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Showdown Day 3: Steve Pavlina

by Bren on March 24th, 2005

Welcome to the third and final day of the Productivity Blog
Showdown. Before we begin, I’d like to thank Fred and Steve for their
willingness to participate in the Showdown, and for the good humor
while doing so. No matter which way you swing, productively speaking,
you’ve got to admit these are a couple of quality guys. Onward, then.

Today’s questions are as follows:

Working hard and setting limits…
a.    Can a person work a maximum of 40 hours a week at something and still be successful?
b.    Real-life story problem #1: I’ve recently graduated from university and launched into full time work with the company I have been working part time with for the last 3 years. I love working there and I get paid on an hourly rate so that the more hours I work, the more money I get.  I like the idea of working 40 hour weeks or less, so that I have more time to do my own things, but my boss is encouraging me to treat those 40 hours as a minimum! Consequently, I find myself surrounded by workers that work 60+ hours a week and myself working 50 hours a week or more. So I guess I’m torn between working a 40 hour week and having more time to focus on other things in my life or working 50+ hours a week and getting the extra money and industry experience. So should I work more hours or less? Why? What other factors should I consider?
c.    Real-life story problem #2: Extreme programming is a set of rules/mindsets/methods for programming. On the one hand, several of those methods aim at keeping you as hard working and productive as possible. On the other hand, the official "rules" almost forbid you to work more than 40 hours per week. So working as hard as you can for 8 hours, 5 days a week, but not more. This ‘d be a nice statement to react upon for both of them.
d.    Is a day’s work it’s own reward, or is there a way to change your perspective regarding mind-numbing work so that it becomes fun?

Steve Pavlina is first up again today. Steve is a recovering software
developer, specializing in gaming. He founded, and currently runs, Dexterity Software. I say he’s a "recovering" software developer because on his blog,
he has been very transparent about his vocational goals and his roadmap
for achieving them. Steve has built up a very popular archive of free productivity articles here. Finally, for a great background sketch on Steve, be sure to review his "about" page. Without further commentary, here’s Steve…

2) Working hard and setting limits…

a. Can a person work a maximum of 40 hours a week at something and still be successful?

Absolutely.  People have become gold medal Olympians on less than 40 hours a week.

It may surprise you to learn that many successful entrepreneurs work in the pattern of one week on, one week off … or even one week on, two weeks off.  So they’ll work intensely on their business for a week, and then they’ll take off for a week or two and do no work at all.  Often they’ll travel during during this time or just be with their families.  These cycles of hard work and rest can be extremely effective.  When you know you’re only going to work for a week before taking the next week off, you can work with great focus and intensity.  Then when you come back to work for the next cycle, you’re extremely well rested and inspired by fantastic new ideas that came to you during your time off.  At one of his seminars, Jay Abraham said that this kind of work pattern was one of the success secrets Napoleon Hill had uncovered while conducting the extensive research and interviews for his famous book Think And Grow Rich, but it didn’t make the final cut.

Have you ever gone to a seminar or conference and then returned to work the following week with renewed passion and energy?  What if you could have that kind of experience every other week?  This is one of the reasons I attend personal development seminars, listen to audio programs, read inspiring books, and attend weekly Toastmasters meetings.  They help keep my energy and enthusiasm perpetually high.

I don’t believe in working monstrous hours.  I think the optimal work week for most knowledge workers is about 40-45 hours, but with plenty of time off for rest and leisure.  Even when you’re pursuing your passion and love what you do, it can still tire you out at the end of the day.  You need plenty of time away from work to rest, reflect, and regain your perspective.  Some of your best insights and ideas will come to you when you’re resting, not when you’re working.

b. Real-life story problem #1: I’ve recently graduated from university and launched into full time work with the company I have been working part time with for the last 3 years. I love working there and I get paid on an hourly rate so that the more hours I work, the more money I get.  I like the idea of working 40 hour weeks or less, so that I have more time to do my own things, but my boss is encouraging me to treat those 40 hours as a minimum! Consequently, I find myself surrounded by workers that work 60+ hours a week and myself working 50 hours a week or more. So I guess I’m torn between working a 40 hour week and having more time to focus on other things in my life or working 50+ hours a week and getting the extra money and industry experience. So should I work more hours or less? Why? What other factors should I consider?

This is a very common situation.  I outlined one strategy for handling this type of situation in my response to the previous day’s questions.  Basically, you conduct an internal audit and negotiation between your needs, desires, abilities, and conscience.

Ultimately, you will have to make this decision based on your own values.  There’s no one right answer for everyone.  If the answer isn’t forthcoming for you, you may find it helpful to read this two-part article series called Living Your Values — it will help you clarify your values so you can make your decision more easily:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles

The most important concept here is to get clear about what exactly you want.  I suggest putting your decision in writing and documenting the reasons; if you keep a journal that’s a great place to do it.  Then when you start feeling pressure to work more or less hours than you originally decided, you can look back and remind yourself of the reasons you made this decision and recommit yourself to getting back on track.

Once you’ve made this decision for yourself, it’s important to inform others of your intentions.  Inform anyone who’s a stakeholder in this decision, including your family, boss, and co-workers.  Suppose you decide to work 40-45 hours per week.  You should inform your boss of this decision to let him/her know, and be open to explaining the reasons why.  In fact, I recommend expressing your concerns to your boss before you make this decision, and openly discuss the pros and cons to your career based on how many hours you work.  Quality of life is becoming an increasingly important issue nowadays, and more employers are accepting the fact that not everyone wants their work to take over their entire life.

If you get clear about what you want and inform others of your decision, then it’s a lot easier to enforce your boundaries.  Accept the fact that no matter what you decide, external forces will exert pressure on you to do otherwise.  You may get it on one side from your family and on the other side from your boss.  If you’re clear about what you want and why you want it, you’ll be able to stand firm.  But if you never take the time to reach this point of clarity, then you’ll almost certainly be pushed around by others’ goals for you.

My wife and I refer to this as outgoaling.  Let’s say we decide to go out to dinner.  I’m not sure where I’d like to eat, but she knows she wants to go to a particular restaurant.  Because she’s clear about what she wants and I’m not, she’s going to easily outgoal me, and we’ll end up eating where she wants.  Similarly, if you don’t get clear about your own career goals, then others who are more certain about what they want will outgoal you, and you’ll end up working to fulfill their goals, which may or may not be congruent with what you want.

c. Real-life story problem #2: Extreme programming is a set of rules/mindsets/methods for programming. On the one hand, several of those methods aim at keeping you as hard working and productive as possible. On the other hand, the official "rules" almost forbid you to work more than 40 hours per week. So working as hard as you can for 8 hours, 5 days a week, but not more. This ‘d be a nice statement to react upon for both of them.

I think XP is a good methodology in general and a vast improvement over deathmarch-style projects, especially the kind often seen in the gaming industry — working 10-12 hours per day, 7 days a week, for months at a time.

As much as I like XP though, a standard methodology is no substitute for your own intelligence and your ability to analyze your own personal situation.  So feel free to break such rules and see how that goes for you.  You’re the ultimate judge of what’s best for you.

In terms of building your personal productivity, I recommend that most people begin with an even more restricted work week of around 15-25 hours per week (at least to the degree this is possible).  Get yourself to a point of great efficiency there, and then gradually build up to 40-45 hours per week while maintaining peak efficiency.  Work all the time you’re "at work."  Many times when people are at work 60+ hours per week, they aren’t working even half that time.  The first time I measured my actual work time when I worked a 60-hour week, I was shocked to discover that I’d only done 15 hours of what I considered actual work.  So you must distinguish being busy vs. doing actual results-oriented work.  Here’s an article that explores this topic in detail:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/triple-your-personal-productivity.htm

d. Is a day’s work its own reward, or is there a way to change your perspective regarding mind-numbing work so that it becomes fun?

I don’t recommend doing work you consider mind-numbing for an extended period of time.  It will just drain your energy and… well… numb your mind.  :)

But sometimes we still have to do certain tasks that we don’t enjoy.  That’s just part of life.  You can delegate a great deal, but you’ll still have certain activities that need to be done yet aren’t much fun, such as paying taxes.  So first, if you can eliminate the task entirely without serious negative consequences, then by all means do so.  But if that isn’t practical, keep reading….

Whenever I’m faced with a task I have to do but which isn’t remotely fulfilling or enjoyable, I use a variety of techniques to make it more fun.  First, music is a great way to make a task more pleasant.  If a task is normally dull and boring and not very mental, I’ll listen to some fast-paced techno/trance.  There are some great streams available at www.di.fm, and I listen via the free Winamp player from www.winamp.com.  If a task tends to feel stressful, I’ll listen to relaxing music like Enya or Kitaro or Steven Halpern.  If the task is very mental, I’ll listen to Mozart or just maintain dead silence.  As I answer these questions, I’m listening to The Best of Enya (not to imply I don’t enjoy this task or find it stressful).  Probably 80-90% of the time I’m working, I’m listening to music.  I suggest you experiment with different types of music to see how it affects your mood and your productivity.

Another technique I use is timeboxing.  This basically means committing to working on a task for a certain fixed period of time, such as 30 minutes, without worrying about how far you get.  Then give yourself a little reward just for putting in the time.  I explained this technique in a previous blog entry here:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/10/timeboxing/

Finally, there are some neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques you can use to condition yourself to derive more enjoyment from a task you currently dislike.  Think of NLP as software for your brain.  Explaining how to do this is beyond the scope of what I can write here, but a good book on the subject is Using Your Brain for a Change by Richard Bandler.

I’d like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Fred Gratzon for championing the cause of laziness and especially to Brendon Connelly for coming up with the idea for this debate and for making it happen (not such a slacker after all, eh?).  I think it’s wonderful that technology allows us to do all of this for free, and I hope those of you who’ve followed this discussion have found it beneficial.  I’d certainly love to partake in something like this again.

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