Rework: 15 hours a day to become a hero
Like almost all technology entrepreneurs, I’ve spent most of my life sitting in front of a computer, often until late nights. The irony is that in fact, our future goals are to spend as little time with computers as possible, but we mostly feel comfortable with them, we don’t regret the past and don’t feel like we’re missing anything important.
The reason why we’ve devoted a section of our being to technology is very clear: we’ve chosen one field and we want to be the best in it. It’s not possible to focus on more than one thing. But is it good or wrong to work 12 hours a day? Do people tell you that you work too much? What does “too much” mean? Where’s the line between work and a hobby? If you spend half of that time just reading and educating yourself or emailing on a smartphone, is that considered as work too?
Rework says:
“Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.”
As much as I believe this is true, I also believe there are times and certain fields where there’s just no other choice. Sometimes it’s necessary to work “too much” to accomplish a goal with great results. You can easily find already rich people working very hard, or even Steve Jobs replying to random people on a late Saturday night. With thousands of employees, enough money and so much experience, can’t they just delegate or figure out a faster way to get things done? Maybe they really aren’t able to, but instead of figuring this question out, maybe we should rather ask: Would Apple exist today if Steve Wozniak didn’t work hard back in the days? Would Microsoft exist if Bill Gates went partying at 9 PM every day in his teen years instead of working?
There’s a certain goal threshold which you need to cross before you can stop working or start delegating heavily. Sometimes there are more thresholds depending on your actual goals and strategies.
However, I haven’t heard of a single entrepreneur who’d like to die with hands on a keyboard. Neither myself - I enjoy not working and I’ve developed my own system. But I sure know that the real hero is not finished at 5 PM. The real hero does what he wants, what he likes, with who he likes, anywhere, no matter the time. And if dying trying to stay on or reach that threshold one day is his goal, then who is entitled to judge whether the methods are too much or not?
