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If I were to hire someone, and he claimed he can put in 12-16 hour days for weeks on end, I'd be inclined not to hire, based on the expectation that it means that he's either bullshitting me, or does not understand his own limits. In 17 years of managing many dozen staff, mostly developers admittedly, in a variety of different settings, I've never seen a someone that managed to be productive with mentally strenuous even a full 8 hour day at a time other than very occasionally when they're on a roll. Generally, the ones that do best are those who manage to spread out their work, take proper breaks and intersperse the rest of their mentally demanding work with "menial" tasks, and who goes home and puts their work away completely. Maybe your're an exception, but if you are, be prepared that people will either disbelieve you or expect you to prove it. More likely, your idea of "sustained 12-16 hour days" only actually involves a few hours of what the rest of us would consider mentally strenuous work a day. Put in 12-16 hour days for a while with repetitive, simple tasks taking most of the time when working on something that is overall exciting, sure, that works for a while (though eventually that too tends to produce burnout - I've had to order developers home after the strain starter producing negative results with fewer hours than that). For me, what works best is that whenever I feel that my concentration is slipping, if I don't feel I have time for a proper break, I will switch to mindless tasks, such as updating my todo list (often spending time breaking bigger tasks into tasks that are realistically small enough for windows of a couple of hours), doing my e-mail, or if I'm home I'll do the housework, and I'll try to "switch off" while I do, practicing mindfulness meditation for the truly "mindless" tasks such as cleaning. Sometimes I get lucky, and my concentration stays on top for longer in one go, and I cherish those moments, but I "pay" afterwards (e.g. crash on the sofa when I get home, or need to slow down the following day). |