The way we're working isn't working

What Hacker News says

1. ahoyhereFeb 2013
   If you want a book full of studies on this very topic -- many of which show the perils, yes, of trying to do non-manual-labor for extended hours -- get the book Be Excellent at Anything, which is a misnomer. The book used to be titled The Way We're Working Isn't Working, and it was a huge overview of studies that show, well, the way people are working isn't working.
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2. ahoyhereNov 2011
   You don't need to take your health advice from 37s -- the book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working" is basically nothing BUT cited research that shows how overwork hurts everybody & everything, including the employer/project.
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3. DTrejoFeb 2011
   I am reading The Way We're Working Isn't Working, also by Schwartz, and I would highly recommend it (though you've already read one book by him, so it might be overkill).
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4. contextualNov 2013
   Tony Schwartz in his book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working" is big on naps. It's basically the crux of the book. In it, he mentions a study on laboratory mice. They were deprived of sleeping or even being unconscious until they died.

   From this Tony Schwatz deduces we have a daily nap.

   Michel Jouvet[1] was the researcher who developed Modafinil. In one of his experiments, Jouvet deprived cats of sleep until they drowned in a vat of water. On average, the cats survived 35 days with only micro-sleep[2].

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jouvet [2] http://psychology4a.com/sleep8.htm

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5. contextualSep 2013
   There's been a lot of scientific research and animal experimentation on sleep the past several decades. Michel Jouvet[1] forced cats to stay awake until they drowned. Most cats survived for 35 days.[2]

   Tony Schwartz in his book "The Way We're Working Isn't Working" also mentioned a study on laboratory mice. They were deprived of ever sleeping until they died.

   From this Tony Schwatz advises we have a daily nap.

   I'm sure there are countless other hellish and inhumane experiments animals are going through to better our understanding of sleep. But it seems like we still don't know much.

   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Jouvet [2] http://psychology4a.com/sleep8.htm

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6. ryanmoldenJan 2012
   Coincidentally enough I just started reading The Way We're Working Isn't Working and this one of the arguments he makes (i.e. that we tend to run ourselves ragged by trying to work longer and longer hours to 'be more productive', when it usually results in just the opposite).

   I can definitely attest to the fact that my periods of greatest productivity tend to come in spurts as the book talks about (sprints of say 90 or so minutes of highly concentrated work) as opposed to being the result of long slogs of say 10 hours of coding, which tends to produce volumes of code, but not necessarily my best code.

   Good book so far (http://www.amazon.com/Way-Were-Working-Isnt-Performance/dp/1...).

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