When was a mathematician, I worked as hard as I could until I was mentally exhausted. I actually calculated how much I worked per week over a period of two years.
On actual "hard thinking", like working through logic, I spent about 7 hours. There was another 7 hours writing and clarifying topics, and another 6 hours or so on classes, seminars (sort of like meetings, but productive). That gives a total of 20 hours per week on work. Beyond that, I was not productive and so I didn't do any math-related work.
If you add the administrative overhead of a job, that might be another 5 hours at most, so about 3 full workdays. 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.
Now, I'm just talking about mentally demanding, technical work. I can work longer if the work isn't very mentally demanding, but even so, not for more than 4-5 hours a day. And now I'm an independent content creator, so every additional hour I work is proportional to profit.
My conclusions after observing a ton of people in technical and nontechnical jobs is that beyond working 20-25 hours a week, having people do more is useless, especially when it comes to fostering people in the long-term (short term is different).
I feel the only reason why we have 9-5, Monday to Friday jobs is because of infantile narcissists who have no other purpose in life than to go to work and push people like machines.
On actual "hard thinking", like working through logic, I spent about 7 hours. There was another 7 hours writing and clarifying topics, and another 6 hours or so on classes, seminars (sort of like meetings, but productive). That gives a total of 20 hours per week on work. Beyond that, I was not productive and so I didn't do any math-related work.
If you add the administrative overhead of a job, that might be another 5 hours at most, so about 3 full workdays. 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.
Now, I'm just talking about mentally demanding, technical work. I can work longer if the work isn't very mentally demanding, but even so, not for more than 4-5 hours a day. And now I'm an independent content creator, so every additional hour I work is proportional to profit.
My conclusions after observing a ton of people in technical and nontechnical jobs is that beyond working 20-25 hours a week, having people do more is useless, especially when it comes to fostering people in the long-term (short term is different).
I feel the only reason why we have 9-5, Monday to Friday jobs is because of infantile narcissists who have no other purpose in life than to go to work and push people like machines.