Photo Credit: Debajyoti Das via Flickr
A few days ago, I put up a post on my company website, about the availability of co working space at our office in Gurgaon. I received a couple of enquires from folks who were interested in sharing space but it didn’t work out for any of them.
All of them were startups. And almost all of them wanted 24×7 access to code through night and day, weekends included.
My company is slightly more than a year old and I consider it to still be in a ‘startup’ mode.
However, right from day 1, I had taken a stance that we would work regular hours and 5 days a week and hence my office timings are 10am to 7pm, Mon to Fri. (the main reason why it didnt work for the startups)
The entire experience had me questioning myself a bit about if I was doing the right thing instead of working almost 24×7 which seems to be di rigueur these days for a startup.
Ofcourse, I do end up working much longer hours and on most Saturdays but I have a notional sense of freedom about the fact that I can take a weekend trip whenever I want to.
So here is question for everyone: What are your ‘office timings’ and how many hours in a week do you usually end up working ? Also do you officially work on Saturdays and Sundays ?
Shrinivas
Abhik, Nice thought about workspace sharing.
Regarding your question on hours of work in a start-up, i think it completely depends and an common answer is very unlikely. The hours of work is directly related to your goals – either long or short term and how do you plan to achieve it.
As you mentioned, i have seen people working for more than 18 hrs a day, 7 days a week during initial phases of their business and some work only for 2-3 hrs as I did.. depending on the nature of work, immediate goals and targets like: market needs, delivery, demand, sales, revenue. etc
Well, if you have employees then its a different story. You need to make sure the staff is engaged in productive work and for this a fixed time routine like 10 – 7 helps in developing an sense of discipline.
Hope this helps!
Rajiv Lulla
Segregating work and “free-time” is a mind-set.
There are times, when I go home early, to be with my daughter, but spend time on the computer, e-mailing clients, sending quotations, fixing up meetings.
Conversely, being in office, many-a-time I am on errands not related to work (oops!).
The key here is not hours, but productivity.
If you are productively inclined, you will find yourself working better.
And, YEAH, disciplining yourself to get out of office at a fixed time (more-or-less) everyday, will ensure that you focus on productive and efficient working.
Surabhi
Hi Abhik,
I work 6 days a week and office timing is 7am to 10pm which I think is good but I just have a weekend leave. I do not have time for enjoyment and as pursuing engineering I used to wake up at 6 am to have some studies.
This schedule goes as-usual and I don’t when I will be having a good stress free life.
Aneja Raj
Don’t work too hard. Americans generally work only four and a half days a week.They are still the NO 1 economy in where start ups have thrived. But they start very early during week days, mornings are productive.
Abhik Prasad
Thanks Shrinivas.
I was just looking to get a sense of the amount of hours people put in (and the office hours) and I understand that there is no one single ideal model for everyone.
Abhik Prasad
Rajiv,
I used to work from home before moving to an office setup…and you are right, having fixed office hours forces a sort of discipline compared to working from home where work sort of expands to fill the time available and you are almost ‘on 24×7’.
Abhik Prasad
Surabhi,
Do you by any chance work in investment banking on Wall Street 😉
Thats quite a crazy set of hours indeed that you work there 🙁
Abhik Prasad
Aneja,
You are right. 6 am is indeed rush hour in the US and when I used to work there, my day also started pretty earlier. However, these days, very people go home at 5 and most people work quite crazy hours there, starting early and leaving late.
however, weekends are still pretty sacrosanct which doesnt seem to be the case in India yet 🙁
Natasha
Well, am still working. 🙂
I work in a Production support environment, and I dont think thats a “happy happy” scenario. But most of the IT world revolves around not working but “being available” for 24 X 7 support. One of the key factors to promotion as well is the number of weekends you have put in to complete the work.
Rajiv Lulla
Abhik,
While working from office does enforce discipline, I think back to my bootstrapping days when I worked from home, a solid 2 years…..I used to be more relaxed, ate on time, completed things must faster since commuting was less.
But overall productivity and growth was being hampered… 🙂
Both office and home have pros-cons.
Key is to be able to have a productivity mindset, and of course, beyond a certain size, work from home does not work !!
Aneja Raj
Agreed with most of the posts. My personal belief is Not to Work too hard. Always take time off – go to the beach with your family and friends and have a Beer. In the long run, working too hard may not matter. Its about how effectively you can manage your time and Work smart. My quote – Work Smart Party Hard!
Surabhi
No, I am not working Investment banking sector, my schedule is so hectic. I can’t do anything before having good offers in my field ( electronics engineering) so how do you manage your weekends!!
Sai Rodinhood Pothuri
Its all depends on your planning and execution, but think its not about single week it has to be for the entire year or for the entire project you handle.. so according to planning and execution one can fix up a time.