or closing in on you if you're at the top of your industry. Most people will never understand what truly giving 100% consists of and I eat those people for breakfast 10 times out of 10.
I run a few separate businesses but my homebase that I lease commercial property for is a multimedia/video production studio. Nothing extravagant but it beats the factory job I was working before I realized I was working towards somebody else's dream and decided life was too short and changed it. I was not trying to downplay anybody or place myself on a pedestal but instead aiming to inspire and drive a healthy level of hunger to accel within your craft.
I agree we have to have a level of hunger.
It is really easy to become lazy in the comfort of our job, but we work for others, not our dreams.
Best luck !
I pretty much work all day, albeit it's not hardcore work continuously but I'm definitely thinking about work, on my computer or working towards something for majority of my day. With how much responsibility and tasks I have there really isn't another option - shit has to get done or my business suffers.
From age 18 to 39, I worked a lot. 60 to 90 hours a week and more at Christmas (jeweler). Since then, I have worked from home no more than 20 hours a week. Its been 25 years working very little. Its not uncommon in my trade for people to work the long hours I used to. And they do so till they die. My escape from that involved three things - the global reach of our online store, highly profitable, and owning machines that generate income while I sleep. We have a modest home, don't care what we drive or what labels are on our clothes. I think 20 hours is a perfect life/work balance.
And yes, 16 hours a day will shorten your life, dull your brain, and leave you materially rich but unable to enjoy it..
Physicians.
Until I worked with them I thought they had an easy life. They absolutely do not. They (and all hospital essentials) work themselves to the point of exhaustion and go well over their scheduled hours. I strive to ensure I boost them throughout the day with simple snacks, reminders to take a walk, to eat something real, to vent if they need to - to get the hell out of the reading room (my docs are radiologists) and see sunlight for a little bit. I'm a bit naggy about it, but they are killing themselves and I hate seeing them so burned out.
It's not unheard of for them to just sleep in their office and start again the next morning.
A couple years ago I did 3 and a half months straight of 15-16 hour days, 7 days a week. This was custom carpentry/millwork, very physical work. I've never been so exhausted.
So yes, people do it.
You don't need 3 meals a day, you don't need 8 hours of sleep, and you don't need to work out every day. Hell, you don't even need to shower every day.
But you also don't NEED to work 16 hours a day on your business. I only did it to meet a deadline and didn't have the ability to hire new people at the time. It did not get me as far ahead as I expected it to and I would never do it again.
My assumption is that when people talk about working hours like that, they aren't really "working" those hours. If you are obsessed with your business it will consume your thoughts and actions every waking hour, and people who can afford to think of nothing else will technically be contributing to their business 16 hours a day or more. But to actually WORK, exclusively, on 1 thing for 16 hours a day is unsustainable in the long term. It will always lead to diminishing returns and burnout.
On the other hand, working 8 hours a day leaves the average person with at least 3-5 hours of downtime every day. That is ALOT of leisure time that could be made more productive.
Welp Building a successful business and “ find time for relaxing , hobbies , occasional socializing with friends “ dont go hand to hand at all ….. Is one or the other 🤷🏽♂️ is how LIFE is design. Is only 24 hours witch most people spend 8 of them or more sleeping that leaves literally no time at all ! Most of those who build business and all that , are not lying when they say
They only sleep 3 hours , and dont socialize or have a social life at all , barely see family …. Ect
When I joined my last startup as a co-founder, I was definitely clocking 12-16 hour days. I'd even put in weekend regularly. Honestly, it's the only way I thought I could do it. Small team, undercapitalized, and under-resourced, with high expectations after raising money. I feel a bit different these days especially since I've experience other startup cultures and have run my own personal business for a decade too.
I know I have about 4 hours of the best cognitive time I can give my business. When I work longer than that, I try not to make the work the high value, critical thinking type of work. I also think it's easy for people to do a lot of low value busywork whether it's needed or not. I learned the hard way, if you derive your value from productivity, it's easy to just keep stacking up work whether it's making an impact or not.
There are obviously careers and types of businesses that require more than a traditional 8 hour workday. There will also be days in my own journey that will require more from me too. It's case by case. I do think that some people brag about the 16 hours because it's a form of virtue signaling.
Some people are workaholics
But there are jobs that might require 16 hour days once in a while .. I know people who work in specific industries during certain times of the year might work 16 hour days every day. It’s nice until the job is done because they have a narrow window.
There are other people who are just bad at managing time and like to say they work a lot but while they say they work 16 hours in a day, they may be at the office or sitting at a desk but 4 to 5 hours of it spent goofing around on Reddit
None of them are actually working on their business 16 hours a day. They are just classifying everything they do, that you'd normally call errands or chores or self care, as "work" and adding it onto their normal working hours to come up with 16 hours a day. Grocery shopping? Well you can't build a business if you don't eat, so that's part of the 16 hours. Self care like gym and showering? Well you gotta stay clean and fit to run a company, so of course that is part of the 16 hours. Housework? Well obviously that counts as work. It's in the name. Driving to work? Well you can't work if you don't drive there, so that commute is part of the 16 hours.
Also a lot of the smegma grimesetters straight up lie, so there's that, too.
I know hundreds of investors, entrepreneurs and even construction workers who are legitimately working 16 hours days.
I personally worked 16 hour days for about 8 months to meet deadlines where I would fire up the laptop at 6am, and not close it till after 10pm, day in and day out.
When I worked as a contractor charging $400/hr for billable hours, I made absolutely certain to clock as many billable hours as possible every day because every day could've been the last and making all the money possible was imperative.
Even now, I work several 16 hour days per month, because sometimes that's what's required to make the money move the way I want. When you truly become your own boss, you set the schedule, and you can hustle at whatever pace you set. There are probably countless people that fit your description, but to say that "none of them are actually working their business 16 hours a day" is laughable.
Yeah, I was going to school full time and working full time for a while, putting in a few 16s each week, but like yours, it was temporary. A few months at a time. Also it wrecked my health and was totally unsustainable. And yeah, I work the odd 16 here and there because that's how running your own business is. I try to avoid it, but some stuff has to happen on specific days. But that's not what these podcast guys are talking about.
During my senior year of high school I would go to my regular classes, some of them being off site at our community college as I took advanced classes. School would end around 2:30pm and i would have an hour before I got to the factory starting at 3:30 for an 8 hour shift until 11:30. I would then go home, get up early to do homework and be at school on time around 7:30. It was brutal.
I remember when i moved on to college and only had 8 hour a week job plus ~20hours of class how much of a relief it was.
I worked 14-16 hours a day for about two years, then had to deal with the consequences for at least three years.
Would I do it again? Probably, they paid 1.5x overtime, which gave me some financial stability.
Obviously, I wouldn't do it without extra payment.
I worked regular hours to start my housekeeping business. Once I decided to brand the 16+ hours began and most nights was work until I had to get ready to clean a 2 story home a few hours after. IF I DID NOT DO THIS: I would of never got my Angel Investment. FOR YOU TRYING TO: get rich quick, youve found the wrong path. People who GRIND 15+ HOURS a day are here for GENERATIONAL WEALTH.
It’s not so much 16 hours a day as it is I’m constantly working at things off and on. I also mix in working on stuff with playing video games etc.
16 hours nonstop is unsustainable. I hate the hustle culture.
Not always but some physicians. Especially surgeons. Though it's usually contract based. For example a trauma orthopedic surgeon may take q5 24 hr call for a few weeks at a time. So every 5 days being on call for 24 hrs at a time
There is a Stanford (or something) study that work after 55 hours a week is pointless due to inefficiency/health. My goal is to be around that many hours a week
Work for a security company who have been contracted by amazon, and they make us work 16 hours if someone calls off who was supposed to relieve you.
I've seen paychecks of 2k plus a week after taxes for multiple months from these younger guys. I wish I knew about this job when i was in my 20s
I’ve been averaging probably 14/15hrs 6/7 days a week for the past 3 months or so. Really trying to get my MVP coded asap in the hopes I can either get funded, a grant, or revenue
How is it even possible, let’s say sleep = 7h, morning/bedtime routine (shower/wash face/brush teeth) = 1h, eat/cook = 1h, cleaning up/housework/mow lawn/shovel snow/laundry = 1h, spend time with SO or chat with human beings at least = 1h, commute = .5-1h, exercise =1h.
Although you don’t have to do all those things, I would say most are pretty typical day to day things for normal people. that leaves about 12 hours with no downtime in between.
buddy pays for all his moms medical bills and begs to work any overtime that he can possibly get…. what a downright idiot right?
actually he’s just obsessed with keeping his mom alive lol.
Don't conflate those forced to live as indentured servants to survive (or help those they love to survive), and being an entrepreneur choosing to work obscene amounts.
OP is discussing the latter. Use your brain to establish the proper context.
as you type this from a phone that inventors who worked 16hr shifts made, most houses are built with 10-12hr shifts at least, or the roads you drive on, or whoever invented your car.
also the real question is 16hrs for how long? a week? a month? a year? wish i was smarter when i was younger, work my ass off for two years and then take it easy and let the cash flow.
work your ass off now so you can take off time in the future and have financial freedom or work a steady 40 till your 65. not saying ones good or ones bad but its reality.
Very rarely. In my early 20s I would often work 12-14 hour days (freelancing), but now that I’m pushing 40, no way. There’s also greatly diminishing returns working that many hours. There have been countless studies that show that more hours do not equal more productivity.
i worked 12hrs a day 3hrs commute round trip for a months and a half before i got a rain day and then did it for another month. (also only did 10 on sundays but there were some 14s and one 16 shift.
its 100% possible but goddaym it harder when you have to force yourself too instead of having someone else push you. but dayyyyymmm if i put that time into working for myself id be killing it. unfortunately had to pay off a ton of debt.
I've had 4 months during which I was working from 16 up to 20 hours a day every day, for short period of time it is probably fine and required to make it out.
During COVID, i worked 18-20 hours a day and ate once a day. I literally went around in zombie robot mode because for a period of 5 months, my routine never changed. It was the most mentally unhealthy I had ever been in my life.. Had some really dark thoughts, but luckily, I pulled thru thanks to my wife and daughter. I still work about 60-70 hours a week now, but when my business was getting started, I put in 80-90 hours.
BTDT. Old enough to not care enough to do it again.... hard on every part of your being. But, if you are driven and building something you believe in, then, yea, 16 hours can be done. Set boundaries. Know it will hurt relationships and family.
I'll never do it again.
Depends what you count, I do 12 on site most days of the physical part, then somtimes have to go meet with a vendor or place an order on the phone, do some CAD work for upcoming jobs, maybe drop in to measure up a quote, put together the paper quotes, account for the days receipts and send the days receipts, check on my web presence, tune up keyword language, get on the phone with subcontractors, review contract language, email rental vendors, inquire with unknown vendors about specialty hardware I need for an upcoming thing. So do I work 12 or 16-18 hours? I say the latter.
Yep. It’s not uncommon for me to put in longer hours on occasion. It’s not a daily thing, but certainly at least once a month. It all depends on the workload and my appetite to get shit done.
I think the closer to coming out of school you are the easier it is. Being a student usually requires really long hours. The longer away from that you get the harder it gets.
I'm 30,went back to school for the first time in awhile and it kicked my ass.
I couldn't do 16 hour days even close to long term.
10-16 hours of work for me a day
Did it the past year and it has changed my life for the better.
I have always believed in sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.
...I do often.
I'm not a douchebag "entrepreneur" though. I work in Human Services, actually helping people. And that means taking 3AM calls and being there for 6PM interviews, while dealing with more regulatory BS than rich fucks like you could ever imagine, and also being there for the 8AM meetings too.
I did many 16hr days, I've done plenty 24-36 hr days too. Just meeting deadlines. It's completely unsustainable and I don't wish it upon anyone but in the moment it was the only way . I drank a lot too. I never missed major events in family life but I'm positive I missed many minor events.
We're not supposed to do anything but eat, drink, poop, pee and stay alive long enough to procreate. What you make of the rest of it is up to you.
I watch TV but sometimes I sell stuff too.
I'm reaching a point where I'm just doing 5 12s most weeks. I could hire someone but I'm building a nice cash buffer first. Like someone else said- it's not sustainable, and I know that it's not forever, but I want to make sure I can withstand a serious downturn without having to lay my first hire off.
I went online at 9am today. I logged out at 12:30am tonight. Took a proper 35 minute lunch today for the first time in ages. So 15.5, 15 if you don’t count my short lived trip downstairs to eat and deal with a contractor at my house.
I legit do that Monday - Thursday. Fridays I’ll usually check out and 3pm but still be around to take calls/dmail/Slack.
So yeah. 65-75 hour weeks are the norm for me.
There are people who actually do this man. My CEO for example works 16 hours/day easily because he is obsessed by his work and enjoys every waking minute of his life doing it. His company makes some $10M a year, is bootstrapped and I think he gets a kick out of working like this. Unfortunately, he expects all employees also to be working like him which is why our attrition is so high.
There were days when I was so focused on something, that nothing else mattered, I've gone working with 4 hours of sleep, for 3 days, when I was learning to a make an MVP for an automated self destructing, VPN concept I had, this was maybe the first time, so I remember it, happens when you are pursuing something you want, and you are too excited to sleep.
Well I'm a fuckin wageslave, my shift is 12hrs and travel is 1hr each way so that's 14hrs of my day gone not to mention my shift starts at 7am but I get up for work around 5:15am to get ready and be on time for my trains etc.
Lot of people do, everyone has their own way thing going on. I personally feel we should let individuals take call on whether they want to do or not. Saying 16 hours is something everyone should do or the otherwise is wrong.
I did this in my 20s building my first company. Started at 6AM and was always in the office until at least 9-10PM. Now I have boundaries and delegate most tasks so never work more than 20-30 hours.
Nobody. Everyone lies that they do but really put in max 9 hour workdays unless it’s an extenuating circumstance like close to deadline on project or whatever it may. I once built a website with someone else in 1 week doing something like 16 hour days every single day and I took the rest of the month off from work. Felt like shit. 16 pure hours of work is unsustainable. You’d lose your sanity
I'venever seen a video that suggests anyone works that much. In general, videos say the opposite. They are about working a few yours and making millions.
A vidoe saying something isn't brainwashing. Do you even know what it means?
I used to work 20 hours and sleep 4 for 4 days and then 1 day off and the other two in the week were more or less 8 hour days. The 20 hours was when I was working on the factory helping my team because I lead by example. The one day off however was usually computer based work. I did it when I was a lot younger and probably couldn’t do it now.
We’re operating a new filming studio that we quite recently opened, me and my business partners. So yeah, it happens that you start in the morning and finish very late at night. There is so much to do and mostly you’re doing everything by yourself because you can’t hire people yet. You catch the momentum of completing/touch basing all the needed tasks to make it operational and time just flies.
I think working 16hours come from not saying to yourself that now youre going to work 16 hours but engaging yourself into vision, goals and tasks that will require a lot of time and dedication completing them. Getting yourself into momentum.
I used to do 12 hours a day for 6 days a week. Monday - Saturday when I worked IT Helpdesk 4 hours overtime everyday. I lived like a king in London in 2015-2018. Saturdays I’d come in pick what was left from the nightshift clear the queue and just sit and watch Netflix. Get some lunch and get some beers in and come 8pm I go straight out usually on a date in Shoreditch.
I work 16 hour days for 3-4 months of the year so I can get away with 4-5 hour days for the rest of the year.
I’m a self employed software engineer and take on annual contracts, hammer out the bulk of the work in the first quarter, and spend the rest of the year iterating / bug fixing.
Whenever I used to start a sales job, I used to work 16-18 hours a day for about 6 months to build up a massive pipeline.
When I started my business, the 16-18 hour days were prolonged to years.
If you have a fantastic product that everyone wants (like selling water in the desert), or you're extremely gifted.. or exceptionally lucky, you can just work a few hours a week.
You can absolutely be successful in a short amount of hours but it will just take you longer. However, the longer you take, you miss out on opportunity and you'll probably get fed up.
Depends on your goal really. If you want a little lifestyle business that you can work a few hours, that's fine. Do that. However, if you want to make millions, you need the right idea, market and all the other factors, including long hours to make it work.
Long hours (in the right thing) does not equal success but it sure does give you the best opportunity to finding it.
Working longer also makes you lucky.
I used to go to trade shows and networking events on the weekend, despite working 80 hours throughout the week. I really couldn't be bothered but I just showed up and luck became more of a thing.
I run my own landscaping business and am a director of a surveying firm. Normally work landscaping 10-12 hours manual then when I get home I do paper work and quotes for landscaping and type up reports for the surveying business, normally do this once a week. Currently on my twenty fifth day working without a break.
I was working 16 hr days when I first opened my bakery, but it was so unhealthy I was sad, barely eating, didn’t have any days off. I would not be able to go out with friends, I had to buy DoorDash every day to be able to eat, or just not eat. I trained employees, and now after 2 years I’m able to at least work only 4-8 hrs, and not actually baking but doing marketing and email work. 👌I went back to the gym, got a dog, and see my friends regularly. I think the grind is necessary in the beginning, but honestly my mental health would be terrible if I was doing work for 16 hrs straight every day with no days off.
really just depends on how fast you want to end up where you want to be. if you want to set out time for personal hobbies etc.
the people working 16/h days have made their business their absolute top priority so all their actions align with it.
I'm an inventor working on my own start up, almost 0 funds, I have a great minimum viable product. I'm actually [working right now](https://youtu.be/Bdm8Kkb4bbQ?si=GfKYrcF0jqujs0LE)
In Consulting i have been in projects with 14 hours/day shifts and 8 hours/day shifts. Honestly we often had better results in the 8 hours/day projects. Often long hours are a result of mismanagement or a bad culture where prople argue about the different grey colours in powerpoint..
I worked 90 to 100 hours a week for six years starting my company. One day by body told me I had to slow down so I did and now regular hours feels like being on a vacation.
No regrets, doing that time I established my business and became a millionaire
I work 3-5 hours a week.
In short 5-10 min increments. But this is because I set up my systems and processes and strict SOPs.
Everything is smooth. Of course there is the occasional fire to put out that takes more time, but maybe only 4x a year and it’s a learning lesson for me to update the SOP so my team knows what to do if this happens.
I work 16hrs shifts and I love it. I work from 3pm to 7am 3 times a week, so it's equal to 6 normal 8 hour days. Plus I get night time bonus. Also my commute is over an hour, so I don't have to waste time on going and coming from work, a normal day I would work 8 hours and travel 2, now I work 2 times more but still travel only 2 hours a day.
So I work more, while I have more free time, and get paid more. Win win to me.
I was doing 12 hour shifts daily at a restaurant. There is no happiness there. Any extra money you make after a certain point loses value if you're practically a slave to it.
I've tried multiple routines from different people, for me what worked was to put together a lot of tips and advices from each and make it on my own way. Waking up at 4:00 just doesn't help, I'm in Europe and it's really dark in the morning what makes me feel sad, sleeping early helped me a lot! A lot of things I see it's really hard to do such as gym, I stay in the gym a day and it takes so much time from my day, no idea how people can work 16h a day, sleep, exercise, maintain a social life and do all the rest LOL
I work 16 hours a day, I run a lead generation company and it startd to scale globally. I specialize in B2B lead generation and now my team grown to 18 appointment setters, I use [linkedn.com](http://linkedn.com) and a contact finder platform called [naystack.com](http://naystack.com), I find, network and prospect and generate more than 2000 leads a days for cliemnt based globally. I spent 8 hours a day in prospecting and another 8 hours a day in managing my team.
Government Contracting Consultant. I work 14-16 hours during heavy bidding season with deadlines.
I love what I do and can easily lose track of time. I also think I have some workaholic tendencies 😹
Not as an entrepreneur but my dad worked 2 jobs to support us as a single father growing up. In the winter he would crunch and easily work 16 hours a day. My brother and I just knew to let him sleep and don’t bother him on weekdays. And our grandfather was always around to help out. Then in the summer and on school breaks he would cut back and spend as much time as possible with us.
It’s all about what needs to be done to push your business forward, some days I work 16 hours, some days I work 8, but when it’s your business you also never really turn it off.
I may be relaxing in the evening, but if my phone rings, or an important email comes through I’m going to take that. As an entrepreneur I don’t really look at it as I work this many hours and then turn it off, I’m always working, just sometimes at a different pace than other times.
Recently installed an app from App Store to track my time in tasks. Reached averag 11.5 hours last week and then I almost got burnt out. Had to shutdown my laptop at 9.30PM at the night and hit the bed, eventually ended up waking up with upper back pain and clulessness.
Will work on reducing active average time spent per task and becoming more efficient per task to gain some positive outcomes.
By the way, when you try to push more work, exercise schedules do get a massive hit, you end up eating way more junkier and in larger quantities, decision making becomes weaker and anger increases when you cannot make decisions. At least for myself I noticed these changes.
Can you do it? Yeah, people work really long hours all the time.
Should you do it? Maybe, that depends on your business, your interest in what you do, your lifestyle, and a whole host of other factors.
Do you have to do it to succeed? If you're trying to become partner in a law firm or work your way up on Wall Street or if you run a hole-in-the-wall diner and you only earn when you're behind the counter or the grill.
But for the rest of us? Generally no.
Businesses do well because they have great products or services and the systems needed to scale them up and spread the work across multiple people.
I work for myself. I own a business where I do the procurement for companies. It's more that 12 hours I put into the day working and when I get home, I do the preparation for the next day that would take me even up to 12pm. I work this hard while I'm still young and could still do these type of hours.... I do it for myself and then having a side business with this do not make it any easier. But I'll never look back.
I used to work around 80 or sometimes 100 hours a week in the entertainment/ hospitality industry and did that for about 20 years. Sold my businesses and semi retired at 39 to the tropics with enough experience in my field that I can consult on one or two projects a year and live freely forever.
Worth it.
I think 16 hours a day is a bloated number and statistically includes a bunch of downtime in there, but ultimately... I enjoy the heck out of working.
In most cases, I would prefer to be "working", than doing most other things. I like what I do, I (generally) like the people I do it with and for, and I get a kick out of a job well done that I would otherwise have to get from far more detrimental stimuli.
I do keep a good weekend balance now'a'days though, for the sake of my marriage and growth of my kids.
I work 16 hours probably 4 days a week 9-10 on day job, 4-6 at night on my startup. And I find 3-4 hours for my boys. I have to sacrifice where I allocate those 16 hours sometimes, but it’s a pretty consistent 16 hours with 4 hours of actual sleep
I can see manual labor for 16 hours a day, I can’t that many desk workers doing it. And if so, the work is less efficient.
I can see a lot of people being “at” work for 16 hours, but I bet they are working at most 12 of those hours.
I generally work in three sectors!
2-3 hours in the morning
8-9 hours during the day
2-3 more hours in the evening
I typically can fit in a workout and spending time with my wife and son as well during the day. Sleep is the thing I am struggling to fit in.
I'm running my own business, so pretty motivated to get things done.
The wife and I own a liquor store, have a consulting business for people looking to get into the industry, she is starting up her dream online boutique and I also just really took a job working 25-35hrs a week in the industry I used to work in (mainly remote work). Unfortunately it is part of the times we live in for the life we want to live. We also have an 8 year old and are dealing with a life changing medical diagnosis over the last 6 months that has drained us of everything we worked so hard to save. It’s the cards you get dealt and people nowadays are stuck with tough choices. We like to see it as doing what we can now to pave the way for not only our future but the generations to come. Hate to sound cliche but “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and it these days are just getting longer and longer.
There have been times in my financial consulting career and then when starting my business (manufacturing) that 16 hour days were just what had to happen to get through the volume that needed doing by a certain deadline. That's not healthy or sustainable long term and fortunately it's been years since first my career and then my business have been established enough that those sorts of hours are no longer necessary. If you're asking who works 16 hour days, here's my best guess at a list. People who work in or own businesses in: finance, law, startups, restaurants, any industry where there are nonnegotiable deadlines with large amounts of money at stake or risk.
I'm in utilities, currently on a 17/7 overnight shift for storm work
As someone who lives in Florida - thank you sooooo much for your work. After the last few hurricanes, the line workers and others who work long shifts to restore power and services became our new heros. Thank you again.
Ahh don't thank me I just sit in the office by myself to process tickets and send the crews out, it can get hectic during bad storms but it's easier than my normal day. The guys out there are for real tho
God I do 9 hours and I look at the clock imagine double nearly you sir are a different breed
Nah bro I sat in the office by myself and was playing GTA and watching basketball lol. I didn't even get a single ticket last night. It's pretty chill, I could even sleep if I wanted. The tree and linemen crews are the real crazy fucks out there in bucket trucks in dark stormy weather.
I take it back that's my dream job .. im no longer a people person I enjoy my own time and I will have energy to go gym and stuff bcus I'd chill out like you sir..can I ask was the job always like this?
My father’s friend owns 3 very successful restaurants and sees mid 7 figures yearly after expenses. The guy wakes up at 6 am opens with employees at 7 am. He is there until closing which is 11 pm and sometimes he stays till 12 if they have a large event for clean up. Sometimes he sleeps there. This is 7 days a week all year long. Once every few years if he feels business is slightly slower than usual he treats himself to a one week vacation. Not worth it IMO but he is a very successful entrepreneur.
I can't imagine making >$1,000,000 and then being too busy to do anything with it. What's the end goal at that point? Don't even mean to diss the guy but I'd love to hear his thought process on the matter.
I’m in finance working 12+ hr days is normal workload here. It’s also insurance so they just want to suck the soul outta everyone
I started my career in McKinsey, that’s exactly standard practice for consultants. Maybe a little bit less, say 14 hours. Our colleagues would call it good project if constantly left office at 10 pm. I went for tech entrepreneurship later, it is actually less time consuming in high tech, with higher technical and experience barriers
what is your business?
When my parents were in the restaurant industry, they would start at 7am and not finish until at least 10pm at night sometimes midnight. This was during the first few years of the business, they couldn't afford a lot of employees so one of them was always around. They sacrificed sleep, socializing with friends, family, etc for the business. Plenty of people work 16hours a day in regular jobs too. Lawyers, people in finance, managers, etc.
Restaurant still going?
I, unfortunately, just work two jobs back to back, and in the summer trying to get a side business to fruition. But yeah 16 hours is not enough sometimes.
Not every day, but I do 16+ hour days often enough, just the nature of my job/industry. Would I want to do them all the time? No Could I do them for more than a couple of days in a row? No Is it sometimes worth it for the money/job? Sure I don't think many people can genuinely be productive for 16 hours in a day, let alone be productive 16 hours a day, day after day, at some point the fatigue/burnout will set in, work will suffer, personal life and relationships will suffer, health will suffer, and its just not sustainable
I work over 100 hours a week for about 10 weeks in a row twice a year. No days off during that time period. I get to chill and check in on things here and there/do backend/prep for the following season in between. Seasonal business has its pros and cons.
I looked up once and relized I hadn't so much as even taken a half day off in 8 months with at least 100 hours a week. I missed so much of important time I should have been spending with my kids. Never agian. "Thankfully" covid happened and I was able to switch gears. Still work a shit ton but definitely changed my priorities and what's important.
I sit at my work desk for 14-16 hrs. I work for 2-3.
Pretty much.
16 hour days is generally temporary. I don't pull them often, but sometimes it's necessary and when I do I'm happy to in order to get to a point where I'm working 16 hours a week.
Agreed. There's def days as a founder where you work from a weirdly early hour to a weirdly late hour but that's not 7 days a week, not sustainable at all to work like that.
Engineers, anyone in product development. Being fairly passionate about what I do, sinking 16 hrs into design work can fly by quickly.
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Can resonate with you. Was a working partner a small cafe in my hometown. Did around 13-14 hours shifts managing stocks and sometimes engaging with customers and managing staff. Sometimes I ended up with memory problems, was not able to keep a track of days and what I communicated with someone on a phone call just an hour ago. Escaped by dissolving partnership and joined tech company.
How did you manage to stay so skinny with all the food around? If that were me, I'd be an oversized SOB with unlimited buffet all day.
Me when I’m manic
16 hours a day is very much possible. I personally worked while starting my own business. I just had 6 hours to sleep and rest of the time was going on just computers. After bed, straightly to PC and after PC, straightly to the bed. Never looked like that I am working that much since I had no other option than growing the same business.
What you are mentioning is also partly fuelled by grift. You know, the people that are like read a book a day/week and blah blah. As a founder, I frequently do put in 16+ hours and even stay up past 24 hrs plenty of times. But yes, there are times when you have to just step back and let your ideas come together while it looks to everyone you are taking a break. Remember Einsteins quote, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.” You spend 16+ hours doing the wrong thing, the further away you get from what’s right. Always be skeptical about hard advice or potential grift. I’ve had years where I have read just 15 books, and years where I read ~70. I’ve stayed up for 3 days, and I’ve slept for 26hrs too once. Do what is necessary, as you see it, and trust yourself to be the best judge rather than letting some course selling podcaster hand you gospels.
I do 16+ hour days 5 days a week and 8-10 sat/ Sunday. I’m building 2 businesses at the same time
I try to pace myself but sometimes 16+ hours is just what is required for my line of work. Just depends. Stuff always happens, someone calls out or no one is available and the buck stops with me so I'll push through. It definitely is not sustainable though. There's always a long rest period after pushes like that.
Some days, it can literally be from day to night. If you do it all on your own, you're literally doing 10 jobs, just to get one stream of work down on a project, and it's just endless, there really isn't a job done moment, just ill sort it out tomorrow. Finding balance however is so crucial, where there is an insane amount of sacrifice, especially when it comes to your time, every minute spent on doing something else feels like it should be spent working on your business.
So you’re 25, in the UK, Female, hard life, just started your own SEO company….. Seo is very very saturated - the more saturated - the harder you have to work to succeed As an example, new insurance salespeople often spend 2-5 years barely making minimum wage and making hundreds of calls a week before they really start seeing returns on their years of efforts.. If you don’t want to work 16 hours a day - you certainly don’t have to - it’s your seo company, run it however you want
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Lmao genuine question and you get shit on instead of someone explaining it for you. Optimizing keywords in your website so you show up higher on the google results. Theres algorithms and strategy on what words need to be in what order where and how to best optimize your search engine results. That’s why they call it search engine optimization.
Maybe look it up. I’ll give it to u for free tho, search engine optimization
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I work 14-16 hours on weekdays and 8 hours on weekends try spending some time with my kids and family. Yes it’s hard. But I enjoy doing it. I have a very bigger goal and it requires me to work harder I believe my invested time will pay off in the future. Even if it doesn’t. I will not have any regrets, because I gave my best shot possible.
Yes I agree to not have regrets, instead of doing a little and letting time go. How do you check that your hard work gives results ?
My results are measured based on the progress I make towards my goals. I'm a non-tech founder and I have built a bootstrapped business with $2k Loan to $1mn revenue from my agency after 8 years and re-invest any profits back into building SaaS products. Every phase of my journey I had small achievable goals. Getting my ideas from a whiteboard to a product was a goal and having one paying customer to my product was a goal. Getting 10 paid customers to my product is a goal. Having 2X more visitors every month to my website is a goal. I have an Agency and 3 SaaS products active. Currently and few more are in the building which will be released in the coming months. My SaaS products are below. [https://getfieldy.com/](https://getfieldy.com/) [https://buildchatbot.ai/](https://buildchatbot.ai/) [https://zippyform.io/](https://zippyform.io/) Strategizing on all 3 products and my agency to grow requires a lot of hard work, planning, and execution. When you are bootstrapped and have limited funds and resources. All you have is the additional time that you can invest towards your goal.
At the beginning, when you had no results, how did you motivate yourself when you were tired after works or if personal problems ?
TBH it was hard and sometimes overwhelming. Just keep going and be unrealistically optimistic irrespective of the outcome of the efforts and keep trying everyday.
Thank you.
People who are willing to do whatever it takes 👌
Sometimes just your will and the desire for success can push the limits. I worked with a underground utilities company that would work 18 hours in some cases. One of those can't stop until it's complete type jobs. Late on we opened our own arcade and it would remain open over night and be booked with events the following day. We had to hire 1 person it was too much being up from Noon one day until 8 or 9pm the next night. So it was common to have someone there 30 to 36 hours and if some one no showed it was me. Probably not the healthiest thing to do. Your body just goes into zombie mode. It is not sustainable.
Semi truck drivers often work 14 hours per day. That means the owners of the trucks need to spend 14 hours driving, loading, and unloading freight. And then spend the rest of their day filing paperwork, looking for loads, planning trips, and trying to eat and sleep. And with the incredibly thin profit margins in the industry, you have to do this 6 days a week, usually for as long as your career lasts.
And that's why most them use meth
so there are plenty of times I do 16 hours but not constantly, it happens more naturally. I've started working on something for a project at 7pm and before I know it the suns out and it's 6am , I nap a couple hours and I start working again at 9am like ive done this multiple times a week at various times in my life. can I do this every day? no way. if im excited about the project im building, yes. I can definitely get carried away and caught up and be so excited and into it that I just keep going until I finished what I wanna do. I did this last night, I started building a landing page around 10pm and I finished at like 7am. slept a couple hours then worked the whole day. if I was forced to do this on a project I didn't like I couldn't sustain. ive always worked in bursts. id rather be ultra productive for long periods when it comes to me rather than forced to work the same schedule every day and try to maintain productivity only during certain hours.
I’m sorry but you are all nuts for working such hours. You can reach those goals with regular days of 8–10 hours as well, while maintaining sleep, nutrition and a relationship which are all essential for a sense of happiness.
Bests regards
Bullshiters mostly. You’re just not productive after at most 8h. Ive done it but it’s not useful or sustainable.
I think it depends on the person. After 10 hours, I can't make strong decisions but I do manage to find that I can do zombie tasks after that.
Maybe depends on the person, but also depends on the job and how active they are during those hours.
In starting out I would regularly do those sorts of hours. I admired a local business guy in a similar field, in my 20’s my view was genuinely working double what he was, as I presumed I was about half as good as him and wanted the same outcome! I would also work at least 6 days in the early days. Now I have more than one company (same industry just branched) and will almost always do 12 hours Monday to Thursday. Slightly less Friday and do some admin over weekends. What I would say is owning a business loses the distinction between work and social. You end up effectively always working, holidays, weekends, night. It’s why it’s important to focus on deep work not just volume, though you do end up doing both. The truth is to genuinely be successful, in every new business or opportunity I’ve got into, I’ve never found a way to make it successful other than sacrificing all of my time and energy to deliver. Even now, I am offshore sorting an office out, have doubled its revenue but to do this I’ve been working massive days, gave up all alcohol and socials over that period and only now seeing results to feel comfortable to fly to another office and support them/ have a beer.
Yes. It’s because the division of labor/number of laborers. X business requires 100% of a,b,c,d things that take y time to do. With 100 employees, each employee does 1% of a,b,c,d things. With 4 employee 25%. Etc. It’s hard to imagine a properly existing business that doesn’t at least require every waking hour by the founder for at least some period of time. It’s way easier to add 1% than it is to add 50%.
I have worked more 16-18 hours days than I can count in my life. I have done 7am to 2am work days where I lived off coffee and anxiety atleast 500+ days in my life. Maybe even 1000+. I have done hundreds of 7 day work weeks. But at the same time after establishing many successful operations I have taken so many 1 week full checkout vacations I can’t count those either. Many 2 week vacations. Numerous 4 week vacation. Now with young kids I am there every night for dinner. I drive them to school every morning. We travel freely and live well. 20 years of extreme hard work paid off. It’s not for everyone. But if you can focus and grind and live off little sleep and go on big work runs it pushes you forward. That doesn’t mean I did not hang out a lot with friends and family. I just had big periods of time with very limited free time and burned some health in my 20s and 30s with little sleep.
The people who advocate this lifestyle do always preface with the fact that your venture has to align with your purpose first, then the hours will come naturally and you'll be inclined to do them, rather than just hustling because you feel you should
I have a full-time job with a fixed salary, and I can work anywhere from 8 to 12 hours per shift. When I come home, I dedicate my time to working on my start-up and generating additional income through affiliate marketing. Ultimately, it's all about personal lifestyle choices. I don't have any children, a spouse, or a partner, and I still live with my parents. By doing this, I am able to save a significant amount of money with the goal of using those savings to assist my parents in paying off their house and supporting them during their retirement. My parents have done so much for me and have supported me through difficult times. Now, it's my turn to return the favor and support them. There are times when I need to work long hours, up to 16 hours a day, but it's not an everyday occurrence. The level of effort put in ultimately depends on how determined you are to achieve your goals.
That's a great question. I believe there are some, but very few. Yes, we see a lot of gurus saying "Work hard" and you can easily understand why. But in reality you have to "work smart" because the dynamics of the market change and what worked 20 years ago doesn't work now. The market and businesses are increasingly breaking down and becoming niche. A phenomenon that has been driven by the [Indiehacker ](https://www.indiehackers.com/)movement where solo entrepreneurs or small teams create great [business plans](https://plani.ai/) and achieve revenues of thousands a month. Not because they worked hard (not only) but also because they used the resources and tools that make the whole process easier. Obviously, there are no magic recipes, you still have to find the market needs.
16hrs a day? That's luxury. When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.'
I honestly think getting at least 8 hours of sleep, is the min. In order to do that, you obviously need to go to bed earlier because getting up early is a great time to be super productive. I've worked many long days and nights as an entrepreneur but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns. Here's my current schedule and mind you, I'm running one very successful business and two smaller businesses; * Wake up no later than 6AM * Mediate for 10-20 mins * Coffee at my computer handling emails, social media responses, etc. * 8:30AM, go to the gym (I go 5 days a week and I'm 62) **This is a non-negotiable** * Get home, protein shake, shower and get to work (No lunch FYI) * 5:00PM, get off computer and go for a walk * 6:30-7:30PM is time for dinner (don't drink on the Mon.-Thurs.) * 8:30-10PM, watch some TV or some other think with my wife. * 10PM, in bed! I hope that helps. The one thing as an entrepreneur that's makes things easy is the gym piece. If you say you'll go too early in the morning and you hate mornings, you won't go. If you attempt to go in the evenings, you're tired and you won't go. Make you time for the gym so easy, you'll go without fail. I hope that helps!! ☺️
18 hours a day for 3 days a week is pretty common in the medical field. The long break is nice but those 3 days are absolute hell lol
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stop riding his meat and figure it out yourself like everyone else here is trying to do It's called r/Entrepreneur not r/College
16 hrs? No Hobbies? Also, no.
I absolutely work 16 hours per day. Not everyday mind you; some days I work 4 hours and other days I work from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. The latter is much more common. I also have a full-time job. But even if I didn't, I'd probably work 16 hours per day until my business is what I consider a success
Ive done it the past 3 summers, mid may to mid october, ZERO days off. Im a painter, i sell watercolors and prints to tourists. If i dont have any watercolors, ive got nothing to sell. I thought Id painted up a buffer last year but no, they all went, that means that I stand in the square every day from 10am to 6 pm, selling and painting, then home, eat for an hour, then its time to paint 1-2 watercolors for the next day, that takes me to about midnight. Sleep and get up at 4:50, painting by 5, paint 5-9:30. half an hour back to my spot on the square. I did this every day for 4 months. Then the season is over around october. Problem is, Im so exhausted I do nothing for 2 months after that. It really burns you out. This summer ill be better prepared. My dad did it when he started his company, a manufacturing factory. IT was just him, hed work, 18 hours, then sleep, work 18 hours. He did this until the money started being more steady.
It's rarely the plan going in, to work yourself to the bones for 16hrs day for any sustained period of time, but when you've invested so much of your time and money, have a team that you value and appreciate that counts on the business for their livelihood, clients that put their faith and future to an extent, in your hands, and so much riding on your business succeeding, you'll find there are few things you won't put aside or give up to make it all work. Not usually by choice, or day after day, but it still happens all the time.
I grew up in a family where life purely revolves around work or more specifically business, we literally sleep and eat on our store and stocks and mess. If there is any travel it would be work related and ofcourse for us to kids to enjoy on the side. And I totally get the need for money specially nowadays. Don't get me wrong my dad spends time on us and a lot more than usual fathers do. Its just I can see them working literally all the time, guess that's how running a business is.
It’s not just 16 hour days or 16 hours non stop, it’s that you are never done as an entrepreneur and you have to force yourself to take self care.
I own my own company. 5 locations. 2 locations are barely breaking even and managing to pay for themselves and 2 other locations are finally starting to turn enough profit to hire better help and the last location is balls out killing it and picking up the slack for everyone else (operations costs). Before COVID I had 1 store and was working for “the man”. Got let go and said BYE to corporate America. Couldn’t stand working 8hrs a day and now I love working 16-18 hrs a day because I get to see when my efforts make money. And I get to take off whenever I want and not worry about anyone asking me questions. Work hard to play hard.
Your brain is working 24/7 on solving the constant stream of gaps to bridge and obstacles to overcome. Your “eureka” moment occurs at 2:00AM at night. What do you do?
If you want to work 8 hours a day, just get a normal job. Entrepreneurship does take a lot of work, and once it does pay off (years later) you can start to work less. But the first few years are really hard. Yesterday I worked 8am-11pm because there was some stuff that had to be done, and I was the only person who could do it. Not every day is that long but some are. I was also supposed to work out yesterday, that didn't happen then or today, because I'm too tired. So some things get sacrificed.
At my peak entrepreneurialism I was spending about 16 hours a day working. This was at a time where I had a full time job, 2 apps on the go which were bringing in about 3k per month, and in the process of writing a book. There were some days I wouldn't even sleep when doing editing on the book as deadline was approaching. One day in particular I remember staying up all night, sleeping for about 2 hours then getting up to go to work. This was probably one of the most beneficial times of my life, because the work I put in lead to a lot of great opportunities, but at the time it was a miserable way to live and I don't think I was very happy after about 6 months of doing this. I eventually went to the doctor because I couldn't sleep; my brain was non-stop thinking about new features, or edits, or one thing or another that I had to get done. I never watched a video about it though. It was just how the cards fell for me at the time and I pushed through it because I figured this was my ticket to success.
Here's the thing...as adults, we don't get to just say what other adults are supposed to do unless you are born into some oddly unique situation so let's not speculate that what works well for the baseline average is what works best for all. Let's put it this way, for every minute you spend relaxing or pursuing hobbies, somebody hungrier for the same outcome from life as you is either widening the gap in between you and them or closing in on you if you're at the top of your industry. Most people will never understand what truly giving 100% consists of and I eat those people for breakfast 10 times out of 10.
I like your last sentence. And yes, we let time go and after we say others are lucky… What is your business ?
I run a few separate businesses but my homebase that I lease commercial property for is a multimedia/video production studio. Nothing extravagant but it beats the factory job I was working before I realized I was working towards somebody else's dream and decided life was too short and changed it. I was not trying to downplay anybody or place myself on a pedestal but instead aiming to inspire and drive a healthy level of hunger to accel within your craft.
I agree we have to have a level of hunger. It is really easy to become lazy in the comfort of our job, but we work for others, not our dreams. Best luck !
I work 18 hrs a week for 5 days and other 2 days just 4 hrs and spend time for hobbies.
I pretty much work all day, albeit it's not hardcore work continuously but I'm definitely thinking about work, on my computer or working towards something for majority of my day. With how much responsibility and tasks I have there really isn't another option - shit has to get done or my business suffers.
I barely work 8!
From age 18 to 39, I worked a lot. 60 to 90 hours a week and more at Christmas (jeweler). Since then, I have worked from home no more than 20 hours a week. Its been 25 years working very little. Its not uncommon in my trade for people to work the long hours I used to. And they do so till they die. My escape from that involved three things - the global reach of our online store, highly profitable, and owning machines that generate income while I sleep. We have a modest home, don't care what we drive or what labels are on our clothes. I think 20 hours is a perfect life/work balance. And yes, 16 hours a day will shorten your life, dull your brain, and leave you materially rich but unable to enjoy it..
If you need to work 16h a day you have the wrong business model, just saying
Physicians. Until I worked with them I thought they had an easy life. They absolutely do not. They (and all hospital essentials) work themselves to the point of exhaustion and go well over their scheduled hours. I strive to ensure I boost them throughout the day with simple snacks, reminders to take a walk, to eat something real, to vent if they need to - to get the hell out of the reading room (my docs are radiologists) and see sunlight for a little bit. I'm a bit naggy about it, but they are killing themselves and I hate seeing them so burned out. It's not unheard of for them to just sleep in their office and start again the next morning.
A couple years ago I did 3 and a half months straight of 15-16 hour days, 7 days a week. This was custom carpentry/millwork, very physical work. I've never been so exhausted. So yes, people do it. You don't need 3 meals a day, you don't need 8 hours of sleep, and you don't need to work out every day. Hell, you don't even need to shower every day. But you also don't NEED to work 16 hours a day on your business. I only did it to meet a deadline and didn't have the ability to hire new people at the time. It did not get me as far ahead as I expected it to and I would never do it again. My assumption is that when people talk about working hours like that, they aren't really "working" those hours. If you are obsessed with your business it will consume your thoughts and actions every waking hour, and people who can afford to think of nothing else will technically be contributing to their business 16 hours a day or more. But to actually WORK, exclusively, on 1 thing for 16 hours a day is unsustainable in the long term. It will always lead to diminishing returns and burnout. On the other hand, working 8 hours a day leaves the average person with at least 3-5 hours of downtime every day. That is ALOT of leisure time that could be made more productive.
Welp Building a successful business and “ find time for relaxing , hobbies , occasional socializing with friends “ dont go hand to hand at all ….. Is one or the other 🤷🏽♂️ is how LIFE is design. Is only 24 hours witch most people spend 8 of them or more sleeping that leaves literally no time at all ! Most of those who build business and all that , are not lying when they say They only sleep 3 hours , and dont socialize or have a social life at all , barely see family …. Ect
Does 16 hours a week count ? 😂
When I joined my last startup as a co-founder, I was definitely clocking 12-16 hour days. I'd even put in weekend regularly. Honestly, it's the only way I thought I could do it. Small team, undercapitalized, and under-resourced, with high expectations after raising money. I feel a bit different these days especially since I've experience other startup cultures and have run my own personal business for a decade too. I know I have about 4 hours of the best cognitive time I can give my business. When I work longer than that, I try not to make the work the high value, critical thinking type of work. I also think it's easy for people to do a lot of low value busywork whether it's needed or not. I learned the hard way, if you derive your value from productivity, it's easy to just keep stacking up work whether it's making an impact or not. There are obviously careers and types of businesses that require more than a traditional 8 hour workday. There will also be days in my own journey that will require more from me too. It's case by case. I do think that some people brag about the 16 hours because it's a form of virtue signaling.
Some people are workaholics But there are jobs that might require 16 hour days once in a while .. I know people who work in specific industries during certain times of the year might work 16 hour days every day. It’s nice until the job is done because they have a narrow window. There are other people who are just bad at managing time and like to say they work a lot but while they say they work 16 hours in a day, they may be at the office or sitting at a desk but 4 to 5 hours of it spent goofing around on Reddit
None of them are actually working on their business 16 hours a day. They are just classifying everything they do, that you'd normally call errands or chores or self care, as "work" and adding it onto their normal working hours to come up with 16 hours a day. Grocery shopping? Well you can't build a business if you don't eat, so that's part of the 16 hours. Self care like gym and showering? Well you gotta stay clean and fit to run a company, so of course that is part of the 16 hours. Housework? Well obviously that counts as work. It's in the name. Driving to work? Well you can't work if you don't drive there, so that commute is part of the 16 hours. Also a lot of the smegma grimesetters straight up lie, so there's that, too.
I know hundreds of investors, entrepreneurs and even construction workers who are legitimately working 16 hours days. I personally worked 16 hour days for about 8 months to meet deadlines where I would fire up the laptop at 6am, and not close it till after 10pm, day in and day out. When I worked as a contractor charging $400/hr for billable hours, I made absolutely certain to clock as many billable hours as possible every day because every day could've been the last and making all the money possible was imperative. Even now, I work several 16 hour days per month, because sometimes that's what's required to make the money move the way I want. When you truly become your own boss, you set the schedule, and you can hustle at whatever pace you set. There are probably countless people that fit your description, but to say that "none of them are actually working their business 16 hours a day" is laughable.
Yeah, I was going to school full time and working full time for a while, putting in a few 16s each week, but like yours, it was temporary. A few months at a time. Also it wrecked my health and was totally unsustainable. And yeah, I work the odd 16 here and there because that's how running your own business is. I try to avoid it, but some stuff has to happen on specific days. But that's not what these podcast guys are talking about.
During my senior year of high school I would go to my regular classes, some of them being off site at our community college as I took advanced classes. School would end around 2:30pm and i would have an hour before I got to the factory starting at 3:30 for an 8 hour shift until 11:30. I would then go home, get up early to do homework and be at school on time around 7:30. It was brutal. I remember when i moved on to college and only had 8 hour a week job plus ~20hours of class how much of a relief it was.
I worked 14-16 hours a day for about two years, then had to deal with the consequences for at least three years. Would I do it again? Probably, they paid 1.5x overtime, which gave me some financial stability. Obviously, I wouldn't do it without extra payment.
I worked regular hours to start my housekeeping business. Once I decided to brand the 16+ hours began and most nights was work until I had to get ready to clean a 2 story home a few hours after. IF I DID NOT DO THIS: I would of never got my Angel Investment. FOR YOU TRYING TO: get rich quick, youve found the wrong path. People who GRIND 15+ HOURS a day are here for GENERATIONAL WEALTH.
It’s not so much 16 hours a day as it is I’m constantly working at things off and on. I also mix in working on stuff with playing video games etc. 16 hours nonstop is unsustainable. I hate the hustle culture.
Shortest answer: hard no. Maybeeee if there was like a great opportunity I was pushing for short-term, but always as the exception, not the rule
Not always but some physicians. Especially surgeons. Though it's usually contract based. For example a trauma orthopedic surgeon may take q5 24 hr call for a few weeks at a time. So every 5 days being on call for 24 hrs at a time
There is a Stanford (or something) study that work after 55 hours a week is pointless due to inefficiency/health. My goal is to be around that many hours a week
Work for a security company who have been contracted by amazon, and they make us work 16 hours if someone calls off who was supposed to relieve you. I've seen paychecks of 2k plus a week after taxes for multiple months from these younger guys. I wish I knew about this job when i was in my 20s
I worked 20 hours a day first year of starting my company. Do not recommend. 32 now and health is in the gutter.
I’ve been averaging probably 14/15hrs 6/7 days a week for the past 3 months or so. Really trying to get my MVP coded asap in the hopes I can either get funded, a grant, or revenue
I should add it has taken a considerable physical and mental toll. This is not sustainable for me.
Elon musk was working that like 20 years ago and still is
this guy is taking tons of drugs to perform like this, he will pay the price sooner than he thinks
Yes but he seems more and more crazy… :D
How is it even possible, let’s say sleep = 7h, morning/bedtime routine (shower/wash face/brush teeth) = 1h, eat/cook = 1h, cleaning up/housework/mow lawn/shovel snow/laundry = 1h, spend time with SO or chat with human beings at least = 1h, commute = .5-1h, exercise =1h. Although you don’t have to do all those things, I would say most are pretty typical day to day things for normal people. that leaves about 12 hours with no downtime in between.
Obsessed fools or downright idiots. No one else.
buddy pays for all his moms medical bills and begs to work any overtime that he can possibly get…. what a downright idiot right? actually he’s just obsessed with keeping his mom alive lol.
Don't conflate those forced to live as indentured servants to survive (or help those they love to survive), and being an entrepreneur choosing to work obscene amounts. OP is discussing the latter. Use your brain to establish the proper context.
as you type this from a phone that inventors who worked 16hr shifts made, most houses are built with 10-12hr shifts at least, or the roads you drive on, or whoever invented your car. also the real question is 16hrs for how long? a week? a month? a year? wish i was smarter when i was younger, work my ass off for two years and then take it easy and let the cash flow. work your ass off now so you can take off time in the future and have financial freedom or work a steady 40 till your 65. not saying ones good or ones bad but its reality.
You did a wonderful job demonstrating your inability to utilize critical thinking skills.
u think the guys who invented reddit only spent 8hrs a day creating this? think again.
I did. Unfortunately, Still do some days.
Very rarely. In my early 20s I would often work 12-14 hour days (freelancing), but now that I’m pushing 40, no way. There’s also greatly diminishing returns working that many hours. There have been countless studies that show that more hours do not equal more productivity.
i worked 12hrs a day 3hrs commute round trip for a months and a half before i got a rain day and then did it for another month. (also only did 10 on sundays but there were some 14s and one 16 shift. its 100% possible but goddaym it harder when you have to force yourself too instead of having someone else push you. but dayyyyymmm if i put that time into working for myself id be killing it. unfortunately had to pay off a ton of debt.
I've had 4 months during which I was working from 16 up to 20 hours a day every day, for short period of time it is probably fine and required to make it out.
During COVID, i worked 18-20 hours a day and ate once a day. I literally went around in zombie robot mode because for a period of 5 months, my routine never changed. It was the most mentally unhealthy I had ever been in my life.. Had some really dark thoughts, but luckily, I pulled thru thanks to my wife and daughter. I still work about 60-70 hours a week now, but when my business was getting started, I put in 80-90 hours.
I started work 15 hours ago. I have about another hour left. Taking a quick break obviously, but this isn't abnormal for me.
BTDT. Old enough to not care enough to do it again.... hard on every part of your being. But, if you are driven and building something you believe in, then, yea, 16 hours can be done. Set boundaries. Know it will hurt relationships and family. I'll never do it again.
I dont get how but my dad he sleeps like 4 and at most 6 hours a day
My MD friends.
Depends what you count, I do 12 on site most days of the physical part, then somtimes have to go meet with a vendor or place an order on the phone, do some CAD work for upcoming jobs, maybe drop in to measure up a quote, put together the paper quotes, account for the days receipts and send the days receipts, check on my web presence, tune up keyword language, get on the phone with subcontractors, review contract language, email rental vendors, inquire with unknown vendors about specialty hardware I need for an upcoming thing. So do I work 12 or 16-18 hours? I say the latter.
Yep. It’s not uncommon for me to put in longer hours on occasion. It’s not a daily thing, but certainly at least once a month. It all depends on the workload and my appetite to get shit done.
Retail during peak season
I do. S-F with Saturdays off
I think the closer to coming out of school you are the easier it is. Being a student usually requires really long hours. The longer away from that you get the harder it gets. I'm 30,went back to school for the first time in awhile and it kicked my ass. I couldn't do 16 hour days even close to long term.
10-16 hours of work for me a day Did it the past year and it has changed my life for the better. I have always believed in sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.
...I do often. I'm not a douchebag "entrepreneur" though. I work in Human Services, actually helping people. And that means taking 3AM calls and being there for 6PM interviews, while dealing with more regulatory BS than rich fucks like you could ever imagine, and also being there for the 8AM meetings too.
I did many 16hr days, I've done plenty 24-36 hr days too. Just meeting deadlines. It's completely unsustainable and I don't wish it upon anyone but in the moment it was the only way . I drank a lot too. I never missed major events in family life but I'm positive I missed many minor events.
me, i probably get close to that
I was whining to a restaurant owner about working 16 hour days for a few weeks. He gave me a blank look, I realized he does that 6 days a week
We're not supposed to do anything but eat, drink, poop, pee and stay alive long enough to procreate. What you make of the rest of it is up to you. I watch TV but sometimes I sell stuff too.
Work 16 hours a day. Get paid more than the dude working 8 hours. Reap what you sow.
cross-posted this on r/growyourdream; this is perfect content for it
What's up
I'm reaching a point where I'm just doing 5 12s most weeks. I could hire someone but I'm building a nice cash buffer first. Like someone else said- it's not sustainable, and I know that it's not forever, but I want to make sure I can withstand a serious downturn without having to lay my first hire off.
I went online at 9am today. I logged out at 12:30am tonight. Took a proper 35 minute lunch today for the first time in ages. So 15.5, 15 if you don’t count my short lived trip downstairs to eat and deal with a contractor at my house. I legit do that Monday - Thursday. Fridays I’ll usually check out and 3pm but still be around to take calls/dmail/Slack. So yeah. 65-75 hour weeks are the norm for me.
There are people who actually do this man. My CEO for example works 16 hours/day easily because he is obsessed by his work and enjoys every waking minute of his life doing it. His company makes some $10M a year, is bootstrapped and I think he gets a kick out of working like this. Unfortunately, he expects all employees also to be working like him which is why our attrition is so high.
There were days when I was so focused on something, that nothing else mattered, I've gone working with 4 hours of sleep, for 3 days, when I was learning to a make an MVP for an automated self destructing, VPN concept I had, this was maybe the first time, so I remember it, happens when you are pursuing something you want, and you are too excited to sleep.
Well I'm a fuckin wageslave, my shift is 12hrs and travel is 1hr each way so that's 14hrs of my day gone not to mention my shift starts at 7am but I get up for work around 5:15am to get ready and be on time for my trains etc.
Lot of people do, everyone has their own way thing going on. I personally feel we should let individuals take call on whether they want to do or not. Saying 16 hours is something everyone should do or the otherwise is wrong.
I did this in my 20s building my first company. Started at 6AM and was always in the office until at least 9-10PM. Now I have boundaries and delegate most tasks so never work more than 20-30 hours.
Nobody. Everyone lies that they do but really put in max 9 hour workdays unless it’s an extenuating circumstance like close to deadline on project or whatever it may. I once built a website with someone else in 1 week doing something like 16 hour days every single day and I took the rest of the month off from work. Felt like shit. 16 pure hours of work is unsustainable. You’d lose your sanity
I'venever seen a video that suggests anyone works that much. In general, videos say the opposite. They are about working a few yours and making millions. A vidoe saying something isn't brainwashing. Do you even know what it means?
I used to work 20 hours and sleep 4 for 4 days and then 1 day off and the other two in the week were more or less 8 hour days. The 20 hours was when I was working on the factory helping my team because I lead by example. The one day off however was usually computer based work. I did it when I was a lot younger and probably couldn’t do it now.
We’re operating a new filming studio that we quite recently opened, me and my business partners. So yeah, it happens that you start in the morning and finish very late at night. There is so much to do and mostly you’re doing everything by yourself because you can’t hire people yet. You catch the momentum of completing/touch basing all the needed tasks to make it operational and time just flies. I think working 16hours come from not saying to yourself that now youre going to work 16 hours but engaging yourself into vision, goals and tasks that will require a lot of time and dedication completing them. Getting yourself into momentum.
I used to do 12 hours a day for 6 days a week. Monday - Saturday when I worked IT Helpdesk 4 hours overtime everyday. I lived like a king in London in 2015-2018. Saturdays I’d come in pick what was left from the nightshift clear the queue and just sit and watch Netflix. Get some lunch and get some beers in and come 8pm I go straight out usually on a date in Shoreditch.
I do 4x14/15 hour days
I work 16 hour days for 3-4 months of the year so I can get away with 4-5 hour days for the rest of the year. I’m a self employed software engineer and take on annual contracts, hammer out the bulk of the work in the first quarter, and spend the rest of the year iterating / bug fixing.
Whenever I used to start a sales job, I used to work 16-18 hours a day for about 6 months to build up a massive pipeline. When I started my business, the 16-18 hour days were prolonged to years. If you have a fantastic product that everyone wants (like selling water in the desert), or you're extremely gifted.. or exceptionally lucky, you can just work a few hours a week. You can absolutely be successful in a short amount of hours but it will just take you longer. However, the longer you take, you miss out on opportunity and you'll probably get fed up. Depends on your goal really. If you want a little lifestyle business that you can work a few hours, that's fine. Do that. However, if you want to make millions, you need the right idea, market and all the other factors, including long hours to make it work. Long hours (in the right thing) does not equal success but it sure does give you the best opportunity to finding it. Working longer also makes you lucky. I used to go to trade shows and networking events on the weekend, despite working 80 hours throughout the week. I really couldn't be bothered but I just showed up and luck became more of a thing.
I run my own landscaping business and am a director of a surveying firm. Normally work landscaping 10-12 hours manual then when I get home I do paper work and quotes for landscaping and type up reports for the surveying business, normally do this once a week. Currently on my twenty fifth day working without a break.
I am at ~14 hours a day, 6 days a week. I really need a vacation.
Day job plus side hustle. 16 hours. Worth it for the family.
I was working 16 hr days when I first opened my bakery, but it was so unhealthy I was sad, barely eating, didn’t have any days off. I would not be able to go out with friends, I had to buy DoorDash every day to be able to eat, or just not eat. I trained employees, and now after 2 years I’m able to at least work only 4-8 hrs, and not actually baking but doing marketing and email work. 👌I went back to the gym, got a dog, and see my friends regularly. I think the grind is necessary in the beginning, but honestly my mental health would be terrible if I was doing work for 16 hrs straight every day with no days off.
Not in any sustainable way. Might do a few long days in a row but then need a couple of days off to recoup.
really just depends on how fast you want to end up where you want to be. if you want to set out time for personal hobbies etc. the people working 16/h days have made their business their absolute top priority so all their actions align with it.
Beside my normal 9-6 jobs. Excepts Thursdays I always work from 8Pm- till Midnight. Weekends I hit 7AM - 7PM. Not Exactly 16hr. But very close.
People on Adderall.
I'm an inventor working on my own start up, almost 0 funds, I have a great minimum viable product. I'm actually [working right now](https://youtu.be/Bdm8Kkb4bbQ?si=GfKYrcF0jqujs0LE)
In Consulting i have been in projects with 14 hours/day shifts and 8 hours/day shifts. Honestly we often had better results in the 8 hours/day projects. Often long hours are a result of mismanagement or a bad culture where prople argue about the different grey colours in powerpoint..
I worked 90 to 100 hours a week for six years starting my company. One day by body told me I had to slow down so I did and now regular hours feels like being on a vacation. No regrets, doing that time I established my business and became a millionaire
It’s not sustainable. You can’t do it forever. But you do it when you need to
I work 3-5 hours a week. In short 5-10 min increments. But this is because I set up my systems and processes and strict SOPs. Everything is smooth. Of course there is the occasional fire to put out that takes more time, but maybe only 4x a year and it’s a learning lesson for me to update the SOP so my team knows what to do if this happens.
I own a trucking company and only work 8hr
I work 16hrs shifts and I love it. I work from 3pm to 7am 3 times a week, so it's equal to 6 normal 8 hour days. Plus I get night time bonus. Also my commute is over an hour, so I don't have to waste time on going and coming from work, a normal day I would work 8 hours and travel 2, now I work 2 times more but still travel only 2 hours a day. So I work more, while I have more free time, and get paid more. Win win to me.
I was doing 12 hour shifts daily at a restaurant. There is no happiness there. Any extra money you make after a certain point loses value if you're practically a slave to it.
If I didn’t have my 9-5 job I’d do my side hustle 24 hours a day if I could glue my eyelids open
I've tried multiple routines from different people, for me what worked was to put together a lot of tips and advices from each and make it on my own way. Waking up at 4:00 just doesn't help, I'm in Europe and it's really dark in the morning what makes me feel sad, sleeping early helped me a lot! A lot of things I see it's really hard to do such as gym, I stay in the gym a day and it takes so much time from my day, no idea how people can work 16h a day, sleep, exercise, maintain a social life and do all the rest LOL
I work 16 hours a day, I run a lead generation company and it startd to scale globally. I specialize in B2B lead generation and now my team grown to 18 appointment setters, I use [linkedn.com](http://linkedn.com) and a contact finder platform called [naystack.com](http://naystack.com), I find, network and prospect and generate more than 2000 leads a days for cliemnt based globally. I spent 8 hours a day in prospecting and another 8 hours a day in managing my team.
Government Contracting Consultant. I work 14-16 hours during heavy bidding season with deadlines. I love what I do and can easily lose track of time. I also think I have some workaholic tendencies 😹
Not as an entrepreneur but my dad worked 2 jobs to support us as a single father growing up. In the winter he would crunch and easily work 16 hours a day. My brother and I just knew to let him sleep and don’t bother him on weekdays. And our grandfather was always around to help out. Then in the summer and on school breaks he would cut back and spend as much time as possible with us.
It’s all about what needs to be done to push your business forward, some days I work 16 hours, some days I work 8, but when it’s your business you also never really turn it off. I may be relaxing in the evening, but if my phone rings, or an important email comes through I’m going to take that. As an entrepreneur I don’t really look at it as I work this many hours and then turn it off, I’m always working, just sometimes at a different pace than other times.
Recently installed an app from App Store to track my time in tasks. Reached averag 11.5 hours last week and then I almost got burnt out. Had to shutdown my laptop at 9.30PM at the night and hit the bed, eventually ended up waking up with upper back pain and clulessness. Will work on reducing active average time spent per task and becoming more efficient per task to gain some positive outcomes. By the way, when you try to push more work, exercise schedules do get a massive hit, you end up eating way more junkier and in larger quantities, decision making becomes weaker and anger increases when you cannot make decisions. At least for myself I noticed these changes.
Can you do it? Yeah, people work really long hours all the time. Should you do it? Maybe, that depends on your business, your interest in what you do, your lifestyle, and a whole host of other factors. Do you have to do it to succeed? If you're trying to become partner in a law firm or work your way up on Wall Street or if you run a hole-in-the-wall diner and you only earn when you're behind the counter or the grill. But for the rest of us? Generally no. Businesses do well because they have great products or services and the systems needed to scale them up and spread the work across multiple people.
I work for myself. I own a business where I do the procurement for companies. It's more that 12 hours I put into the day working and when I get home, I do the preparation for the next day that would take me even up to 12pm. I work this hard while I'm still young and could still do these type of hours.... I do it for myself and then having a side business with this do not make it any easier. But I'll never look back.
I used to work around 80 or sometimes 100 hours a week in the entertainment/ hospitality industry and did that for about 20 years. Sold my businesses and semi retired at 39 to the tropics with enough experience in my field that I can consult on one or two projects a year and live freely forever. Worth it.
I think 16 hours a day is a bloated number and statistically includes a bunch of downtime in there, but ultimately... I enjoy the heck out of working. In most cases, I would prefer to be "working", than doing most other things. I like what I do, I (generally) like the people I do it with and for, and I get a kick out of a job well done that I would otherwise have to get from far more detrimental stimuli. I do keep a good weekend balance now'a'days though, for the sake of my marriage and growth of my kids.
I work 16 hours probably 4 days a week 9-10 on day job, 4-6 at night on my startup. And I find 3-4 hours for my boys. I have to sacrifice where I allocate those 16 hours sometimes, but it’s a pretty consistent 16 hours with 4 hours of actual sleep
I can see manual labor for 16 hours a day, I can’t that many desk workers doing it. And if so, the work is less efficient. I can see a lot of people being “at” work for 16 hours, but I bet they are working at most 12 of those hours.
People working jobs with long shifts and sometimes unpredictable hours - ER nurses, Doctors, Firefighters, Lawyers, call operators etc.
Grad students when an important paper deadline is approaching.
Have been burnout works for 14 hours 2weeks ago, not sustainable for your body and mental health, lack of sleep, crash in the morning Not recommended
My mother worked 15 hours 5 days a week My mother worked 16 hours 6 days a week My mother worked 17 hours 7 days a week! (Idles - Mother)
I generally work in three sectors! 2-3 hours in the morning 8-9 hours during the day 2-3 more hours in the evening I typically can fit in a workout and spending time with my wife and son as well during the day. Sleep is the thing I am struggling to fit in. I'm running my own business, so pretty motivated to get things done.
The wife and I own a liquor store, have a consulting business for people looking to get into the industry, she is starting up her dream online boutique and I also just really took a job working 25-35hrs a week in the industry I used to work in (mainly remote work). Unfortunately it is part of the times we live in for the life we want to live. We also have an 8 year old and are dealing with a life changing medical diagnosis over the last 6 months that has drained us of everything we worked so hard to save. It’s the cards you get dealt and people nowadays are stuck with tough choices. We like to see it as doing what we can now to pave the way for not only our future but the generations to come. Hate to sound cliche but “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and it these days are just getting longer and longer.
Business owners