70-hour work week

Infosys Co-founder, N.R Narayana Murthy made a comment that Indian youth should work 70 hours a week, there by triggered a thought provoking conversation on the work-life balance, smart work vs hard work, equity vs hired labor, stewardship vs ownership, entrepreneurship,. job moonlighting, remote work and lot more. This comment also contrasts with the new workplace trends like the 4 day work week.

In this post, I am reflecting my own experience - Back in the day, when I started my career, for several years, I used to work with a client in the San Fransico, US West Coast from Chennai, India. Due to the 13.5 hours timezone difference, my work hours used to start from 8 AM to 2 AM, every single day. Being a programmer then, I had extremely low meeting load - 70% of my work time was coding, with 10% on team activities, 10% on client meetings and about 5% recharging. If I translate into work time, that is 70 hours. Surprisingly, I reflected on my most recent week, and found that I am clocking 60 hour weeks on average, not far from 70 hour work week, given my current stage in life.

How did it happen? I consider learning as work. Thanks to the rapidly evolving tech landscape - be it blockchain, Gen AI, Rust Language, Stanford exec education program I recently completed, this takes a good chunk of my work day.

Now the hard part - how can one sustain this while balancing the family time, personal time (sleep/ workouts/ travel etc) and other commitments? I will share below my productivity hacks, which are a combination of time management and leadership maneuvers.

1. Multi-tasking/ time-slicing - I open three or four interesting tasks - and keep switching between them (I am writing this post in parts when I am blocked in other tasks).
2. Flow state - I pace up the work - it slowly starts and reaches a rhythm by 1 PM. My peak work is between 12:30 PM and 4:30 PM, where I will be 2x more productive than other periods.
3. Time Timer - I got this from my Secret Santa. It is one of the best tools for the time management. I even use it in the team brainstorming sessions to keep everyone focussed on the tasks.
4. Eat the frog every day - I hate some administrative tasks - be it time sheets or expenses or mandatory corporate training or other stuff. I get this done by 8 AM to clear way for the stuff I love, rest of the day.
5. Art of time management - By planning the next day, for 10 minutes before getting off the work, I could get much more clarity and focus. Similarly, habits and routines are very powerful tools. I highly recommend James Clear's Atomic Habits.
6. Automation - This may feel surprising, but we don't maximize the tools we already have. Once I started automating the workflows around automatic mail rules, home automation, my car automation (like heating the car at 6:50 AM before I head out), my life became more focussed on important tasks.
7. Delegation - I got myself valuable time that I can use on leveraged tasks that helps me/ my team/ my company succeed. I also find a ways to get some tasks delegated based on the repeat nature of them. Other tools like automation (nowadays AI) helped met get more time for productive work.
8. Procrastination and Elimination - If it is not important, I try to push it away and see what happens. In most cases, not everything is important. Doing an amazing job, on an unimportant task, is a pure waste of time.
9. The Art of Saying No - I must admit I am still learning this. By forcing the conversation early on around the pre-set plans like OKRs, Annual Operating Plans etc., I was able to get some random ideas from becoming distractions in the midst of the delivery cycles. However, this will backfire if we cannot spot genuine creative/ innovative ideas. We do not want anyone feel that ideas not being heard. I keep curating them and discuss them for sure. However, work will commence only if it has some value/ impact assessed. The hardest thing is saying "No" to ourselves. Mind is a powerful tool.
10. Power naps, power walks, power runs- Tactical rest points worked for me. 10 mins break every 2-3 hours with an eye mask, and noise cancelling headphones, will do magic to reset the mind. I also noticed that a quick run/ walk - clears the head and makes me focused for the next work segment.

I am sure there are more, but the above are my top 10 that consistently delivered results. Keeping things interesting, learning (and unlearning), trying new things is the best way to extend hours as needed.

A visualization technique that helps me frame my plans goes like this - Imagine that there is a time machine, using which I could go back 5 years, and do things different, will I do that? Conversely, I visualize myself 5 years into the future and will be asking myself the same question. If the answer is yes to the task/ plan in hand, I will do that. Or else, drop that, at least for now.

I cannot help but also remember this lovely song by Billy Joel. Don't let the work drive life. It is a very important part of life, but not life itself. Live the moment.

Can the readers share some productivity hacks and focus tools that worked for you in the comments below.