what is the right amount of time one does his work?

[charlie cho]

4 hours? 5 hours? 8 hours? What is it? I'm serious here. Is it even possible to focus over 5 hours? I understand 4 hours.... but 5 hours on work? Is that possible.

What do you guys think is the sufficient amount of time of work in order to be able to create good value and be excellent in one's work? 

Edited May 18, 2021 by charlie cho

[Brivido]

It's not important how much time per se you spend working, but the quality of the time that you do so. I work for five hours per day (I do creative work), but those five hours are Deep Work. Which means I do nothing else but work for those five hours. I work for one hour, take a little break and then get back to work. There are various strategies that you can apply to do deep work, this is definitely not the only one, but it works for me. No internet, no cell phone, no social media, no distractions. That's why it's called deep work.

I highly suggest you to read Cal Newport's book Deep Work. My five hours of work are way more productive of someone that works for 10 hours but is constantly distracted. 

Most creative people throughout history didn't work for more than 5 or 6 hours:
https://podio.com/site/creative-routines

After a point there is a diminishing return for your effort.

[charlie cho]

@Brivido thanks for such a detailed explanation!

[Yarco]

I worked 8.5 hours a day in an office for years. At least 3 or 4 of those hours were just slacking off every day. Watching Youtube videos, listening to podcasts while I work which lowers my productivity, doing fantasy football with coworkers. I know from all of the other employees I saw, they were all operating at 50% capacity or less too. That's just standard procedure in the corporate world. That's just the stuff you could actually get in trouble for. Not to mention how much time was wasted in useless meetings and other stuff.

Now I own my own business. On a busy day, I wake up at 6 am and I'm done by noon. That's if I feel like making $300 - $500/day or I have lots of work lined up all at once. Normally I work like 2 hours per day just to earn $100 - $200. Which is what someone earning a $30,000/yr salary would make working 8 hours a day.

Like Brivido said, it's about quality not quantity. During those hours I'm 100% focused. No email, no checking my phone, no music, no facebook, no youtube. No breaks, no stopping to eat, no getting up. No distractions at all. I much rather get hyper-focused and give it 100% for a few hours than half-ass it for an entire day.

Would you rather do 1 hour of $100/hr work or 10 hours of $10/hr quality work.

Also focus on the tasks that actually get you results to save time. Cut out little busy-work things that make it feel like you're working but aren't. For example, if you're a blogger, the 1 activity that gets results is writing more and better-quality blogs. Not wasting time looking at your analytics each day, or other stuff. Similarly, I don't take on clients who want to have unnecessary weekly meetings or babysitting/hand-holding. I exclusively communicate through email so I can respond when I want to, and don't have to schedule and be on video calls at specific times, or waste time making small-talk.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Yarco

[Hans]

@Yarco Interesting. May I ask how you went from working an office job to owning a business? How was the transition? How was establishing your business?

[Yarco]

8 hours ago, Hans said:

@Yarco Interesting. May I ask how you went from working an office job to owning a business? 

I answered this in a private message for someone a couple days ago, but I don't think most people will want to read the 1,000-word version so I'll try to summarize it and provide a generic answer...

Edit after writing: Nevermind this is still gonna be long lol

- Be unhappy enough with your job to make a change
- Start looking into what other options are available. Google and look up "work from home" type stuff on Youtube and learn as much about it as you can.
- Figure out what you think you would like to do. Research that thing even more, in a specific way.
- Maybe invest in an inexpensive ($0 - $150) but trustworthy course to teach you the basics in an efficient way
- See if there is a way that you can test it out your business idea but only spend a couple hours per week on it. Something like Fiverr or Upwork is good for most freelance work. Don't worry about pay, just get some experience. See if you like it.
- Make a plan and discuss it with your partner/family/roommate or whatever. For me it was that I would quit my job, but that I had to start making $X per month within a year or I'd need to find another job in my old industry.
- If you have a chill and understanding boss like I luckily did, you can tell them that you want to quit in 3 - 6 months to start your own business.
- Keep learning and ideally doing a bit of work on your business in the evening and on weekends
- Start trying to build up your business. I waited to create a website and find clients until I actually quit and could do it full-time. But if you can start getting a small amount of consistent work early, that'd be best.
- Take the leap and go full-time

I recommend watching a lot of business / self-help channels on Youtube like Project Life Mastery, Dan Lok, Grant Cardone to get you deep into the spiral dynamics "Stage Orange" mindset if you're wanting to start your own business. Now I find most of what they say very cringe, borderline scammy. But when you're just getting into business they provide a lot of motivation and inspiration. Just don't drink the koolaid and buy their overpriced courses. If you type "motivational video" into Youtube and watch those kinds of things they get you pretty hyped up to make a change in your life too.

I had a playlist of my favorite (now kinda cringe to me) motivational stuff that I made at one point. I'll make it public if you wanna check it out: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLJvCIJuCYbZME6E4G1Q0lrLKUyf5Ccy
I specifically attribute the "THE WAKE UP CALL | You Will Stop Wasting Any More Time" one for inspiring me to make $10,000 in one month one time.

If you listen to this shit enough, you'll actually start to believe that you can do anything, and that earning a million dollars is easy. Saturate your mind with it and let it take over. This is maybe the most important part. Click the link and watch a couple of the videos. If I could share something with an 18 year old kid who wanted to start a business, I'd just make them watch motivational videos for 1-2 hours every day. Getting into that hustle "I AM DESTINED FOR GREATNESS" mindset is 90% of it, even if you don't have any skills or knowledge to back it up yet. If you get fired up enough from motivational videos, you will find a way. You'll hack through the forest with a machete and blaze your own path.

8 hours ago, Hans said:

@Yarco How was the transition? How was establishing your business?

It's fine. lol. i don't know how to answer that. It's about what you'd expect. Empowering but a bit scary. Even now a few years later, if you rely on a couple big clients, they can leave at any time and you'll be left scrambling to figure out where to get money next month. Some months early on I earned $2,000/month and then I'd go 3 months in a row where I earned $0.

If you've got a partner who keeps their job, it's a good anchor and a lot less stressful to just take the leap and start your own business. If you're living on your own, I would say you want to save at least 1 year's expenses first, probably 2 to be safe.

You will need to figure out how to motivate yourself and how to be productive. In addition to the cringe motivational stuff, spend some time reading and watching about productivity. Try working early in the morning, late at night, using the pomodoro technique, and other stuff to see what makes you the most efficient.

You don't have a steady job where you can just show up and get paid any more is the big thing. It's 100% on you, and you decide how much or little you want to work and earn.

I've found a real sense of abundance though. There is no real scarcity out there. You're connected to the entire world and millions of companies via the internet. All you need to do is find a few to hire you. If you go looking for work hard enough, you'll always find it.

Even not actively looking for work, stuff just seems to fall into my lap when I need it. One job will dry up, and I'll suddenly get an email from someone else who wants to work with me. Stuff like that. The big thing is just deciding if you wanna work 8 hours a day and earn lots of money, or just work 2-4 hours a day to coast and get by and play video games all afternoon instead.

Edited May 22, 2021 by Yarco

[charlie cho]

@Yarco sir, i havent read this for some reason. After i come back from work; i will come and see for sure