Today I'm formally starting to work full time, for myself
As cheesy as it sounds, I just wanted to publicly commit to clocking myself in for 8 hrs a day/40 hrs a week going forward. I have been nibbling around the edges, using Pomodoro timers to focus at times, and just have not felt my effort to start my business has felt serious enough. Given that I actually fixate on my productivity in general, this will be a double-edged sword, but I have avoided such a regimen as the final step for a long time. My hope is by taking it, that this allows me to see myself differently despite not having an app for anyone to buy yet.
Would love to hear from anyone else that tracks their hours like they were a freelancer to meet an arbitrary 8 hour quota, especially if they have distractions from kids or others. (I am a caretaker of parents with dementia) so allowing for excuses without those competing responsibilities completely sidetracking you would be interesting to hear.
Why 40 hours?
It's literally a relic from the Industrial Revolution.
And even for some reason you decide on 40 hours/week, why 8 hours a day?
Seems pretty arbitrary to me.
Your business could very well need more time than that.
Conversely, your long-term mental health could very well need less time than that.
The balance is very tricky, and I'd be very surprised if the rhythm you arrived at is a spot-on match with the standard corporate 9-5 schedule.
Isn't the point of working for yourself the latitude to find your own rhythm and the freedom to not work in an overly-structured environment?
I’ll answer it’s because I’ve worked 40 hours previously and know I can maintain it. Ultimately, one has to deal with the ambiguity that any amount of time per day or week is arbitrary, so no sense over thinking it. I picked something I know I can do, and it was exciting and stretched me.
I’ve also worked 60 hr weeks, and can definitively answer I need fewer hours than that.
Balance can mean a lot of things, and “your own rhythm” might genuinely include not wanting to push through some thorny problem, or wait until you are at your peak alertness to make a relatively minor decision.
Sometimes disciplining yourself to a schedule removes the ambiguity of whether you keep working after completing what you’re working on. It gives a clear line of delineation between work time, and off work.
It was a challenging day though, I will definitely have to give myself a lot of latitude, especially as I start out.
Absolutely, I agree with this.
Without structure, your own feelings become such an easy cop-out for so many situations.
I settle at 50 hours/week, and it works for me.
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 12.5 hours
Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: Off (except for emergencies)
Rob Walling posted a study on SaaS solo founders before. It found that, as their weekly hours increase, their MRRs increase too. The correlation stops at about 50 hours a week IIRC.
But hey, whatever works! It's all highly subjective and up to the individual.