Why the endless “grind” mindset will be your downfall.

Working 18 hours a day is absolutely not possible in any productive manner.

Look at all the celebrated “productive” people, and the advice they give, and you will see endless messages about how you just need to “grind” from the moment you wake up, to the moment you sleep. Elon Musk is a large proponent of this but just think about it — is the person arguing with teenagers on twitter constantly really productive from sunrise to sunset?

I’ll let you in on a secret ,  the truth is they all say they work constantly. This 18 hours of work a day they claim includes dinners every day, flights, socializing in hotel bars, and many hours-long golfing trips with other execs multiple times a month. Every moment they’re awake they claim to be “working”, and in effect this is true — the reason they have their jobs isn’t through some intense technical ability, but rather their ability to make connections and be charismatic. Most of them were merely average at the entry point jobs they originally joined at, but they all rose fast due to their likeability, not their immense productivity.

It’s bad for you.

Try to be productive for even a slightly less insane 10 hours a day and see what happens. You’ll be irritable. You’ll be tired. Your mental health will eventually start falling into ruins. Your social skills will fall through the floor. That’s only the short term effects, apparent after a few weeks — sleep deprivation alone (a reason you can’t be productive all day everyday, it will greatly ruin your productivity) is highly correlated with alzheimers if long term. There’s also a noticeable IQ reduction in people sleep deprived long term.

It just isn’t the way to get s!%t done

Aim for 3 hours. 3 truly focused hours of productivity a day, will get you very very far, very fast. With enough discipline push for 4–5. If you start feeling burnt out, bring it down to 2. If you’re being “productive” for more than 5, and the task you’re doing requires any higher levels of thought, I guarantee you aren’t being productive. Willpower is a depletable asset in humans, and you only have so much each day to remain focused.

It’s stupid to idolise working all day. You won’t live a fulfilling life. You will get more done by doing less. Ignore anyone selling you an infinite grind mindset, they’re absolutely not productive constantly