> I think if you are truly just doing productive, meaningful technical work, beyond 3 full days most people can't do it. People can do it for short periods of time, but more than 3 days leads to universal burnout.
This is similar to my experience.
Back in 2020 I decided to make a career switch from accounting to software engineering. I began studying in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening while working a full-time job. I quickly discovered that I could only study in the morning with a lighter review in the evening.
Eventually, I got to the point where I had to walk away from work and study full-time because it was so mentally exhausting. Around that time, I started learning Greek as well. I attended classes once per week and observed that I had to lighten my CompSci studying workload on days I had Greek class. Otherwise, I would have a high degree of difficulty learning Greek that evening.
I was hitting my mental exhaustion limit after 5 hours of intense, technical learning every day. If I tried to push past that point, I would burn myself out and become noticeably less productive. This was something I had never realized while in school with frequent built in breaks (and perhaps more energy from being younger).
When I was studying for the CPA exam in the library for 8 hours per day, I thought I was being highly efficient the entire time. However, looking back on it, I was spending a good portion of that time taking breaks and doing lighter review of material I already knew, which was not too taxing (pun intended) on my mental energy.
Now, I’m well aware of my upper limits of hard work and find that forcing myself past that point isn’t worth the trade-off of mental exhaustion. I realistically believe that I could switch to a 4 day work week and accomplish the same amount while being more energized in the long-run. I’d love to get the opportunity to test my hypothesis.
As a side note: I found when I was studying full-stack material, switching between backend and front end work when I began to tire of one slowed the rate of my mental exhaustion.
This is similar to my experience.
Back in 2020 I decided to make a career switch from accounting to software engineering. I began studying in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening while working a full-time job. I quickly discovered that I could only study in the morning with a lighter review in the evening.
Eventually, I got to the point where I had to walk away from work and study full-time because it was so mentally exhausting. Around that time, I started learning Greek as well. I attended classes once per week and observed that I had to lighten my CompSci studying workload on days I had Greek class. Otherwise, I would have a high degree of difficulty learning Greek that evening.
I was hitting my mental exhaustion limit after 5 hours of intense, technical learning every day. If I tried to push past that point, I would burn myself out and become noticeably less productive. This was something I had never realized while in school with frequent built in breaks (and perhaps more energy from being younger).
When I was studying for the CPA exam in the library for 8 hours per day, I thought I was being highly efficient the entire time. However, looking back on it, I was spending a good portion of that time taking breaks and doing lighter review of material I already knew, which was not too taxing (pun intended) on my mental energy.
Now, I’m well aware of my upper limits of hard work and find that forcing myself past that point isn’t worth the trade-off of mental exhaustion. I realistically believe that I could switch to a 4 day work week and accomplish the same amount while being more energized in the long-run. I’d love to get the opportunity to test my hypothesis.
As a side note: I found when I was studying full-stack material, switching between backend and front end work when I began to tire of one slowed the rate of my mental exhaustion.