How many hours should a knowledge worker - who is also the founder - work or manage the team? And what is the definition of wasting time - to you as a founder?
Is this for you or someone else?
If it’s for the founder that isn’t you, then it’s up for them to decide the difference. Unless you’re their equal or their manager, they’re spending their own time.
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Do not make a metric out of how many hours you work. Among other things, this directly encourages wasting time: you’ll find yourself and others on your team inventing TPS reports just to fill hours up while “working.” Alternatively, you might psych yourself into working all of the available hours, which is a direct path to burnout with all of the predictable consequences.
I get better results for myself when thinking in terms of tasks, and in terms of quality of work. The corollary of quality of work is quality of rest, so the answer to shoot for on how many breaks you take is “often enough that your work is at least a little better when you start again.”
Huge grey area. I like to think I work a “chill 60,” which means my work day/week seems fairly normal (and probably less than 40) but the reality is I’m working more like 60-80 because the business is always on my mind.