I figure I'd weigh in as I'm someone who explicitly likes long hours more than a 40hr work week, which I consider the worst possible schedule.
My current schedule, and my favorite schedule ever, is as follows.
25hr week - 9-2 is grind time. High-quality ununterrupted work time. 5 hours straight. Then it's lunch. After that, in once sense I consider the work day over.
60hr week? - What is work time anyways? I'm "on call" till 6... sometimes till 10. I'm a cofounder for a volunteer organization, which means evenings are when everyone else is most available. Usually that time is social, and it's waiting on other people's time. So I have all my irl tasks and todo list and work through it until someone needs something from me.
This means my minimum work week is 25hours, which I quite enjoy. More often than not I'm on for at least 2-3hrs per weekend day, so let's round to 30hrs. I far prefer tapping into weekends over extending on clock time over the weekday. Weekends aren't a good vacation, imo. But down time is important, so because weekends are good volunteer time, I often have some kind of weekday of sailing or some other mind-off-work leisure activity.
In a more direct accounting sense I'm doing 60hr weeks. As I'm not task switching out of work tasks until 6pm, that's 9hrs a day, usually 7 days a week, weekends can go longer or anything can go late, so if I do take a short day for sailing it's padded elsewhere.
This kind of 60hr week is very sustainable for me. I work from home and have a baby home gym, but I also go to my regular gym a few days a week. I fit in quality family time after 6, and all my life maintainance tasks between 2 & 6. (Or in the morning hours before 9.) I still have weekly date night, occasional leisure days. I can maintain my personal network, throw house parties and BBQs and visit as well. I have to have my shit together, I can't make bad time management decisions, but I can also handle coordinating a remodel of the downstairs without killing myself.
~70hr week? - If I instead went with a 60hr week with commute times, and it was 10hrs a day with one day off, and all the on clock time was scheduled as high quality time, that would be a very different scheduled sustainability wise. As described that 60hrs is more like actually a 70hr week, especially with like lunch and break times off the clock during office hours, and commute.
85hr week - My maximum maintainable schedule looks like the following. Start at 8. (Changes: breakfast is heat & eat, quick shower, no morning reading, day planning done quickly.) Break at 2. 3-7 also quality work time, intermixed with "meetings". That's now a 10 hour day. No day off, 70hr week. On call till 9 on weekdays, 80hr week. Add weekends 85hr week.
If I really have everything together, my schedule is tight, my habits effecient, home gym has everything I need, I'm healthy and everyone I rely on is onboard, so I don't have to do anything auxiliary (such as chores) 80-85hrs could be maintained for over a year. I'd be able to squeeze in monthly date nights for my girl, and a few other minimal standard of living like things. But it would be a team effort on the home front.
100 + 120hr weeks - I've done 100hr week sprints, and I have one 120hr week under my belt. 100hrs you loose stuff like taskwitching out from work during lunch. That's 7hours. You loose night time, that's 7+ hours. From 85 to 100. For 120 hrs you loose any semblance of a morning routine (this is fatal for long term mental health). You also loose any potential moments of down time. Brushing your teeth, you're also on your phone reviewing something at the very least. You also start to loose sleep, and literally every moment of your life has to be automated. You can't do anything that isn't work. WAKE WORK SLEEP, maybe remember to eat. There are 168 hours in a week, leaving 48 hrs for sleep which is 6hrs 50mins of sleep a night.
Moreover, and this is the key, you need a team wherever your work is to manage you, because you can't manage yourself with those hours. You can only do it with a constant feed of bite sized things to do, and a team to whom you can punt decision fatigue issues and tasks you don't click into right away.
40 hr weeks 🤬 - I hate 40 hour weeks, specifically because they are tiring, but not exhilarating. 60hr weeks feel fucking legendary, done right, you feel on top of the world, everything in your life has to be smooth, elegant, effecient and effective. You need to have your shit together, you need to be dialed in at work, and with family, and in your motivation and life goals. 40 hours can suck, massively. You come home burned out and tired, veg out in front of the TV, ignore problems in your life you can, and you never really get everything together. 60 hours doesn't allow for that kind of comatose state.
60hr week 😇 - Try a 60hr week. You don't have to work 60hrs, but schedule 60hours in your week to do things which require you at your best. Schedule all those things on your bucket list into your day. Live your best life. Want to learn ice skating? Put that on your ideal week schedule as part of your 60 hrs. Then make your life at home work, make it possible to do 60 hrs of your best every week. Solve the problems in your life, emotional, habitual, social, organizational, or even spiritual that hold you back.
Even if I were doing only a minimal 25 hours, I'd want my life life to be put together the way 60hrs feels. I'd just have a lot more items I've listed out in my life goals on my day to day, and not postponing them for after what I'm doing now is off the ground such that I can take a break.
Live the 60hrs you want to live, it is seriously worth it!
(Also, absolutely no one read into this any criticism of op, 60 hours drawing sounds absolutely brutal. My limit for artwork before it starts to really suck is like 2-3 hours. Can't imagine what 8+ hours doing fine motor skill work does to the body. But what hours are like for different people varies a lot. I'm an insane person who thrives in extreme situations. I can't handle "normal," a regular 9-5 is incompatible with me. I also take long breaks off from anything like work. Months to do what I want to do, like a major sailing trip or world travel. I like all my work to be in one place, and all my time off in one place. I look at time more like Seneca than like a corporate middle manager.
I hate wasting time, I love spending time on leisure. Deep thought. Peace. Philosophy. Learning. Self improvement. Dreaming. Romance. The stuff that matters to me. Working long when I do work means I live my best life. It would be impossible otherwise. So work only to live your best life. That's my advice.
