Good for this person. Seriously. I have a friend like this and he is happy as heck.
For everyone else: don’t beat yourself up. Most people can crank through a max of 20-30 hours of deep intellectual work a week. You are still a wonderful and successful person, even if this other person can sustain 100 deep work hours.
Umh... What about a case of ~7-10...? Like, don't get me wrong, I know I am doing way too little, and I am working on improving this, but at times, certain limitations regarding this... I just can't help but beat myself up.
I don't think this is very uncommon. I know a lot of people seem to spend a lot of their waking hours generally "ruminating" on their coding work but only 5-10 actually sat down and implementing the solutions at the keyboard.
I also know people who can happily be constantly coding for 8 hours a day like it's a stream of consciousness, but I don't think that's everyone.
I really think it has a lot to do with the situation and expectations. And probably you as well. I think it’s completely plausible to deliver expected value in 7 hours, though you are probably looking at either a very meeting heavy role or just a bit more of a chill role. 1/3 of the code written, but written fit to purpose, performant and with high quality is still outstanding value. Many, many employees at your organization deliver zero or negative net value.
Oh god please don’t. You may feel like you are superhuman but you aren’t and this will creep up to bite you in ways you don’t yet comprehend. For instance, all that time coding leaves little time for family. All that time coding leaves little time for your physical health. I guarantee you if you keep this schedule another 2-5 years you will burn out. Please don’t do this to yourself. 60hrs max and then go outside. Go do something in your community. Find a mate. Live.
Yep. I was one of those people who thought I was immune to being human.
I had various friends who were a little older who told me to cool my jets. I didn’t listen, because YOU DON’T KNOW ME!
I did burn out and became extremely depressed.
My priorities have now shifted so that I care more about spending time with my friends and family. I realized I’m probably just as productive, if not more than I used to be. Maybe it’s because I was spending more cycles percolating on the problem instead of trying to bludgeon my way through.
I don’t know if OP will heed this advice. I know if I went back in time a decade and told my younger self to slow down, my younger self wouldn’t listen. It might just be something you have to experience and learn the hard way :(
Yeah I just say 60 hours max of “working”. Whether it’s coding, answering emails, reading docs, reviewing pr’s. At 60 hours I shut it all down to just watching videos.
I think the big difference between this person and me is the sign of the slope on that "happiness while coding" graph. The older I've gotten (and I'm a bit older than them) the less I've felt the need to always be creating something intellectually.
I'm very happy that people like them exist though, I have friends who are similar but their chosen pursuits are mathematics or physics and it seems to bring them a similar amount of fulfillment.
> I regret nothing. If I die this way, I’d go out happy.
To me that's what it is really all about, if this person is happy who am I to judge? It's obsession in a search for greatness, not for me but I can definitely see how it could be fulfilling in itself.
"No regret" -- its easier said than done. Dying is one thing, but accumulating 10 different health conditions for life is not going to be pleasant, and will potentially give lot of time to start regretting.
People are free to do whatever they want, but doesn't mean people can't express their opinion on that.
Sure but the article really seems to imply that he's not neglecting himself, just optimizing his schedule completely to code all the time.
> I run 6 miles many days of the week to keep healthy. I do it while writing code, using a standing desk treadmill.
Realistically just with that sentence he likely more active than the average person. On top of that:
> I get groceries delivered, I’d rather spend the time coding.
I make sure I have deep technical problems I need to think through and solve, and solve it while I am making meals, eating, or doing chores.
Seems to imply that he is cooking his meals and not ordering junk food instead of cooking.
I'm not saying working 100hrs/week is a good idea, but aside from the lack of romantic relationship, his life seems overall balanced.
How do you know if you're truly happy? That you're working on something not because you feel the need to prove something, battle your insecurities, but rather because you want to do something meaningful?
I'm genuinely curious. Many highly-driven people seem to be insecure and egocentric and in the moment, even long periods, fuelling their ego makes them think they're happy. But if you feel happy for many years (assuming eventually this feeling fades), who's to judge that you weren't happy before?
Maybe it all depends on the person, and people can have their pathologies and subconscious desires to better their social status by justifying hustle as working to build interesting products. But maybe that's not it, and the inner motivation is something else?
Personally I'd say that happiness is such an ill-defined state that it's not a topic that can be debated a lot. A more objective term might be satisfied.
The author is satisfied by his life and does not yearn for something else. Maybe that's as close as you can get?
When I was in my 20s, I was a machine. Honestly, I could simply not understand why people would take time off of work.
Now, some 20 years later, I get physically exhausted around 6 months after the last extended vacation. Of course I don't mean to a point where I couldn't function properly any more, but I do feel way tired and low on energy.
I'd live like this if I could. I did it for a good 5 years, and then my hands just stopped working. I tried coding by voice for a while, that lasted for a year, then I lost my voice. Now I code for at most an hour a day, until the pain sets in and my fingers become too weak to press the keys, and I spend the rest of my hours on other things. I wish I had diversified my hobbies more when I was younger. But I'd also rather spend 8 hours a day coding for a lifetime, than 16 hours a day for just a few years, and then it's over. I have so many projects in my backlog that will never get built. Not sure why I'm even saying all this. Take care of your health.
I don't want to live or work with such obsessive people. You can work 150 hours a week if you want, I don't think anyone cares. Just keep yourself away from people.
Good luck keeping that up with a partner and/or actual responsibilities like taking care of aging family.
Don’t want a partner? Sure.. we’ll hear from you in a few years. Probably complaining how they are hard to find.
I say go for it. You are young, this means nothing. If you were 40 I would be impressed.
Not only will age slow you down, but you will also care a lot less. Why work yourself to death? Oh, you’ll have some snappy answer now, but again, let’s talk in 5-10 years.
Edit: I came off way too negative. Sorry. I feel like talking you out of this because this lifestyle has consequences. But it is your life, go for it! Sorry about the neg.
I'm not gonna judge the author, but it's quite distant from the perfect life I'd imagine, personally I wouldn't trade my health for 2 more lines of code.
I admire the author. He seems to have the focus, work ethic, and vision of someone ten years older. However, I think the thing to realize is this lifestyle necessitates a healthy existence: physical health, financially healthy, healthy relationships with friends and family, a healthy mental state.
Don't take those for granted. As you get older they require more investment in order to sustain you. I'm only 41 and it already feels like properly taking care of myself is at least 10h/week (workouts + cooking healthy food) atop of 8h/day of sleep.
I think the thing I'd be most concerned about is the large amount of time spent on-keyboard and RSI.
I have work and personal coding. And even in those, I have several projects under each category. In C#, python, Javascript, Swift, old-school C/C++, etc. Games, websites, CRUD apps, various "toys", etc. Stuff that is in maintenance, being designed, building infrastructure, implementing, etc.
If one thing bothers me, I move to something else. If I'm grooving on something, I keep at it.
Now, I don't have the time to dedicate to it like this guy does. Having other people put demands on your time does that. Last night, I had to finish playing Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, because our son thinks I'm his personal on-demand Twitch stream.
But when I was kicking it by myself, yeah, that's how I'd do. I think the key is removing the obligation for a large part of it. At any point while I was "casually" programming outside of school/work, I could stop. I could go and play video games, or watch a movie, or hang out with friends. I had the choice. The only pressure to finish any piece of code was the pressure of being close to being done with it.
81 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] threadFor everyone else: don’t beat yourself up. Most people can crank through a max of 20-30 hours of deep intellectual work a week. You are still a wonderful and successful person, even if this other person can sustain 100 deep work hours.
I also know people who can happily be constantly coding for 8 hours a day like it's a stream of consciousness, but I don't think that's everyone.
I had various friends who were a little older who told me to cool my jets. I didn’t listen, because YOU DON’T KNOW ME!
I did burn out and became extremely depressed.
My priorities have now shifted so that I care more about spending time with my friends and family. I realized I’m probably just as productive, if not more than I used to be. Maybe it’s because I was spending more cycles percolating on the problem instead of trying to bludgeon my way through.
I don’t know if OP will heed this advice. I know if I went back in time a decade and told my younger self to slow down, my younger self wouldn’t listen. It might just be something you have to experience and learn the hard way :(
Like a constant runner's high, almost an addiction
I'm very happy that people like them exist though, I have friends who are similar but their chosen pursuits are mathematics or physics and it seems to bring them a similar amount of fulfillment.
To me that's what it is really all about, if this person is happy who am I to judge? It's obsession in a search for greatness, not for me but I can definitely see how it could be fulfilling in itself.
People are free to do whatever they want, but doesn't mean people can't express their opinion on that.
> I run 6 miles many days of the week to keep healthy. I do it while writing code, using a standing desk treadmill.
Realistically just with that sentence he likely more active than the average person. On top of that:
> I get groceries delivered, I’d rather spend the time coding. I make sure I have deep technical problems I need to think through and solve, and solve it while I am making meals, eating, or doing chores.
Seems to imply that he is cooking his meals and not ordering junk food instead of cooking.
I'm not saying working 100hrs/week is a good idea, but aside from the lack of romantic relationship, his life seems overall balanced.
I'm genuinely curious. Many highly-driven people seem to be insecure and egocentric and in the moment, even long periods, fuelling their ego makes them think they're happy. But if you feel happy for many years (assuming eventually this feeling fades), who's to judge that you weren't happy before?
Maybe it all depends on the person, and people can have their pathologies and subconscious desires to better their social status by justifying hustle as working to build interesting products. But maybe that's not it, and the inner motivation is something else?
The author is satisfied by his life and does not yearn for something else. Maybe that's as close as you can get?
Now, some 20 years later, I get physically exhausted around 6 months after the last extended vacation. Of course I don't mean to a point where I couldn't function properly any more, but I do feel way tired and low on energy.
Age really makes a difference, believe me.
whoa
I never understood this. I own a 1700 sq ft. home and I would reduce it down to 800 sq ft, if I didn't have a roommate.
Don’t want a partner? Sure.. we’ll hear from you in a few years. Probably complaining how they are hard to find.
I say go for it. You are young, this means nothing. If you were 40 I would be impressed.
Not only will age slow you down, but you will also care a lot less. Why work yourself to death? Oh, you’ll have some snappy answer now, but again, let’s talk in 5-10 years.
Edit: I came off way too negative. Sorry. I feel like talking you out of this because this lifestyle has consequences. But it is your life, go for it! Sorry about the neg.
Don't take those for granted. As you get older they require more investment in order to sustain you. I'm only 41 and it already feels like properly taking care of myself is at least 10h/week (workouts + cooking healthy food) atop of 8h/day of sleep.
I think the thing I'd be most concerned about is the large amount of time spent on-keyboard and RSI.
I have work and personal coding. And even in those, I have several projects under each category. In C#, python, Javascript, Swift, old-school C/C++, etc. Games, websites, CRUD apps, various "toys", etc. Stuff that is in maintenance, being designed, building infrastructure, implementing, etc.
If one thing bothers me, I move to something else. If I'm grooving on something, I keep at it.
Now, I don't have the time to dedicate to it like this guy does. Having other people put demands on your time does that. Last night, I had to finish playing Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, because our son thinks I'm his personal on-demand Twitch stream.
But when I was kicking it by myself, yeah, that's how I'd do. I think the key is removing the obligation for a large part of it. At any point while I was "casually" programming outside of school/work, I could stop. I could go and play video games, or watch a movie, or hang out with friends. I had the choice. The only pressure to finish any piece of code was the pressure of being close to being done with it.