admirable goal! great writing (and citations!) as always. i strongly agree that
reasonable hours, job fulfillment, work/personal separation, etc result in
better and more productive work in the long run.
employers can definitely be the culprits, but in my experience (and in this space), _employees_ often pressure themselves just as much, if not more. always-connected, interrupt-driven tech probably also drives a big chunk of it. [i’ve thought about that problem a bit](https://snarfed.org/2013-05-31_fighting-information-overload), but not re work specifically.
one question: how do you and erin work right now? i’d love to be wrong, but i’m guessing you both work a bit harder than you’ve outlined here…? do you think there’s a different standard for very early stage startups? or for founders? or something else?
Great reply. I agree that employees often drive themselves this way – but I think it often still comes down to company culture. There is a general industry culture of doing this, and putting incentives in place that counteract this is one of the things I’m trying to argue for.
Erin and I actually have a 10am-6pm rule. We do sometimes break this, as you’d expect, but we find it to be productive. I do think working on something that you have a substantial stake in – generating value for yourself – is very different to working for someone else, where you’re ultimately generating value for them. Nonetheless, the productivity findings I linked to still stand, so it’s a good idea to institute rest, breaks, etc for yourself, too.
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