How Long Do You Work?
Why that's a dumb question and other musings on work
Impact > Output > Input
Input is effort invested. Hours worked is the common heuristic.
Output is the result of input. Lines of code, features pushed, emails sent, reps in the gym, etc. These are easily identified with “what did you get done today?”
Impact is progress towards a goal. Revenue, new users, 1 rep max, etc. These are what is actually wanted. They determine whether a goal is attained.
Do not mistaken input for output and impact. Do not mistaken output for impact.
It’s very common to work hard and do absolutely nothing (output). It’s also very common to work hard and not make any progress (impact).
Suffering != Productivity
Just because you constantly stress, have terrible sleep, and have no hobbies does not mean you’re being productive.
Productivity is measured by impact, not output nor input.
Suffering while you work may make you feel like you’re on a glorious crusade.
You believe you deserve whatever it is you want because you’ve suffered so much.
In reality, the impact doesn’t care how much you’ve suffered. It just cares if it’s produced.
Impact may involve suffering; however, suffering is not an indication of producing impact. Don’t get it confused.
Curating Taste
Taste is a moat that’s very evident in the age of AI where the cost of implementation is effectively a LLM subscription.
You can have so much output, but does your output actually result in impact?
Curating taste involves iterative and deliberate output. Mass output mitigates ignorance and you learn over time.
Curating taste also involves doing things that don’t look productive: reading books, listening to podcasts, getting coffee with people, living life.
You can’t definitively say how your taste has improved in the past day. Nor month. Nor probably year.
Because it’s squishy, improving taste is usually ignored in favor of immediately productive-looking activities.
Yet taste is what drives outsized impact over time: knowing what to build, talking to the right people, making the right decisions.
Looking Productive != Being Productive
I can sit in front of a computer for 10 hours and look absolutely productive.
Everyone sees I worked hard. I convince myself likewise.
I can also read books, go for a walk, and chat with friends.
Everyone sees I enjoyed leisure. I convince myself likewise.
Counterintuitively, most if not all my peak productive moments have come from not sitting in front of a computer. They’ve been from books, walks, and friends.
Does that mean I should never sit in front of a computer for 10 hours? No.
But it does mean there’s more to being productive than looking productive.
Chris Williamson reflects on this with questions: “What do I think is productive but is actually not?” and “What do I think is not productive but actually is?”
How Long Do You Work?
I personally find this question quite dumb.
What’s the definition of work? Once it’s defined, we can measure the time spent performing actions that fit the definition.
Work can be defined as the act of investing input to produce output and downstream impact.
People think of productive-looking activities as work, yet so much productivity is made outside of that.
Walking outside, taking a shower, staring at the ceiling in bed while thinking through problems.
Reading books to draw wisdom across people, businesses, and research. Decades of experience condensed into an afternoon of reading.
Catching up with friends and learning their lessons so I don’t have to painfully uncover them myself.
Realistically, work bleeds into all aspects of life. It’s not separable.
You can measure the hours sat at a desk. You definitely cannot measure the hours spent producing output and impact.
Outlook to Work
Everyone’s understanding of work and route to impact differs. And we judge others based on our own lived experience.
In the early days of Spotify, Daniel Ek’s highest leverage activity was flying between New York and London and meeting music executives to negotiate music licenses.
If he couldn’t get licenses, Spotify wouldn’t be able to distribute music and would fail.
While I don’t know his schedule, I’m sure he grabbed coffee and drinks with people, practiced pitches in hotel rooms, and attended music industry parties with celebrities and big wigs. This was all to build relationships and push through deals.
For software engineers whose highest form of leverage is writing code, this lifestyle appears pretentious and out of touch.
It drastically differs from their lived experience of work and route to impact: “Why do we have to sit and right code while he gets to travel, meet people, and go to parties?”
They must trust that their leaders are leveraging their time wisely. Otherwise, they should just go work somewhere else.
Psst… here what I’m consuming this week:
📖 The Strength of the Few by James Islington after demolishing The Will of the Many. The series is basically Red Rising but in a Roman backdrop