Ask Lemmy

I have worked as assortment of jobs over the years, and I think anything past 6-7 hours a day becomes overly draining. In my 20's I did retail, and I was fine at 6 hours/ 25-30 hours a week. Got hours increased and found it hard to be decent at home. Paperwork is similar, but if I mixed in some on site / driving around I could stretch it a little. Only job I could work 40 fairly consistently was forklift in warehouse work. Sitting, consistent breaks, mental focus that was fairly diverse with downtime. Staying on a single task for 8 hours, day after day, is torture, especially if it involves mental or emotional stress.

For me, 40 hours (legally 37.5) was too much. I got home drained every day and neglected my personal life.

I'm not sure what my true sweet spot is. Right now I'm part time with multiple jobs and it changes week to week.

I joined my present employer to do a project and got to set my preferred hours, which I set at 4 days of 6 hours per week. That was lovely! They later took me on full time, whereupon I started working 5 days but was able to keep the 6 hour workday and that has been the norm since. Pretty much ideal IMO.

For me, it depends how those hours are grouped. I currently work five 8-hour days and hate it. I miss working three 12's. I only work a few more hours per week doing 8's than I did with 12's, but I have two thirds more commute time, and never have a weekday off, so it feels like I work almost twice as much. And it's a pain trying to schedule appointments for anything, since I work the same hours as doctors, banks, etc.

<40h

But considering my hobby is essentially also my job it feels a bit lile a 50 atm.

I switched from 40 to 30 (6h @ 5 days) two years ago and it's been magical. I get the same shit done in 6 vs 8 hours (because realistically I can't concentrate for 8 hours straight, so there is some empty time in there anyway) and have more time in the day for myself. And I still make good money even with the pay cut.

For me 32h/week is fine. Sweet spot would be at 24h/week but that's pretty unrealistic if you want to pay your bills.

It depends so much on the work but I think 25-35 is a healthy work life balance. I for one would rather have a well rested surgeon that's on a 30 hour a week schedule than one that's been pulling back to back to back 12 hour shifts

32

My first full time job job out in the wild was as a retail manager. I was expected to work 54 hours and during the Christmas season I basically was at the store if it was open, period. My record at that job was 80 hours in one week.

That was between the ages of 21 to 24. By the time I was 23 I was already completely burned out. Unable to enjoy life, making next to no money to boot. Seemed like every year there was some excuse why my bonus sucked, even though I ran the most profitable store, by percentage and dollars, in the entire region. It culminated in my regional manager forcing my district manager to demote me to another store because I didn't run the sales gain numbers he thought I should... Even though my store was both profitable and I ran sales gains every month. They handed my clean, well sorted store to a god damn thief who they ended up pressing charges against within the next year. But hey, he ran big sales gain numbers. The regional manager was an absolute prick and he later got fired for stealing carpet...

The company is out of business now and good riddance.

40 hours is more than enough time to devote to making a paycheck. Honestly, 32 hours is enough too, especially since these employers expect you to commute. Concepts like "Rush Hour" only exist because of the insanity of making a buck.

I left retail to enter the IT industry, which can have some crazy hours too. I did my stint being on call and doing changes at 3am on Sunday mornings, working outages that lasted for days. Those days are behind me too. Today I work from home and my boss only cares if my work is done and that I'm available to answer emails.

Was working 32 for a bit. It was amazing. Now we got bumped to 36, not bad, but I do miss the extra time off.

I have worked 40 for most of my life which is tolderable but not ideal. A few years ago, it was 45-50. I really, really don't ever want to be over 40 again.

I'd be happiest if full time was 6 hour shifts, 3 days a week, with enough pay to actually have money left over for groceries and vacations after the bills are paid. Any more hours than that, and I'm miserable.

I’m pulling this number out of my ass, but I estimate most office jobs are actually only productive for 5-6 hours a day. So I would say 30 hours, and give back 2 hours of people’s lives every day instead of having people be in the office (or be online in front of a work computer somewhere else) for 8 hours.

I do more than 40 most weeks and don't burn out because I have help at home, take time to exercise, take my PTO.

I read once "more than 4 hours a day of work is not conducive to spiritual development" and think they have a point. My ideal workday really would be 4 hours. Probably noon to 4 so that I could manage to be productive.

0! Every second you spend making someone else money is time not spent enriching your own life or building your own wealth. It wears on the soul. You can ignore this fact all they want, but that also takes some amount of energy. When you get to the point where you can be your own boss or charge your own rate for the service you provide, that's when you will find the real number.

Science says for knowledge work 3-4 hours/day about 4-5 days/week to not get compounding risk of errors or injury. For manual labor that limit is about 30-32 hours/week including prepping your work.

Both assuming at least 2 weeks vacation and extra time off for injury and illness.

I just read Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang on the topic.

I know a lot of people here are fans of the 4 day workweek idea, but personally I think a 5-day work week, with 1 week per month off is a better schedule. Having 9 uninterrupted days off is very stress reducing and allows for working on multiday personal projects or doing some limited traveling.

For that sort of schedule, five 8 hour days is a baseline, but even going up to 9 or 10 hours as needed feels a lot more doable. As long as that flexibility to stretch hours is factored into the salary of course. If that's done I think it is better for both the employees and the business in terms of getting projects done and people staying motivated.

Making this sort of schedule more common would require more expectations put on managers to properly organize schedules, since businesses I see doing this rotate through who is off so that the business is open the whole month.

It is going to vary by profession and the person doing it.

With that said, all professions have a cap on how much you can do them and adversely affect you in different ways.

Manufacturing jobs are brutal on your joints.

Manual labor such as construction and auto mechanic are brutal on your entire body.

White collar jobs abuse you mentally and are harder to leave at work.

Now with all jobs you may be “on the clock” for 40 hours but you won’t spend all that time actually do your job function.

When I was in construction it was wild how much time was spent doing random shit that wasn’t “construction “.

Now that I am in IT it is equally amazing how much of my time is dedicated to not doing IT shit.

My sweet spot is fewer days and longer shifts. I currently do 4 10s and I had one job that was 3 12s one week and 4 12s the next. That was awesome.

Some weeks I enthusiastically work 60 hours and sometimes I really have nothing to give except like...10. It really just needs to be more flexible all around.

it totally depends on the person and their life

42. Not joking this time.

In my humble opinion you should be entitled to a minimum of 75% of your day for personal use.

My work won't let me take more than 37 hours a week.

I want to, but because of the union, they can't let me. Instead, they call in extra help.

The cool thing is when they can get extra help and they need to ask me if I want. I get doubled up in my wage and sometimes a bonus just for taking the shift.

I won't complain as I can also take a second part time job but for now it's fine

I work a bit of a weird schedule

I do 12 hour shifts on a 2-2-3 rotation

So week 1 I work Monday, Tuesday, and Friday-Sunday

Then Week 2 I only work Wednesday and Thursday

Technically for payroll purposes I think technically that Sunday I work is part of week, but that's a stupid way to think about it day-to-day

So basically one week I work 5 days, and the next week 2

Or if you're a payroll bean counter, 4 and 3

So on average 3½ days a week, or basically a 4 day work week.

And I really like it despite the fact that I actually work slightly more hours than someone with a normal 40 hour work week.

I never have to work more than 3 days in a row without a 2 day break

I have days off during the week to squeeze appointments and such in

Sure I have to work every other weekend, but every other weekend is basically a free 3 day weekend.

And if you plan your vacations and such carefully you can get a whole week but only need to take 2 days off. That gets a little funny because our PTO is mostly based around 8 hour days since most people here have a normal workweek and they dont change it for those of us who work 12s, it mostly averages out, especially since we work less days overall, but it's not exact and I'm usually left with a handful of hours left over that don't add up to a full shift at the end of the year. A lot of it can carry over year-to-year though, so not a huge deal.

35-40. My new work gives me such a healthy balance of activities and incentives to work, as well as a home day. My previous work it was closer to 30, with summers off (unpaid). I needed the downtime to recover mentally. The home day does that for me and now I get paid all summer.

I think it depends on the environment.

This all depends on your life. Health. Relationships. Etc. 

It always affects your life. Whether that effect is positive or negative depends more on the quality of the work than the quantity.

40 hours in a week. After that it will start to affect your life