Mason Curry has a book on the daily work habits of (very successful) writers and artists. And it's strikingly similar to this - the median seems to be about 4 hours per day of real work, usually in the morning, with a lot of outliers.
From: paulgraham.com/hwh.html
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Somewhere Poincare talks about his work habits - 2 hours of focused work in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, with other time spent on letters, errands etc.
I suspect many people will think "that's not much", but I'm sure Poincare worked very hard in that time.
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I find I can consistently do 3 hours of really good creative work, sometimes up to 6, but need to avoid pushing too much (quality goes down, & I get bored, which is the kiss of death). Plus ~1-2 hrs administrivia, messages, maybe a meeting. [Reading is separate and complicated.]
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There's something peculiar about being "focused". I used to think it was bad if I got distracted. For some types of rote, necessary work it really is best just to (try to) power through. But for some associative creative work, there's a weird half-focus state that's helpful too
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Broadly, the essay reminds me of one of my favorite HN comments: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=157623
(Asking myself "Am I doing this to be comfortable" sometimes yields... distinctly uncomfortable answers.)
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Replying to
This comment is great, and I love how it relates to your comments riffing on the cleanliness of McDonalds bathrooms in Principles of Effective Research. A different mode of abdicating responsibility—secretly not actually wanting it in the first place.
Is this why half the gas station bathrooms on my road trip have been “temporarily out of order”?