For me this really depends on whether I'm "into it" or not. When I'm doing what I need to do but my heart isn't in it, I mostly match the "a few hours of real work per day" descriptions, doing my tasks in between some reading and chatting or whatever. Push it too hard, and I start getting into burn out territory.
But when I'm excited and really enjoying myself, watch out, I'm a fucking productivity monster. I can work cheerfully and with high energy basically nonstop, like I have to force myself to eat and sleep. I can do this many months in a row--empirically for the better part of a year before I chill out and go back to baseline. During these times taking a break is just annoying, I really want to be working, my mind is still there more or less no matter what I'm doing.
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One thing that may be interesting to note is that the degree to which I can do this partially depends on the type of work. I've done lots of different types of work in my life. Here's a tiered list in order of how nonstop I can go when I'm into it:
* S Tier -- I go from the moment I wake until I drop from exhaustion, cheerful, high energy the whole time
* programming -- one exception that drops this to A tier sometimes is if the work is particularly intellectually demanding, like tricky math / comp sci stuff, like when I'm trying to do some kind of novel game dev or something
* physical labor (eg. house construction)
* A Tier -- I can only do something like 10 hours/day of the main event, rubber-on-road work, while the rest of the time is spent thinking about and planning the main event stuff
* art -- stopping this one feels more like fatigue, like the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I have to reset by low effort learning or browsing-with-intent-to-learn other artwork
* writing -- this feels different, where after some thousands of words the "spirit isn't with me" anymore, like I know what I would write, but the verve is gone somehow, even though I have plenty of energy for outlining and planning
* B Tier -- I can do this similarly to S tier, wall to wall, high intensity work, but only for about a week to 10 days at a time.
* people stuff (eg. group facilitation, mediating conflict, personal coaching)
For me this really depends on whether I'm "into it" or not. When I'm doing what I need to do but my heart isn't in it, I mostly match the "a few hours of real work per day" descriptions, doing my tasks in between some reading and chatting or whatever. Push it too hard, and I start getting into burn out territory.
But when I'm excited and really enjoying myself, watch out, I'm a fucking productivity monster. I can work cheerfully and with high energy basically nonstop, like I have to force myself to eat and sleep. I can do this many months in a row--empirically for the better part of a year before I chill out and go back to baseline. During these times taking a break is just annoying, I really want to be working, my mind is still there more or less no matter what I'm doing.
-
One thing that may be interesting to note is that the degree to which I can do this partially depends on the type of work. I've done lots of different types of work in my life. Here's a tiered list in order of how nonstop I can go when I'm into it:
* S Tier -- I go from the moment I wake until I drop from exhaustion, cheerful, high energy the whole time * programming -- one exception that drops this to A tier sometimes is if the work is particularly intellectually demanding, like tricky math / comp sci stuff, like when I'm trying to do some kind of novel game dev or something * physical labor (eg. house construction)
* A Tier -- I can only do something like 10 hours/day of the main event, rubber-on-road work, while the rest of the time is spent thinking about and planning the main event stuff * art -- stopping this one feels more like fatigue, like the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I have to reset by low effort learning or browsing-with-intent-to-learn other artwork * writing -- this feels different, where after some thousands of words the "spirit isn't with me" anymore, like I know what I would write, but the verve is gone somehow, even though I have plenty of energy for outlining and planning
* B Tier -- I can do this similarly to S tier, wall to wall, high intensity work, but only for about a week to 10 days at a time. * people stuff (eg. group facilitation, mediating conflict, personal coaching)