It's a complicated issue, but I like this perspective.
I began arriving an hour earlier, and staying an hour later. But at 8 am, the same people were already in working. And at 6 pm, they showed no signs of going home.
I’m the competitive sort, so I rose to the challenge. I cranked it up to 12-hour days, 7 am to 7 pm. But the same people were still in there before me and stayed after me.
This silent arms race escalated for another six months, at great personal strain.
But then I came to a realization. The additional hours were not translating into extra progress, but rather only into extra exhaustion. So I went back to working eight-hour days, before moving on a few years later to a faculty position at Harvard.
