François CholletVerified account

Yeah try and minimize such weeks we need you in the game long term bud.

I've found the relationship between hours put in and productivity / performance heavily relies on type of work. IC / heads-down work = more hours can be helpful Interpersonal / strategy work = lower hours + bigger focus on creating mental space for thinking

@hey_its_fahad

Sadly this was constantly the norm in medical school, residency and fellowship. Part of the requisite training is being able to work at peak performance with sleep/energy deprivation.

3 Weeks is definitely the breakpoint. I always seem to loose steam at that pace around week 3.

The French don't exactly have a reputation for the greatest stamina in this area. It probably describes something like 4% of the American population, as an example. There are a lot of assumptions implicit in your statement.

If I know how to make progress for 3 weeks in a row I get suspicious that I'm doing anything non trivial

Indeed working many hours and thinking clearly don't go together. A regular occurrence to me is that when working many hours, problems seem much more difficult, as soon I fall back on a normal relaxed pattern they look trivial, it's like going from stupid to normal.