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Every so often I see something trending that says something along the lines of  ‘if you put in x% more hours, you’re going to do x% better’. In my experience, this is dangerous nonsense and it’s getting on my nerves, so I’m writing this to send out the next time I see it. 

Definitions

The context of ‘hours = success’ is usually in a work environment. It comes out when you’re looking to make something happen, maybe you’re looking for a promotion, maybe you want to meet a deadline, but ultimately you’re trying to achieve something. So let’s amend the title for a moment, hours != achievement. 

When I say hours, bearing in mind the context, I mean extra hours, time beyond what you’re contractually obliged or have to put in. So I’m saying ‘putting in extra hours != achievement’. Intuitively I can see why people would believe the opposite. If you want to achieve something and you can’t do it in the time you have, if you get more time, you can. That’s maths. But like a lot of mathematical proofs it’s based on a number of assumptions:

• The ‘something’ you’re trying to achieve is clearly defined
• The amount time ‘something’ takes to complete is known
• The ‘something’ you’re trying to achieve can only be done this way
• The reason you ‘can’t’ do it is solely based on the time constraint
• That doing this ‘something’ is going to help you achieve your goal

If what you’re trying to achieve meets all of this criteria, then yes if you put more hours in, you will achieve what you want to achieve. And this is undeniably true for a lot of things, cooking food for example, or a competitive athlete running a race, or skydiving, etc. But the vast majority of times this idea is used in the context of work, especially if broadcasted to people on the internet who don’t understand the assumptions it makes, it’s dangerous. 

Work smart

Probably the most common counter to this idea of hours = success is to ‘work smart, not hard.’ If I have a clearly defined task, let’s say I have to create a presentation about my work to give to my boss, and I have to do it by a certain time, just putting more hours in will get me there, sure, or I can it smarter. For the sake of illustration, let’s say I have to present it tomorrow afternoon and it’s the afternoon when I start. 

Approach #1

I start right away, I plan what I’m going to present, I collect all of my notes and all of my ideas, and I put them into some slides. I start thinking about what I’m going to say, and I start playing with the slides. I’m off. A few hours go by, I make progress, but I have more to do, so I put more hours in and I keep going into the evening. 

My normal 8 hour work day finished 3 hours ago. I start to get tired, the presentation is in the afternoon, but I'm not crazy, if I keep going it’s more likely to be detrimental in the long term if I don’t get good sleep, so I stop. I go to sleep and I pick it back up in the morning. 

I’ve put the extra hours in, there’s not a lot left to do, I can do it in time. I put more time in to keep iterating, I finish the presentation, and I’m happy with it. I’m a little tired, but that’s nothing that some coffee and some lunch can’t fix right. Sure. So I get coffee, I eat lunch, and while I fuel up I rehearse. I feel good about it. 

This sounds alright. Maybe even familiar? And it definitely lends something to the idea of hours = success, ultimately, you got it done. Good job. But let’s think about an alternative approach. 

Approach #2

I start by asking the boss for exactly what she wants to see. I send messages out to colleagues who have already done this presentation, asking if I can see/use the template of their presentation, and most importantly, I commit to doing it before the end of my work day and just do finishing touches in the morning. 

Then, assuming those people will take a while to get back to me, I take an ‘MVP’ approach. I map the skeleton of the bare minimum that has to be in the presentation and I flesh each point out with 2-3 bullet points that can be talking points. Once I’ve done this I add it to a company presentation template and I write the questions I want to ask in the speaker notes. 

If my boss or colleagues get back I iterate to suit the new information but ultimately I don’t change anything more. Instead, I send a message to my boss and write the same thing in bold on the title slide:

‘This is a first draft of a regular update deck, what’s missing?’

Finally, after the presentation I take 5 minutes to get feedback so that next time, I can spend the same, minimal amount of time, updating and improving this one. You might be thinking ‘well I could put the extra hours in this time to have a base for next time that’s even better’. But this is a fallacy. The more hours and work you put into the first version the more likely you are to go off in a weird direction based on your own assumptions of what it’s supposed to be before getting the feedback. Do the first one as minimally as you’re okay with, store it, and iterate.  

Constraints help creativity

The second reason that putting the hours in doesn't mean success is to do with constraints. If you have an unwieldy problem to solve, or a massive task to do, its very easy to get carried away. Maybe you spend too much time researching, or too much time perfecting the design, or just too much time breaking down this one task into lots of tiny ones. All are very common. 

But by imposing constraints on yourself and your work you make way for more creative solutions. Instead of spending hours researching, if you limit yourself to spending 20% of your time on the research you force yourself to think about the best search terms, or to write down the most useful stuff more quickly. Instead of spending hours tweaking the text box size or alignment you have to find a template that’s ‘good enough’ so that you can focus on the content, etc. The point is constraints help creativity, and time is a very good constraint to give, for this, and the other reasons here. 

Long term

And all of that is not to mention that working like this in the long term is just unsustainable. At some point you’re going to tire yourself out and burn out. Whether it’s physically or mentally with what you’re trying to achieve. It’s easy to think hours = success, it’s easy to feel like you have to do more. Especially if your boss says so, or especially if you’re in that kind of environment. And to an extent, yes, you do have to put the work in sometimes. 

But, there’s a better way. Raise your hand, and apply your own constraints, challenge yourself to be more efficient, take the time to think outside of the boss. Everyone has time, everyone is using time as they go about their lives and if you’re in an environment where ‘you just have to put the hours in’ maybe you’ll break the mould and stand out if you find a more efficient way to do things. 

Conclusion

In the short term ‘hustling’ and believing hours = success might work. But in the long term the effect it’ll have on your physical and mental health, your relationships, and your general happiness, are not worth it. Whereas making short term improvements to your efficiency and ‘cleverness’ have long term effects that make things easier. If you spend time better understanding the issue, setting constraints, and making things repeatable, ultimately, you’re going to be able to do more, better. 

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