Coping with 80 hour work-week is hard. It can be impossible if you’re not industrious, desperate, or determined for your personal mission. I am definitely the second option. I wished it was the third, and ‘the mission’ definitely encourages me to push that way. However, the need for funds to afford food, rent, insurance... It pushes me into a place of being the second. However, I plan to be in their category soon.
Two months of lockdown and then two months of being fucked around by the insurance company… I’m so hungry and stressed.
I just want to wake up and not worry about rent and groceries for once.
What Makes The Week Fly By
“If you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life” That’s a bullshit saying. Work is work, and the novelty will wear off. You’ll have days you’ll want to quit and shifts that never end.
Enjoying your job, or service makes all the difference, however. If it’s your business or your dream, it doesn’t make sense to not work 80 hours a week. This is your thing, your legacy, and the system that you’re contributing to the larger society.
I guess I’m in a crucial inbetween. With sponsorship in front of my eyes once more, and a growling stomaching screaming from more than chicken and broccoli I’m willing to throw myself into long shifts. At least you don’t sweat or bleed while you sell. Much more comfortable than tree-planting.
Taking pride in it definitely helps. I used to judge people who took pride in 60hour weeks. People that used that as a benchmark of how hard they worked or how industrious they were. I guess to a degree they still have that, as its 50% more than the average workweek.
80 is 100% more than average, and 33% more than the 60. Those 60 hour weeks are hard, and leave you exhausted and with a life bare of other experiences. However, 80 hour weeks are the next level. A life where everything blends and nights with 6 hours of sleep is seen as marvelous.
Tips For Making It Work
Coping with 80 hour work-week is a challenge that likely won’t get easier over time. An extreme push that will always fringe on the red zone of human capabilities.
Keep yourself to a schedule. You’ll need to organize and plan your free time. Cooking, hygiene, sleep, and those personal minutes of self-enjoyment are vital for health and sanity. Motivation and output. There’s no reason to go 80 hours if there’s no output.
Have a scheduler; tell yourself everything you can realistically do with your time and remaining energy. If you lose yourself outside of work, you’re at risk of losing your purpose.
Manage your sleep. 8 hours a night isn’t realistic. 6 is and should be aimed for. The human body can maintain optimum output at 6 hours, it’s just adjusting to a shorted sleep schedule that’s the hard part. Tea before bed helps and sleeping in a warm environment helps with maximum rest during the night.
However waking up to a cold room has a way of waking you up and getting you moving.
The Importance Of A Purpose
Sometimes you do an 80 hour week because your boss tells you. Sometimes you’re a masochist. or desperately trying to get by. Otherwise, you’re industrious and have no place reading a blog like this, as it’s in your DNA to go 80 hours if not more. However, those that have a mission or purpose may lose sight of it if they’ve lost balance and focus in their life.
It’s dangerous to make work your only sense of virtue. COVID showed this, as many protested to go back to work because their identity and mental health couldn’t take the inactivity.
Recharging between work allows you to remember why you’re doing it. Why you’re so tired all the time, why you’re hungry, and skipping all the things you enjoy. If you don’t have a purpose to guide yourself, then you’ll burn out. Or reach a place of financial stability and decide you no longer need to grind to the bone.
Its Not For Everyone
Guys like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos preach the importance of the 100-hour workweek. How its the only way to create true change in the world, and to achieve those larger than imagination dreams. But not everyone can do them. As I said, you need a mission, balance, and if you’re going to be coping with the 80-hour workweek chronically, well you need to be industrious.
Not everyone should be industrious. It would make for an awfully dull society. A whole bunch of Dwight Schrute’s. Free time’s important because its the time that allows us to spend and consume. To allow us too remember why we want money and work so hard in the first place
To Mentally Prepare
Coping with the 80 hour work-week is hard, but menta preperation makes the world of difference. Understand you’re diet will not be as good. You’re going to be tired all the time. You won’t have time to enjoy your hobbies and you may get frustrated at the start because you’re just so damn tired.
Kids are tiring and eventually people get used to those, or so I’ve heard.
Maybe the 80 hour work week’s like a kid. Like a kid but super rewarding if you put the time and effort into it and understand its not about you anymore, but it’s still important to retain levels of individuality.
I Got More Than I Bargained For, Now What?