Working Weekends

My friend Brad Feld takes a digital sabbath. No email, internet, phone for 24 hours from Friday night to Saturday night.

I’ve not been willing or able to do that but I do try to work less on the weekends.

I don’t go to the office under any circumstances on the weekends and I don’t take business meetings on the weekends either. I have told that to a few people over the years and they responded “I didn’t think I was business”. Oh well. I do not mean to offend.

I do generally spend Saturday morning in my home office catching up on personal/family work which I try not to do much of during the week. I remember my Dad doing the same when I was growing up. I did not consciously model that behavior after him but I do know where I got the idea.

The rest of the weekend is largely time off for me. I like to spend Saturday afternoons out and about with the Gotham Gal and Sunday mornings on a bike ride with my daughter, which I did today, or playing golf with friends, which I did last Sunday.

I also try like hell to get an afternoon nap in on both Saturday and Sunday.

And Sunday evenings is almost always a family meal with our kids. I look forward to that so much now that they don’t live with us anymore.

I could have titled this post “Not Working Weekends” but the truth is I do work on the weekends. I often will catch up on email on the weekends when the inbound is slower. It is the only time of the week I can seem to make a dent in my inbox.

And I will do calls on the weekends when it is necessary which is frequently.

But slowing it down for a couple days a week is a great habit and one that I’ve gotten a lot better at over the years.

I do believe that a rested body and mind is a better body and mind and the best time to make that happen is on the weekends, particularly a gorgeous fall weekend like we are having in NYC right now.

#life lessons

Comments (Archived):

  1. Alex Iskold

    Basically the same. I definitely take urgent calls when founders need help but avoid long calls. I use inbox pause and try to clean things up. Also catch up on personal email. This is a broader topic but I believe we gave up clear separation between work and life and it will be furthered blurrier. This means that some weekdays we will just do personal things and work will inevitably creep into the weekends.

  2. Richard

    Digital sabbath, yes. But not for the reasons you suggest. The issue is not work vs non work. It’s digital vs non digital.Every decade is a life of its own. Windows open, windows close.Sabbath is your day. Pay yourself first.Sabbath is your physical day.If you are in your 20s, learn to surf, master the ocean. That window is closing.In your 30s, play adult team sports. That window is closing.In your 40s, learn how to stay fit. That window is closing…..

  3. kidmercury

    There is a book called peak performance I recently listened to which I think is great for entrepreneurs and anyone trying to be the best they can be. It argues that stress + rest is essential to achieving peak performance in any skill. It argues that rest should be consistent and total when it is time to rest.

  4. jason wright

    As tech and time march on i’m expecting the very idea of week and weekend to eventually fall out of favour. the transition could be marked by a ‘tech’ and ‘techend’ phase (Brad Feld as exhibit A). The new out of sequence ‘randomain’ world could be much more creative and productive and healthy.Earth spins = 1 dayMoon orbits = 1 monthEarth orbits = 1 year

  5. PhilipSugar

    I think work is always on, but we do have to say here is a break time, not that we don’t check on things, but not schedule or be obligated.Had a great hayride and bonfire last night

    1. LE

      You don’t have to answer this but I am curious if this was a kids event or an adults event and if an adults even were people drinking around that campfire?

      1. PhilipSugar

        Very much kids and adults. No not really drinking around that campfire. Suppose you could. The birthday person is a methodist minister so it was not served suppose you could BYOB.

        1. LE

          Hah! And this is why any good attorney does not ask a question that they don’t know the answer to. I was going to make an assumption based on your point but decided first to ask you prior to making that point.

          1. PhilipSugar

            I don’t want this to go political, but the farmer who was driving the tractor had locked the gate and his daughter and three other girls were dressed up for homecoming, waiting for him to unlock. As he jumped out to unlock it he said you tell those boys I have a 12 gauge and a lot of land. You don’t get into another car, and you call me before I get a call from somebody else. I swear. My wife nodded her head and just said yup.

          2. LE

            Meanwhile back at the ranch my wife and I were driving to dinner last night through Margate. There is some young kid with his friend on a bike. The kid and his friend looked like they had wealthy parents you could tell by the way they dressed. The street is somewhat narrow. As I drove by in my nice car with the windows down and top pulled back (is quite noisy which I love so take that electrics) I honked because the kid was literally in the middle of the street and wanted him to be careful. As we passed he yelled out ‘bitch’!. [1] I have to tell you that even though he was a little twerp kid (I’d like to use the word which begins with ‘f’ and ends with ‘t’ but I won’t) it still bothered me and I was tempted to go and drag him to his parents or scare the shit out of him.[1] In an attempt to be cool with his friend I guess. There were always kids like that when I was growing up.

          3. PhilipSugar

            Never worth what I call the Trayvon Martin deal. You escalate, they escalate and then two dumb asses lose. I know you don’t go to a bar. But I have seen people mess with somebody that they have no idea how many friends are there and how well trained they are. You walk away.

          4. LE

            that they have no idea how many friends are there and how well trained they are.That is funny because to your point that is not something that I even would think of. I mean yes it seems obvious.Have to say that honestly it is hard to get away from an emotional reaction to something with rationality.Also have to say that it’s much easier to avoid trouble if you are a little guy than a big guy. You are less of a threat to others and probably less likely to care because you know upfront you will lose and have accepted that.Women have a huge advantage here that is never discussed. Extremely rare for a woman to get hit by a man (not her significant other I mean) or even another woman. So they can be total loose canons (Walmart low lifes are the exception).

          5. PhilipSugar

            First rule just walk away.I know somebody that was messing with a 6’4″ Army Ranger. I have watched this guy stretch by putting his foot on the top of a door frame with the other on the floor. The guy called him a bad name for a female body part. He just said yup I am.No I disagree about little guy. I have seen three people throw with my brother and another small person that owned a huge silicon valley parts firm for absolutely no reason.They thought is was 3 against 2 small people. It was 42 against 3 with me the person that was the purser that funded events for the retired Philly cop’s bar. All I could do was try and get it ended, before somebody was permanently hurt.

  6. William Mougayar

    If you get into a certain routine, working a bit on the weekend can be a competitive advantage. I hate to be so behind on email that I need to catch up later.

    1. LE

      Agree 100%. This is exactly also the argument for working longer and on weekends if you have to and are able to reasonably do so. It reduces the stress level for the rest of the week which is important.Also an important concept (which I am sure you are well aware of) is ‘make hay while the sun shines’. For example for what I do (and what you do) if business is around now you work now. You don’t know what will be in 2 years or definitely in 10 years. So unless you are financially set you can’t assume what the opportunities or landscape will be in the future. Note that this isn’t the case for an attorney with an existing big book of business (and perhaps associates and partners who produce income) or even a Physician with a super secure job (that will almost certainly be there in 10 years). Or even an insurance broker with existing residuals. Business and opportunities change as anyone can observe if they have been around. It’s called ‘resting on your laurels’ and it has killed many successful businesses.Edit: Or a school teacher or college professor with a union contract and tenure if that still exists.

      1. Adam Sher

        The young bike riders in Margate/Ventor/Longport are an obstacle course.

  7. LIAD

    A rabbi who made a big impression on me in my late teens framed it this way, how do you know when you’ve arrived at a destination….You stop.That’s the only way to know you’ve arrived somewhere. The act of stopping is what gives a journey significance. It’s what denotes the achievement. It’s the payoff for the effort.Without a destination, which requires by definition stopping, there is no direction there is no arrival there is just wandering.Sabbath/weekends off/holidays etc are not downtime. They are the essence of uptime.

    1. LE

      A rabbi who made a big impression on me in my late teens framed it this way, how do you know when you’ve arrived at a destination….Growing up there was a Rabbi at the synagogue that I was bar mitzvah at that was approached on a Saturday by a congregant that had an issue they wanted to discuss. The Rabbi told the congregant something that roughly meant ‘sorry I don’t want to I deserve time off just like anyone’. The person who asked was a friend of my parents. [1] That caused quite an uproar when it got around the congregation. The congregant was really insulted. As Fred ‘friend’ said ‘“I didn’t think I was business”’Well what happened? A year or so later, maybe two, the Rabbi decided he wanted to become a lawyer. And that is what he did. Of course from what I can recall he got to keep the house that the synagogue paid for as well as continued to get paid for being ‘Rabbi Emeritus’. And everyone talked about that for sure. Obviously he didn’t ‘love’ his work or was unhappy performing anytime and all the time if needed.[1] I remember that same person also for when they said when Nasser was assassinated (edit: died of heart attack) ‘sure but maybe the person who replaces him will be worse for Israel’.

      1. Girish Mehta

        I think you are thinking of somebody else ? Nasser died of a heart attack in 1970.

        1. LE

          Sorry yes I mean ‘died’ and yes it was a heart attack. (It was about 1970..)

        2. PhilipSugar

          Well conspiracy theory people don’t think it was a “heart attack”:-)

          1. LE

            I changed that to ‘heart attack’ but my handlers are still going to be pissed with me for the slip up.This is on the topic by the way and was pretty good (not great but good) on Netflix:The Angel, directed by Ariel Vromen, is the true story of Ashraf Marwan, who was Egyptian President Nasser’s son-in-law, and special advisor and confidant to his successor Anwar Sadat, while simultaneously one of Israeli Intelligence’s most precious assets of the 20th century. https://www.youtube.com/wat

          2. JLM

            .Of course, the conventional wisdom is that he was at the very least a double agent, if not a triple threat guy.In evaluating that, one must remember that the Egyptians and the Syrians achieved tactical surprise in the 1973 war. The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal with a technique gamed at the US Command & Gen’l Staff College in the early 1970s — using floating fire pumps (bought in Germany a tidbit which the American CIA stumbled on but couldn’t process) to stream water onto the sand berms along the canal to create entries through which the Egyptian armor could get into the desert to attack.He gave the Israelis three imminent attack warnings — two were false alarms so by the third such warning, he was the “boy who cried wolf.”Many in the Mossad – taking into account that the Egyptians achieved tactical surprise – think he was with the Egyptians (and the Russians) and playing the Mossad all along.When the Egyptians made it across the Suez Canal, they deployed SAMs and hand held anti-tank weapons which knocked the Israelis out of the skies and stopped the Israeli armor.These weapons totally changed the balance of power. You had the invincible Israeli air force unable to provide close air support and you had three guys with a rocket behind a sand dune knocking out Israeli tanks. Very cost effective exchanges.Finally, the Israelis were forced to accept these losses and ran the Egyptian armor out of gas in the Negev. Mubarak was one of the Egyptian armor officers who were forced to walk back to Egypt. Some say that is why he was so peaceful toward Israel. He’d seen that movie.The Mossad is known as an organization which can infiltrate its enemies with undercover operatives, but rarely does an Arab decide to betray his country to the Israelis.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  8. LE

    Great post will add the following:a) You have already ‘made it’. I will leave that up to an individual to determine what that means because it’s different for all of us. Will point out that any young person that thinks they will magically be in a position to be able to write a blog post like Fred can and have people read and follow what they say ‘and try to be him’ later in life is kidding themselves. That is, if they think they can get to that point and also take time off and lead a normal life. Of course anything is possible and of course there is also luck (which varies by person to person) but as a general rule most people who have gotten anywhere work and have always worked a great deal. And honestly they should stop apologizing for it to ‘low capacity circuits’. Will add that the people that you read who do this type of thing (including Feld) are outliers vs. the general public. That’s a guess but as with anything we have anecdotes and we don’t have data on people who are laid back and failures.b) One person’s ‘work’ is another person’s pleasure. To me watching a football game would be ‘work’. Ditto for attending a school event or going to synagogue. Work, as I have arranged it (and worked hard to do) is not ‘work’. I don’t want to give that stupid cliche ‘and you will never work a day in your life if you love what you do’ (because obviously not all parts of what anyone does is enjoyable) but it’s probably correct mostly. Will also point out that I can’t imagine having to march in a stupid parade like a politician. However when you consider what they do my guess is they enjoy it because those people standing and waving are ‘their customers’ and they need those customers. If you are selling, doing business and not resting on your laurels you need your customers or clients (whatever you call them).c) Business to me and doing business is by and large super fun. I have gotten calls on Saturday night and given they are from what I could call ‘a big client’ I am really honored that I get those calls (in particular one is a billionaire who calls direct). Would I like it if I got a call from a ‘small fish’ customer (I have a very wide range of people who pay me money and not all are created equal)? Of course not. They are important but they are not ‘Saturday Night’ important. When I was growing up my Dad used to take calls ‘long distance!’ in the middle of the night from India and Israel. Just the way it is. You do what you have to do. As a result my mom is able to now live in a decent place in old age with a nice group of other old people and good food and a relaxing environment. So it’s good that she didn’t complain about that nor did any of my siblings. And all of that hard work helped to pay for college and high school. (She was depression era with a father who died when she was young and a real ‘single mom’ so no way she would ever reject work as a savior).d) That ‘need rest’ part varies by individual. No doubt that your schedule and pace requires you to have more rest than most of the people reading this blog (of course how would I know)? But that is you. People reading and taking cues from what you write today are probably not only younger but don’t have your intense schedule. And they have not made it either. They are trying to get into the olympics which takes constant work and loving it and obsession.If it’s important to anyone to ‘get ahead’ then they have to be both what I call a ‘high capacity circuit’ (ability to work a great deal of the time with little wear and tear) and love doing so and also importantly not have others constantly hassling them about working. I got that whining squashed early on with my first marriage. And in my second marriage it was something that both of us accepted and would never challenge ie ‘I have to work’). Without that agreement and if you have a constant battle it’s really hard to get ahead in life (part of the ‘luck’ factor for sure). My wife works and has a pretty intense schedule. That is great for me. She also doesn’t need me by my side all the time. That is great for me. My wife would never question ‘sorry can’t go with you to your parents work problem’. She knows that work (a problem not an opportunity btw) takes 100% preference. Generally an opportunity can wait at least typically.e) I always value health above all else. When I worked for a company for a small period of time I marveled at how others would kill themselves flying into a city to be able to have a 7am meeting. I was always able to navigate around that with ease. Sorry ‘can’t meet until 10am’. Now of course part of the reason was nobody and no situation was ‘big fish’. My point is that what you do can and should do varies with the exact circumstance and the gain. Ditto for eating lunch. Never ate in my car. No sandwich on my lap because ‘I have no time and have the next meeting in 10 minutes’. [1] But that is me. Not saying that it applies to all situations or to all people. But no way I am going to wreck myself and not be relaxed and have food on my lap.f) Most important is that there are no hard and fast rules and I hate that type of thing. So the idea (which works for Feld) of ‘digital sabbath’ seems artificially confining in so many ways. Works for him which is great. I’d rather instead just work with some general principles and not anxiety producing rules.[1] Will note that it’s easy for me to skip lunch as a result of the way I lead other parts of my life and eating habits (sleep, stress and so on).

    1. jason wright

      “b) One person’s ‘work’ is another person’s pleasure.” …and another person’s poison.”Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.

    2. William Mougayar

      Yup. Any young person who doesn’t work on weekends will not get that far. It can make the whole difference between getting ahead and being average.

      1. LIAD

        You can go the other way too. Someone will go further by taking care of heart and soul

        1. William Mougayar

          Please explain more?

          1. LIAD

            You’re saying by not working on weekends someone won’t be able to get ahead. I’m saying perhaps you’re right but perhaps the opposite is true. By taking the weekends to rejuvenate and centre yourself. You’ll get ahead more than cranking it 24/7

          2. William Mougayar

            In theory, I agree with you. But the reality is that other young people who believe otherwise will be working harder and getting further ahead that those who didn’t. If those who decide to rejuvenate on the weekend are able to produce more than the others, they would probably be the exception, in my opinion.

          3. jason wright

            I think it has been shown that productivity goes up when hours go down, and quality over quantity.

          4. LE

            Relates to people as a group. Not individuals. Studies also show this and that about carbs and all sorts of other (to me) diet nonsense. I don’t even know what carbs are and never pay attention to them. I manage by other factors that work for me given my lifestyle. But sure for the masses pay attention and read those books for ‘the answer’. [1][1] Once again not disputing conclusions for a group or for a direction.

          5. Jose Paul Martin

            Yes, Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill time. However, if you reduce the time so much… the quality of work reduces. This video pretty much reminds me of this… https://www.youtube.com/wat

          6. LE

            But the reality is that other young people who believe otherwise will be working harder and getting further ahead that those who didn’t.Exactly and obviously I agree with this and no surprise that we think the same way. But there is also one other factor (among many) at work as well. That is people who attempt to do what someone else can do more easily that they can. So in addition to ‘believe otherwise’ there is also ‘not the same pain or sacrifice’ perhaps ie ‘they are stronger’ and simply a different person. Phil likes hayrides I hate them they are no fun for me. (Nor is doing yard work and Phil knows that I did do it as a kid to earn money btw..)Certainly nobody would expect to be able to train like a top athlete does just by deciding and knowing that it paid train that way. The top athlete has advantages and stamina that an ordinary person doesn’t (once again also a host of other factors). Also and importantly I (and I am sure you) never read a book that said ‘work hard’ or anything close. It is just what you do.That is to my point of ‘don’t break a sweat’. That is why I laugh at everyone who thinks it’s a big sacrifice to work hard and work a great deal. To many who do it’s really not that case nor is it suffering in any way. You aren’t going to overcome that with simply a mindset either. Some people simply aren’t built that way.So there are:a) People who aren’t cut out for it ‘can’t cut the mustard’. And they know that. So they try to rationalize why they are the way they are and say (not saying this is Liad btw I know he is making a point) ‘try it my way’.b) People who are cut out for it but choose not to do so ‘to each his own’. They choose a different lifestyle.c) People who aren’t cut out for it and suffer the negative of trying to keep up with the Jones (a) (resort to drugs or addictions to cope)Etc.As the line in Dirty Harry went something like ‘a man has to know his limitations’.

          7. PhilipSugar

            Like many things. When you get a big head start it’s hard to catch up.

          8. William Mougayar

            Yup.

          9. Jose Paul Martin

            There’s a saying… just because you’re on a rocking horse, it doesn’t mean you’re moving forward. We did a study on actual hours spent in office by consultants – the results were astonishing. They billed for 8 hours, but their effective work, when we removed some stuff was around 4 hours per day. Hard Work vs. Smart Work, Working Hard vs. Hardly Working, Shortcuts vs. Smartcuts, are all ways we’re trying to define work and produce/productivity. We all think we work hard, but we don’t really. We probably get fatigued, but that has other variables to impact it.

        2. Girish Mehta

          You will go further in life by taking care of heart and soul.But if you are restricting the conversation to the world of career/business and when one is young, I think people who work harder certainly do get ahead. Working smarter is better than working harder, but when you are young and early days in the world of business…you are not smart enough to outsmart hard work. And working on the weekend is a way to get that hard work in.Later in life you might realize that getting further in work/business is not what getting further in life is about anyway.

      2. Matt Zagaja

        I am not opposed to working on weekends but just do not recommend doing it for the benefit of your day job. Unless you own equity in which case the incentives are a bit different…

    3. PhilipSugar

      It really depends on what you do and when you do it.So let’s say you are a barber. (I got my hair cut yesterday) There was a line and the owner made a comment that they let X person go today because they didn’t show up.Same for what I do. You work with retailers and say I never take a call on weekends?Now do I have to schedule meetings during weekends? Or during my lunch? I do take a one hour lunch every day.No.But if it is an emergency? Of course. I guarantee you take a call or work weekends.Hey if you are super successful you can say I don’t take a single call for a day.Or take a total sabbatical if you have people covering.But you have people covering.I love taking vacation, but does that mean no calls or emails? I’d be bored as hell.

    4. Jose Paul Martin

      Interesting read… I’ve not only been practicing a digital sabbath, but a real Sabbath. It’s certainly not easy when you’re young and you have a long road ahead. The problem as you stated is where you are in life. Some people have insane working hours, either because they’re a workaholic or by virtue of their need to provide for their family.There’s this common thread I see from my friends in the US, that you need to work less, find your chi, or whatever they’re smoking these days. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving ahead with or without them. Does this mean you should not take a day of? I think you should, think of your self as a rechargeable battery, you can’t keep on going like an everready bunny… you have to stop, review, reassess and re-adjust imho.Again, when your work blends into play and you don’t know the difference. Well, that’s a flow that few have.They may consider work as worship, but to each his own.But having lived in various countries, I’ve seen both sides… those who work really hard, and those who get by living off the work of others. Think about this for a minute… in a country, like India or China – where you have 1 billion population. If you’re not ready to work hard and compete, and put in the hours, someone is going to eat your lunch for a lesser wage than you. That’s how hyper-competitive it is out there.The other side of this, is when you start to understand the power of a currency. This measurement of “productivity” used by economists is so wrong. An equally qualified and smart person in India has to work 300 hours to buy an iPhone (maybe more now that the USD has strengthened / INR has weakened) whereas someone in US has to work only 100 hours maybe.How can you justify one person ‘working harder’ over the other in this case? It has nothing to do with hard work, it has to with the currency they’re paid in.Personally myself, I used to work till I crashed… ironically, that crash would happen on a Friday evening and I’d be in sleeping for 12-14 hours the next day! 😀 The body has an uncanny ability to shut you down and fix you… and no coffee won’t help at that time.

  9. someone

    Same as brad, midnight to midnight

  10. Pointsandfigures

    The greatest thing about the era I traded in was the ability to turn it off. Markets were not 24/7. It doesn’t mean you weren’t thinking about it, but you were away from it.

  11. Mostafa Maleki

    It sounds like you still have somewhat of a routine even on the weekends – the Sat morning personal work, bike ride or golf Sundays, etc.Have you tried mixing things up? Put differently, being spontaneous about what to do on your weekends? If you’ve tried it, curious to know how it felt vs the loose routine you follow now.

  12. Andrew Cashion

    There’s never been a period in my life in which I never worked on weekends. Last five years I worked every Saturday night and Sunday’s at 5am with the exception of the last three months more or less.One of my favorite weekday routines was taking a 27 minute nap starting around 7:30am.By 8am 4:45-7:30am didn’t exist.I have wondered recently about how I would make arrangements with friends pre-smartphone era though? Seems strange.

  13. awaldstein

    Three rules of my weekends:-Be ready for Monday morning. Now with an anchor Hong Kong client Monday’s start really early.-Push my passion projects ahead.-Do what Lianna and I like which is wander, water taxis, bike rides, movies and be aimless in the city.

  14. BillMcNeely

    I have to work 7 days a week but I do find that 2 to 4 hour breaks, some naps, allows me recharge and be ready

  15. sigmaalgebra

    For success in the economy, work both hard and smart. For smart, get some powerful advantages, e.g., “by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Working hard is like digging. Working smart is knowing how to dig faster and, especially, where to dig. The first Indiana Jones movie had it about right: The competitors had hundreds of diggers, but by working smart soon Jones saw where to dig and saw that the competitors “were digging in the wrong place”.So far in life, my main successes have been from working smart. Working hard? Yup, been there; done that; got the T-shirt. Smart’s a lot better.For success in life, understand life, especially people, and there what is important and, then, pay attention to what is important.If I’d known more about people when I was 15, then likely a few years later I would have married the second girl from the left, really sweet and nice, about the easiest young woman to love, most difficult to resist, Mother Nature ever created, the prettiest female I ever saw in person or otherwise:https://uploads.disquscdn.c…The lessons I needed were easy to learn, understand, and apply, but I was mostly not taught the lessons; much that I was taught was in conflict with the lessons and misleading and badly wrong; and it took me a while to discover the lessons.E.g., some of the simplest, strongest, easiest to learn and understand lessons are:(A) Boys and girls are profoundly different.(B) Right from the crib boys are heavily interested in things; girls are heavily interested in people; and throughout life it remains that with only occasional, usually strained, exceptions boys/men are much better with things and girls/women are much better with people: E.g., athttps://www.psychologytoday…with Why Brilliant Girls Tend to Favor Non-STEM Careers we can see in part:Do girls avoid STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields because of ongoing, widespread discrimination? Or do girls with the skill sets that would give them entrance to STEM fields prefer fields that involve working with people over fields that involve working with things?and athttp://emilkirkegaard.dk/en…withMen and Things, Women and People: A Meta-Analysis of Sex Differences in Interestswe can see in part:Results showed that men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, …and athttp://www.ascd.org/publica…in With Boys and Girls in Mind we can see in part:Something is awry in the way our culture handles the education needs of boys and girls. A smart 11-year-old boy gets low grades in school, fidgets and drifts off in class, and doesn’t do his homework. A girl in middle school only uses the computer to instant-message her friends; when it comes to mastering more essential computer skills, she defers to the boys in the class.This situation is for many people highly inconvenient — e.g., maybe for the career prospects and situations for those two sad, suffering women who had so much to say to Senator Flake as he stood silent in a Senate elevator — and, thus, highly politically incorrect.Or maybe Senator Flake was tempted to respond:For both of you, you DO matter. We ALL believe totally that you totally DO matter.E.g., commonly men will without hesitation risk their lives to protect their girlfriend, wife, or daughter — absolutely no exaggeration at all. Such a man, seeing an attack, will commonly seek to put the attacker in the hospital or the morgue. In our society, strongly women DO very much matter.For not much of an exaggeration:A teenage boy arrives to pick up his date for a school dance. The girl’s father answers the door and invites in the boy. With a big smile, the father says,”Welcome, Son. She’s about ready. She’s an angel.”Suddenly with the most serious face, he says:”If you ever make her cry, I’ll have you killed. Have a good time and get back on time.” We do NOT know that Judge Kavanaugh is telling the truth. And we do not know that Dr. Ford is telling the truth. Your claim that we believe Judge Kavanaugh is false. Instead, here is the situation:Judge Kavanaugh was accused of wrong doing. Here in the US, at the start we PRESUME that the accused is innocent. We don’t know that they are innocent; we don’t yet believe that they are innocent; but still we presume they are innocent; and otherwise in life, e.g., careers, we should also assume they are innocent.We would do this for the two of you, too: We presume you are innocent.But, given some accusations, to proceed, we look at the evidence. We want to know some or all of times, dates, places. We want some sworn statements of witnesses. We want some physical evidence, maybe a black dress with DNA analysis of some stains. We want to consider other evidence, e.g., an alibi of the accused. Then, say, if the evidence is “beyond a reasonable doubt” and if we must, then we will decide if we regard the accused as innocent or guilty.While the Senate hearing is not a trial, roughly some of the same standards apply.Actually, there could have been, maybe still could be, a trial: Dr. Ford may be able to bring a case against Judge Kavanaugh in court.If you were accused, then we would do the same for you. And, again, the same for you, if you were wronged, then we would look at the evidence.In this case, for Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford, the evidence is strongly that Judge Kavanaugh is innocent.Your claims that we are putting a sexual predator or some such on the SCOTUS for 50 years and don’t care about women is strongly contradicted by the evidence. And one of the lessons to learn about women is that Senator Flake did the right thing — look sympathetic and say nothing.(C) No way for the past 40,000 years have grade school girls been anywhere near as interested in or good with mechanical toys and tools as grade school boys.The 40,000 years? The situation obviously holds strongly for the girls from East Asia and of Western European Descent; from some DNA analysis, the most recent common ancestor is from about 40,000 years ago; while the girls from both areas are really close in this situation now, necessarily each is still closer to the most recent common ancestor; so, now we know a lot about what the situation was for most recent common ancestor. Done.And IMHO the situation stands to last for another 40,000 years. Did I mention, boys and girls are profoundly different?And (A)-(C) is really obvious stuff; much more is important.A Lesson: For the lessons of life, mostly what’s out there and being promulgated is just wildly wrong and merely politically correct propaganda from people who are confused or want to manipulate others.So far, my main successes in life, that is, beyond just making money, have been from learning and, then, knowing, what was important. The main topics to learn were about people and politics.For sleep, rest, exercise, health, yes, have to take out time and energy for those!If get hit by unpredictable forces, encounter unpredictable obstacles, then work around/through those but don’t give up.

  16. Kirsten Lambertsen

    Everyone should read this as a companion piece to Albert’s current post https://continuations.com/p…It’s interesting to me how frequently Fred, Albert and GG’s posts seem to be talking to each other 🙂

  17. JJ Donovan

    For those of us that work on the weekend would you have time to share any answers to the following?1. How many average hours are you working per day Monday-Friday?2. Any time management tips to be able to work more on the weekend? ≈I find that after working 7A-7P Monday – Friday, (Does not include the commute time) I do need Saturday to at least do laundry, but that is really time that I should be working and doing my stuff.On another note, just think the Apple managers are all working on Sunday night:https://9to5mac.com/2014/10…JJD – Back to work…Sunday, September 30, 2018 8:14PM

  18. jason wright

    Feld wrote that eighteen months ago. Is there an update?

  19. Nicholas Osgood

    Great post. One thing we’re trying to figure out under our “unlimited paid time off” policy is what is “reasonable” for a startup under 5 years? The unlimited can be a bit deceiving because over-achievers don’t use it, while others may take 4-8 work weeks off. Obviously its up to the Managers discretion, but for startups – what do you see as “reasonable” for startups that are say, post Series B, still chugging along but not in hyper growth mode yet?

    1. Adam Sher

      The research I read when I implemented unlimited PTO said that my employees would take less time off, on average, then under a defined time-off policy. I don’t recall anyone taking more than 4 weeks off. I took 4. Your employees will follow the example you and the executive team / upper management set.We had a couple of employees who were conspicuously absent. Their performance was bad and their communication was bad. Fixed or unlimited PTO wasn’t going to change that behavior. Remember that extended vacations usually cost money. It is hard to take more vacation (staycations may be cost neutral).

      1. Nicholas Osgood

        Agreed – management sets the tone. We have had some management take over 5 weeks already pre holiday time off. So really trying to re-define what is normal.

        1. Adam Sher

          That sounds high. One reason we made the switch was that I did not want to continue to accrue liability for unspent PTO. I also had to restate all of my non-exempt employees’ contracts and implement additional time tracking for them. Happy to discuss this further with you if you want to bounce some ideas/concerns off of me. I had about 45 employees at the time, in two cities. You can find me on LinkedIn.

          1. Nicholas Osgood

            Ya, we have unlimited vacay but if we switch, we want to avoid accruing liabilities for PTO on the balance sheet and paying out un-used vacay. Perhaps, we were thinking a “use it or lose it” policy.

  20. Adam Sher

    @fredwilson:disqus Is your work schedule typical among your partners? How does it compare to your analysts or associates?