[elvis10ten]

I disagree based on personal (anecdotal) data.

When I get into a “flow” on a project I can work 12+ hour days. My productivity dwindles as the day gets old for sure, but I don’t think it ever gets to zero or close. I dream/think about the project and the first thing on my mind in the morning is the next step on the project.

Last time I was in flow, I single handedly built the next generation of a tool in 2 months. It’s currently taking the other team about 6 months to do the same but for another platform. The complexity is roughly the same and I think the engineers are as smart, if not smarter than me. I think the difference was that I did 12-16 hours for 2 month (including weekends).

This is not sustainable of course. I developed my back and wrist pain at the end of the 2 months. This is something I consciously stop myself from doing ever again because health is all you got at the end of the day.

[suralind]

Very realistic, I one had a different idea of how we would build a retool-like tool for a company I worked at. I spent 4 days to reimplement our app from scratch, I didn't include even 10% of what we had, but the framework was much more powerful.

I typically code for like 3-4 hours a day, maybe 6-7 when I'm super into what I'm doing. BUT, I very frequently think about my work when I'm not working.

[banannaise]

I've also done this before. After I was done, I couldn't focus properly for several weeks. Turns out I was largely just pushing back rest that I desperately needed, and I had to pay that back in the end.